00:00
Speaker 1
Foreign. 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 1
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. Welcome. Welcome to YouTube Live. Today we are talking about midlife health myths, what’s true and what is not. Now I’m guessing you’ve heard all of these before. Dairy is inflammatory. Sometimes your metabolism slows after 40. Wait till you hear this. You should skip breakfast. You can’t build muscle after menopause. But what if some of the biggest wellness advice women over 40 are hearing is actually keeping them stuck? Today we’re going to be busting the biggest midlife health myths from protein, hormones, fasting, menopause, metabolism, supplements, gut health and muscle building to what is actually true and what is complete nonsense. And trust me, there are a few answers to that are probably going to surprise you.

02:13
Speaker 1
Maybe even shock you. Okay, I’m going to grab some of the ones that we didn’t get to last time in our live, then take some live. So here we go. Buckle up. So Kim S6544 says, how do you feel about nuts and seeds? To add fiber and protein to a grains and eggs breakfast bowl. Okay, and then I also got it relates to reducing belly fat. I’m not sure what that has to do with that question, but I like to say eat protein first and follow it up with fiber. Now what you want to make sure of is that you are getting in your ideal amount of protein for you at each meal. That’s generally about 30 grams at least of animal or 40 grams of plant because you want to get two and a half to three grams of leucine.

02:58
Speaker 1
So depending on how much you are getting in. Right. So if you are eating eggs for breakfast, here’s the reality. The reality is that you are only going to get, if you eat two eggs, you’re going to get about 16 grams of protein. That is not enough. If you want to throw in some seeds, that might give you another 4 grams. If you want to do nuts and seeds, to get enough protein you’d have to eat a lot of nuts and seeds because they’re 85% fat. Depending on the seed or the nut, it’s anywhere from 50 to 80% fat. And so you get a lot of fat and a little bit of protein and some great fiber.

03:33
Speaker 1
So what I would recommend here is getting yourself and I don’t know which grains you’re doing and how protein, but maybe you get 4 grams of protein. So what I would do is an egg and egg white blend. This is one things I like to do is I’ll do like four egg whites, two eggs and then mix in maybe some nuts and seeds into the grains bowl and then that should be good for getting you some fiber and getting you some protein. All right. What are the long term side effects of GLP1s? And this is from decong8668. So I think that’s still TBD. Although you know, some of the earlier generation GLP1s. Because now there’s GLP1 GLP2s. GLP3s have been around 10 plus years, I think even longer than that.

04:19
Speaker 1
And these are the things that I think that we need to be concerned about. There’s new research coming out that we probably have overestimated the muscle breakdown piece. I really think the muscle breakdown piece is not a GLP1 issue in a poorly designed diet. Low protein, no resistance training issue. The thing I worry about with GLP1s is not, I mean if you look at, there’s some long term benefits like you get off a lot of different polypharmacy, you lower inflammation, you improve insulin sensitivity, there’s cognitive effects. What I be concerned about with a side effect is this one. When you slow down stomach emptying, you can create a hospitable situation in your gut. For small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It’s inhospitable really, but it’s because it makes it easier for you to have this bacterial overgrowth. That’s not a good thing.

05:07
Speaker 1
You know, there’s a test you can take placebo, there’s a couple different tests out there. And there are some supplements you can take that can improve transit time. But remember, one of the things GLP1s do is slow down stomach emptying. Something that you can do naturally with protein, with fiber. But in slowing down stomach emptying, it can also create that issue with sibo. So that would be my biggest concern is that one. All right, Sally Patrick says, where can I find your autoimmune diet? So when I wrote the Virgin Diet, I did not realize that it would also help with autoimmune. But if you look at a lot of the triggers for autoimmune dietarily, it’s things like gluten, corn, soy, peanuts, dairy. So I had people using the Virgin Diet to help them get their autoimmune conditions into remission.

05:56
Speaker 1
So it’s called the Virgin Diet. Available anywhere. Get it on Amazon. There you go. A couple other things I want you to think about with autoimmune is optimizing your vitamin D. So get a 25 hydroxy vitamin D test, a supplement with D3K2, that’s one. And then HRT may be a help there as well, because you’ll see autoimmune starting to kick in when women’s hormones go down. All right, Donna asks recommendations to lower my hemoglobin A1C and LDL. I’m just over the normal range and 65 years old postmenopausal. I’m going to unpack them. They’re two separate issues. So first off is hemoglobin A1C, and that is looking at your blood sugar over 30. It’s like a three month average of your blood sugar.

06:40
Speaker 1
In a perfect world, what we’d be looking at long before we ever look at fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C is we’d be looking at fasting insulin. By the time your blood sugar starts going up, your insulin has not been working well for a while. It’s been dysregulated. So the first thing that starts to happen is first when your blood sugar comes up, your insulin comes up to bring your blood sugar back down. If you keep pushing more carbs and ultra processed food and elevating your blood sugar and eating all throughout the day, you have to push more and more insulin to get that blood sugar down. Until finally your insulin can’t keep up and your blood sugar starts to rise. So the early indication of a problem is elevated fasting insulin. You want that really to between 2 and 5.

07:22
Speaker 1
And the way to fix the problem Couple different things. Number one, improve insulin sensitivity. How do you do that? Resistance train. Huge one, good sleep, vitamin D3K2. Right. Number two, better blood sugar balance, protein and fiber. Right. GLP1s can help with insulin sensitivity as well. Using a CGM to really monitor, you know, am I eating foods that are keeping my blood sugar within that tight range of 80 to 120? So you eat, your blood sugar shouldn’t come up to more than 120 and then should come back down. It should be this nice little slope. It shouldn’t be like, whoop, boop, Right. A big spike. So that’s the first part is that piece of it. The second piece of it is LDL and ldl. You don’t want to just look at this in a vacuum.

08:08
Speaker 1
What you want to look at is LDL particle size and number. So do you have big fluffy LDLs? Doesn’t matter. If you have small dense ones and a lot of them, that’s problematic. That pitcher endothelial lining can cause that plaquing. That’s problematic. You also want to look at things like ferritin, because that iron can be causing oxidized LDL particle size, ldl. And then we want to look at homocysteine, ferritin, APOB, and lp. You want to look at all of those. And ideally you would get a carotid artery scan too, to see if you’re plaquing, to see if you really have an issue here. One of the things that can happen is low estrogen can elevate your LDL and triglycerides and HDL of course, too. I would consider BHRT if you haven’t considered it, because that can make a big difference.

08:56
Speaker 1
And then also I would get a more expanded test profile to see if you’re really at risk. And I would look at working with someone like listen to my podcast with Dr. Jane Morgan, the cardiologist, because we go in depth about all of this. I did two podcasts with her. I did a Q and A regular one. And we talk a lot about this. So that’s what I would be looking at. Live from chat from Kim6s655 1s. A little bit higher fat. A problem is, if it’s healthy fat, what is the balance of unsaturated versus saturated we should be aiming for? I’m going to break it down. I’m going to make it much easier for you. First of all, you identify how much protein you need.

09:32
Speaker 1
0.7 To 1 gram per pound of target body Weight that stays fixed, you get at least 30 to 40 grams at your breakfast and dinner and you know, 100 grams or more overall based on what you need. Okay. Then you’re going to want minimumly it’s like 0.3 grams per pound of target body weight of fat and then minimally put about 100 grams of carbs. So, so figure you’re going to be somewhere around 30 to 45 grams of fat, 100 grams of carbs as your baseline. Now you can mess with having more carbs, you can mess with having more fat. You got to see where you feel best. If you’re someone who feels better with more fat, less carbs, maybe you’re feeling better eating about 90 grams of fat a day. Great. Here’s how you want to prioritize your fats.

10:15
Speaker 1
Number one, eat whole fats first. So you want to get your fats from things like cold water, fish, avocados, nuts and seeds, and even dairy fat. The only caveat here is if you’re one of the Apoe 4 4, you tend to do better with lower saturated fat. So the first thing I always do is get the majority of my fat from whole foods, egg yolks, avocado, nuts and seeds, fish, grass fed grass, finished beef, dairy fat. And there’s some pretty interesting research now on dairy fat. And when I’m talking about this though, remember, toxins are stored in the fat. So I’m going to get my fat from clean sources. So like I was just in Switzerland, I was eating full fat dairy because it was a two cows.

10:58
Speaker 1
You could literally see them like were up in the French Alps and you could see the cows having their grass. I was like, oh my gosh, it was amazing. So make sure you’re eating very clean because toxins store in fat. Then my next thing is if I’m going to add fat, I’m using fat in cooking. I’m sticking to extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, sesame oil, coconut oil or ghee. Now if you’re ApoE4 4 or even Apo4, I would probably use more olive oil in favor. And this is just something you monitor to see how your APOB is doing, like how you’re doing. And then beyond that, depending on how much fish I’m having, I supplement with Omega 3 fish oil. So that’s kind of my fat piece. It’s not that hard. I wouldn’t get really majoring in the minors of saturated versus unsaturated.

11:46
Speaker 1
I just kind of focus there and it would it makes it pretty easy to do. Comment from Chat from Leanne in Los Angeles. I was feeling off my game from a cross country move, so I decided to do a reset and do the verge of night again. I’m feeling. And on day five I’m feeling loads better. Anyone else doing the virgin diet right now? I would love to know. I know we should do it as a group at some point here. It is amazing how great you feel quickly when you do that and I really believe in the perfect world you would do it once a year and just check in and see how you feel, pulling everything out and then coming back and eating it again. Live in chat from Claudia what is worse for developing diabetes?

12:24
Speaker 1
A diet with high sugar or one with high saturated fat? Or is it the amount of calories consumed at the same time, minus protein calories that matters. So number one, it’s not just food. Poor sleep, high stress, sedentary lifestyle, ultra processed foods. If I had to pick sugar or fat, I would always say high sugar. But high sugar coupled with high saturated fat is a double whammy. So. But a high fructose high ultra processed food diet, not moving, stressed out, poor sleep, recipe for diabetes. Remember? It happens over time though. Okay, let’s see. Ask Dr. Bonnie wants to know if I eat dark chocolate. Do I eat dark chocolate? We were just in Switzerland. Turns out they eat 25 pounds of chocolate person per year. I really want to move there. Can I say it?

13:12
Speaker 1
So we brought home a lot of dark chocolate and I just had some at lunch. We got this like salted dark chocolate nibs. Oh gosh. My gosh. And I was like, how is this so much better than us chocolate? Like it is. It doesn’t even taste the same. So yeah, I eat a little dark chocolate every single day. I probably eat about a half ounce to an ounce every day. Eat a little bit kind of things I eat every day. Just in case you wanted to know. Coffee. I am obsessed with purity and sacred cups. Coffee. Shout out to Amber Salisbury. And so I do coffee and I put my collagen peptides in it. And then I use my bone broth protein powder. I use. I’m obsessed with my granola.

13:55
Speaker 1
If you’ve not tried my protein and fiber granola, oh my goodness, it is the greatest thing. So like what I really love to do, I’m able to eat dairy now. So I’ve been doing Greek style yogurt, stirring in my chocolate or vanilla protein powder, topping it with my granola. It is fabulous. And like, just a great protein and fiber hit. Okay, what are your top five recommended protein sources? So, you know, here’s the thing. What I want you to do is have a good variety of things. We have been ordering food, so we’ve been testing out both. Oh, God. What is the name of that meal delivery service? Maybe my team can plug it in here. So we’ve been testing out foods because it’s forcing us to do different things.

14:37
Speaker 1
Cause what we typically do is we have in our freezer, we have grass fed, grass finished meat, ground beef, and then I like New York steak with a bone. I have eggs, pastured eggs, and egg whites in the fridge. I have Greek style yogurt in the fridge. And then we have pastured chicken thighs. We have wild salmon and wild Chilean sea bass and wild scallops. We have pastured pork. Trying to think if we have anything else. Those are our main things. And so we rotate between those. Last night we had pastured pork. Tonight we are having pastured chicken thighs. So we rotate amongst all those things. I’m trying these different chef things to get me out of my rut a little bit because we.

15:19
Speaker 1
What we tend to do is just pick a protein every night, and then we pick a vegetable, and we rotate around some vegetables, and we’ll do a little bit of a slow, low carb. Breakfast tends to usually be protein powder shake or in yogurt, and lunch depends on what’s going on. Sometimes it will be a shake if I’m lazy, but generally it’s leftovers. And if I don’t have anything, then I do make eggs, and then I’ll do some feta cheese or something and some vegetables. Okay. I have adrenal fatigue, and I don’t know what to do about it other than a supplement I was given. What can I do? Ask New York. See, cutie pie. First of all, let’s make sure you do have adrenal fatigue, and we don’t have anything else going on.

16:00
Speaker 1
And what I really like to do is a cortisol rhythm test. So first ensure that you really do have that adrenal exhaustion. If you have that adrenal exhaustion, really what you have to figure out is why are your adrenals fatigued? What is going on that’s causing that problem? Because generally that’s a lifestyle issue. Are you under chronic stress? Have you been not sleeping well? The things that tend to help your adrenals the most are sleep and managing stress. Right. Because our adrenals should be very resilient. You should get up in the morning, look at the sunlight, get your cortisol going. You should be do some HIIT training to help your body handle stress and recover better. Same with resistance training, you know. And so why are your adrenals exhausted? What have you been doing to push the gas on them?

16:43
Speaker 1
That’s what we have to figure out, because the supplement’s not gonna fix that if you’re still doing the thing that caused the problem in the first place. Penny wants to know recommendations for wine. Penny’s my gal. Okay, so I do not drink US Wines anymore. No California wines. I got turned on to how rotten US Wines were from my buddy Todd White of Dry Farm Wines. They lab test wines all over the world to make sure that they are lower in alcohol and clean from all the different additives. One thing that we found when were in Switzerland, we brought back chocolate and we brought back wine because they don’t export their wine, and it’s all super clean. So I’m looking for wines that are lower in alcohol content, generally about, you know, 12 to 13%, and don’t have additives.

17:29
Speaker 1
So I tend to drink French and Spanish wines. Spanish wines tend to be a little higher in alcohol content, though. Spain, France, Portugal, some Italy, not that much. And, boy, now I’m kind of onto the Switzerland wines. So that’s what I tend to do. But I, you know, dry farm wine is the easiest place to get clean wines. All the events, all the parties I have, I do dry Farm wine. Live from the chat. I get a lot of mixed messages on the body’s ability to absorb collagen supplements. Can you please talk on this? In general, collagen information for someone not at all familiar. Sure. And we can put, if you go to my Ring Night wellness site, I’ve actually on my collagen page, have a lot of information on this.

18:10
Speaker 1
So I was just talking about this because collagen is our most abundant protein, right. And used to be dietarily that we did things like bone broth, and we got a lot of collagen in our diet, but we don’t have it that much anymore. And it’s really important for your hair, skin, nails, your connective tissue, your bones, overall structural integrity. And so a lot of your structural framework of your bones is collagen. And collagen declines with age, and especially when estrogen goes down, boom, collagen goes down. So that’s where all this interest in collagen has come from. Now I have a collagen product. Full disclosure, I formulated it very specifically. I used two peptides that have clinical research on them, Verisol and Fortagel. Rather than just a lot of the collagen out there is generic.

18:59
Speaker 1
And the reason I did that is Verisol has been studied for skin elasticity, for hydrogen, for overall skin appearance. And Fortigel has been studied for joint health, cartilage support, mobility, connective tissue health. And then I also added vitamin C because you have to have vitamin C to build collagen. Now you might have heard that if you take dietary collagen, your body breaks it apart and then reassembles it. But even if it does great, so what you needed the building blocks, right? Collagen peptides are basically building blocks. And vitamin C is the key nutrient that you need to take those building blocks and turn it into collagen. And one of the important things with like working out and building muscle, is that really your limiter in working out? Building muscle is not the muscle.

19:39
Speaker 1
Like when people say they tore a muscle, they didn’t, they tore the muscle and the tendon where they connect, that’s always going to be your limiter. So anything we can do to strengthen connective tissue, great. It’s going to be super duper important. Anything that I can do to for skin I’m doing. So basically I really like to do collagen pre workout. I put it in my coffee because exercise gives you this signal. And then collagen peptides are those building blocks for that connective tissue. So I really think of collagen for healthy aging because it helps like with all these tissues and it goes down with aging. So let me give you a little research on it. That’s what I was looking for. Verisol has been say for skin elasticity, hydration, wrinkle reduction, dermal collagen synthesis and strength and hair thickness.

20:24
Speaker 1
And Fortagel has been stay for joint comfort, mobility, cartilage health, connective tissue support and activity related joint discomfort in physically active individuals. There was a randomized double blind placebo controlled study published in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology that evaluated Verisol bioactive collagen peptides in women with visible signs of skin aging. After eight weeks, participants taking Virisol experienced a significant reduction in wrinkle volume compared with placebo. Researchers also observed increases in pro collagen type 1 and elastin. Those are two important components of healthy useful looking skin. So I’ll take that. Yes please. And then fortigel there was a randomized double control placebo controlled study that published in Nutrients that looked at specific bioactive collagen peptides in physically active adults experiencing activity related knee Discomfort.

21:15
Speaker 1
Participants received 5 grams of Fortigel for 12 weeks and they had statistics significant reduction in exercise related knee pain compared with the placebo. And then there was another study that I was interested in. I was just reporting this on another call about taking it pre exercise. And what they are showing is that this can be actually even more helpful that when you take it before exercise there are increased markers of collagen synthesis that taking it before exercise may support connective tissue health. All right, some of the. So yes, it gets absorbed. It’s going somewhere. The question is it staying intact or is it getting broken up and then reassembled? Honestly, I don’t know that we know for sure. And either way you’re still getting it. So this research seems to be on about 10 grams. Like I think somewhere between 10 and 20 grams.

22:09
Speaker 1
When I did my face, I did, I doubled it up. But I think probably 10 grams a day will do it. Live from chat Mary Taylor. I am on HRT cream, estriol and progestin. I heard another podcast you put estrogen on your face. Yes. So I use. This is what I do. This is how I feel best. And everyone is a snowflake. So you do you find out what works best for you. I use an estrogen patch. I’m assuming that if you’re on hrt, you’re not using estriol, you’re using estradiol because estriol is a weak cream. If you’re using estriol, it could be something for your face, but it wouldn’t be something you’d use for hormone replacement because it’s a weak estrogen for hormone replacement. Talk to your menopause specialist. I’m not a doctor.

22:52
Speaker 1
I don’t play one on youTube about estradiol because generally they’ll tend to do either a bias estradiol or estriol. But generally everyone’s moved not to that, to just using estradiol in a patch or in a cream. I use a patch. I don’t like the creams. I find it hard to control. I use a face cream now I’ve played around with estradiol and estriol face or Estriol face. That would be the application for estriol would be on your face. I use a vaginal estradiol cream twice a week per Dr. Kelly Casperson. I had her on the podcast again, repeat guest. She’s amazing. And then I use progesterone Suppositories rather than oral, because oral progesterone for some reason breaks my skin out. I get cystic acne. I’ve tested it enough times. I’m not going to test it anymore.

23:46
Speaker 1
So I just use vaginal suppositories, don’t have any issues. So that’s how I do that. And I do a testosterone shot generally once a week. So someone from Chat Melanie wants to know what my thoughts are on testosterone. So I just did another interview with Dr. Kelly Casterson on testosterone. So our testosterone starts to decline around age 30. Testosterone for women, sex drive and an overall drive are probably the biggest indicators. You know, some muscle, but you know, some muscle. Sex drive. And it was the first hormone. So the first thing that I started to replace in my 40s was thyroid. That was the first thing that started to go down. Right after that, I went on testosterone. And testosterone actually helped me keep my estrogen up, I think a little while longer.

24:31
Speaker 1
So my kind of rate was I went on thyroid, then I went on testosterone, and then I started on a little estrogen and progesterone. I subscribe to what Dr. Kelly Kasperson talks about, which is I get my testosterone up to about 100. I had it lower, more around 50. I feel better up a little higher. And I think we all have to find what works for us within a range. Live from Chat. I’ve been diagnosed with sibo. What are your recommendations? Bummer. I would recommend working with a good functional medicine practitioner who works on gut. I would recommend looking at Laura Frontiero and her program or Cynthia Thurlow. Those would be my two recommendations there to work with them. I would also look at Siobhan Sarna has written a book on SIBO that is fantastic. And she has done the SIBO Summit.

25:22
Speaker 1
She’s done a whole bunch of work on sibo. She’s a great researcher. So I would look at her information as well, because there’s a couple different ways you can go. You can do the kill it off route with pharmaceuticals, with prescriptions. You can do it with supplements. There’s some enzymes to help things move faster. So, I mean, you’ve got to look at what makes the most sense for you and the degree of SIBO that you have. So definitely work with a really good functional medicine practitioner. Any advice on protein for vegan? So I can lose fat. Like I used to call me Esquire on Instagram. Yes. So what I would do, make sure remember, to lose body fat, number one, we need to be insulin sensitive, which Resistance train, good sleep, appropriate diet, maybe a GLP one.

26:13
Speaker 1
And then for protein and getting enough protein, I would highly recommend, and I think this is actually for everybody, essential amino acids for the win. So I created an amino acid power. It’s based on the recommendations that the NAH did for sarcopenia. I would do a scoop of that with your breakfast and a scoop with dinner to augment what you’re eating to make sure you get enough protein. The challenge with vegans is that your protein sources come either higher in carb or higher in fat. So it’s hard to get enough protein without overloading calories when you’re trying to do caloric restriction to lose body fat. So that’s how you can do it. Live on chat. Are you on ht? Just wondering. Look great. Oh, I just told you all the stuff I’m on, so it goes more than that.

26:56
Speaker 1
So, yes, I’m on estradiol, yes, I’m on progesterone. I cycle progesterone. I’m not steady state. Yes, I’m on testosterone. Yes, I’m on thyroid, both nature throid and T3 and some iotarol. And then I take a bunch of supplements. A bunch. And some peptides. Okay. Does walking barefoot grounding really have health benefits or just woo? There’s two parts to this story. So walking barefoot grounding. First of all, walking barefoot has its own set of benefits. We are doing the Step into Summer Challenge. I would highly recommend you join us for that. Do it with my buddy Mark Sisson, who is the barefoot guy, the paluva guy. He’s got the barefoot. The toe shoes, they take a while to get used to. I admit it, they’re footy shoes, but what a difference. So I try to be barefoot as much as possible.

27:46
Speaker 1
When I’m working at home, I’m working out barefoot. I walk around in palaus. And then I recently had a podcast with Courtney Conley. We can link to that. That was amazing. Where she talks about your toes and how important they are now. Full disclosure, I broke my foot when I was in my early 20s and I did not let it heal correctly. That’s a long, stupid story. And so it felt fine until a couple years ago when it no longer felt fine. And when I had it x rayed and then MRI’d, it’s like ridiculous osteoarthritis. And I’m doing all sorts of foot strengthening stuff now. So on the barefoot piece, I’m doing as much work as possible on the grounding piece, not woo. So first of all, walking barefoot can help strengthen your foot muscles, help your balance and proprioception, help your mobility.

28:33
Speaker 1
But then getting out and grounding in nature actually could be good. First of all, I’m sure you heard of force bathing. So it’s just even good just to be out in nature barefoot. Even better with that grounding, it somehow is supposed to help with our body’s electrical state. So yes, I actually had grounding mats on my bed. My dog just chewed through them. So turned out it was like going to be $2,500 to replace them. So I no longer have grounding mass on my bed. Now I’m going out. I go out in the grass every single day. So I recommend trying it. But I think barefoot on its own is really important. What should I eat for strong bones? If I’m vegan, gluten free and have osteoporosis, there’s a whole bunch to bone density.

29:17
Speaker 1
First of all, I’d highly recommend listening to my interviews with Doug Lucas and Vonda Wright. I would highly recommend Dr. Vonda Wright’s book Unbreakable. And also she has a calcium or a bone supplement. So the two bone supplements I will look at are Dr. Vonda Wright’s and also Osteocal. Those two products. I don’t like to take calcium as much as I like to get it from food. Here’s the reality though. A lot of the plants, not a lot, but some of the plants that are rich in calcium are also high in oxalates and oxalates reduce the absorption of calcium. So that is one of the issues is we want to make sure that you’re getting it in your diet, but you’re also absorbing it. And so what you’ve really got to watch and google in there are high oxalate foods.

30:05
Speaker 1
Basically they’re raw greens are a lot of the high oxalate foods. But watch the high oxalate foods, these things and I’ll give you some examples of them. Spinach, Swiss chard, beet greens. And the foods that you’re probably going to do better with are maybe it has to be organic calcium set, tofu, cooked collard greens, bok choy, chia seeds. But remember, there’s more to it than that. You also want magnesium. You also need to make sure your vitamin D is optimized. So probably you’re going to need D3 with K2. You’re also going to want to do impact. So resistance train and some Impact. Now, depending on how progressed your osteoporosis is potentially, you can do some jump training, some hopping. It might be that you need to just get on a power plate. So it depends on how progressed your osteoporosis is.

30:55
Speaker 1
That’s what you’d want to check as well. And then fish oil can help with bone remodeling. So can flax. So that’s what I’d be looking at. I’d look at flaxseeds and chia, potentially a fortified soy or tofu, but make sure they’re organic or almond. But watch the oxalates. Super duper important. And I would also look at taking essential amino acids. Again, it’s always going to go back to that. And I’d use electrolytes. Does sugar hurt your immune system? Yes. Just this acute like I just hammered a bunch of sugar actually can impair your neutrophil function. Your little like warrior scavengers temporarily. But this chronic sugar, high sugar diet means systemic inflammation and metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistance. All of these things impact your immune system. How do I get 100 grams of protein a day? Do I really need that much?

31:46
Speaker 1
Depends how much you weigh in. My eat protein first challenge. I have a calculator so you can get that at jjvirgin.com forward/proteinfirst. Generally you’re going to eat 0.7 grams per pound of target body weight. So for Most of that US it’s 100 grams or more a day. I personally think, especially if you’re trying to lose fat, hold on to muscle, you’re better off eating more around a gram a day. Plus it’s easier because it’s more satiating. Now if you’re having trouble getting it, a scoop of my amino power powder before breakfast and before dinner for the win. Do you have any natural remedies for menopause symptoms like hot flashes, insomnia? Yes. My natural remedy is bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Talk to a hormone specialist, a menopause specialist and get their recommendations.

32:33
Speaker 1
But to me, like, yes, there are some different herbal products that you can try. They might work a little bit. Anna Kabeca’s got a menopause supplement. So I check that out in her mighty maca, my sleep candy and my magnesium body comb. For insomnia, you could try a chili pad for hot flashes in bed. But honestly, hormone replacement therapy, there’s this amazing thing. It’s from Zona Health that lowers your blood pressure and it is a little grip strengther. So look up Zona Health. And this has been clinically shown like you do it a couple times a day. It will keep your blood sugar, it will lower your blood sugar. So check that thing out. Obviously regular exercise, losing some body fat, magnesium, There’s a great blood pressure supplement. I gotta find the name of it from Designs for Health that I like.

33:21
Speaker 1
I think it might be called HTN Supreme. All those things can help. And check out this Zona Health little piece of equipment. Okay. How much protein should a woman over 40 eat daily? As we age, we need more protein, not less, but we also need to digest it well. So you probably should try protein digestive enzymes as well. Has to do with your weight. So what’s your ideal weight? Do 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. Best supplements for women in perimenopause. So first thing I would say is, oh, you know who else has got is coming out with a great perimenopause supplement. I’m not sure if it’s quite here yet. Qualia has a perimenopause supplement coming out. You know how much I love Qualia and they researched a heck out of things. So that’s another one you can try.

34:07
Speaker 1
Here are my foundational supplements. D3K2 magnesium fish oil, collagen, creatine. Those would be my foundational ones. Estrogen’s going down, collagen’s going down. Creatine is going to help your energy and your brain. And then D3 magnesium fish oil. These are just foundational. So those would be my foundational ones. And then this is going to make you feel a lot better. Qualia. NAD plus because NAD is plummeting. Meios yoked to help you with muscle protein synthesis. Timelines might appear because your mitochondria functions going down with aging. This helps keep it up. And then Qualia senolytics because it’s going to help get rid of those zombie cells that were accumulating. Those are all some of the things that I do. Can I still build muscle after 50? And how fit grandma? I’m still trying to figure out how you get these grandkids that people speak of.

35:01
Speaker 1
Like no one’s complying in my household anyhow. Yes, you can build muscle after 50, 60, 70, 80. In fact they found that people at 60 and 80 built muscle about the same. So yes, you can make sure that you have the building blocks that you need. Where I would really focus supplementally would be creatine. That’s my chiotine product. Aminos and meios yolked. That’s the first part. Second part that’s about 25%. 75% Is the work you got to do the reps and to build muscle. I have a two by two workout. We will link to this. This is a foundational starting workout. Two days a week, hit each body part two days a week, two exercises per body part, two sets for each exercise. Simple ethypes.

35:48
Speaker 1
So two pushing exercises, two pulling exercises, two hip and thigh exercises twice a week and have a little simple workout you can do at home. So and again. And then you continually progressively overload and that will help you continually to adapt and get stronger and build muscle. Is it true that dairy causes inflammation? Should I avoid it? Ask plant powered 40A. It depends. It might cause inflammation for you and it may not. And also you gotta consider the type of dairy. So for years I could not eat dairy. I would get gassy, bloated, inflamed. I healed my gut. I also am very careful about the dairy I eat and I only eat fermented dairy and now I can totally tolerate it. So it’s just figuring out if it works for you or not. That’s why I wrote the virgin diet.

36:33
Speaker 1
To figure out which foods work for you and which foods don’t. And if you are having reactions to foods, quite often it’s because your gut is leaky due to stress, due to ultra processed foods, due to gluten. And when you heal that everything gets back to normal and you’re able to cycle in these foods you could also. So either follow the virgin diet or you could do a food sensitivity test, an IgG4 to see if you’re reacting to it. Now you could be reacting to the casein or you could be reacting to the lactose. And that’s what you have to find out is which one is it. Quite often if you’re lactose intolerant, you can do like, you know, things that have had the lactose removed or take lactose lactase enzymes and be fine.

37:16
Speaker 1
Casein’s the one that tends to be one that you get a food intolerance to. But if you’re reacting to them, yeah, we’ll create some inflammation. Live from chat My functional doctor put me on estriol cream instead to put on my abdomen inner thighs. Now should I four, eight. I should be on estradiol. Well, what you’ve gotta find out and I’m not a doctor and I’m never gonna overrule one because they’re the ones that went through the training. What you wanna find out is how is it working for you generally, there’s estradiol, there’s estriol, there’s estrone is the one you don’t want, estradiol is the active one and estriol is the weak estrogen. So generally estriol isn’t enough to really get you where you need to be.

37:57
Speaker 1
And that’s what you’d be able to see on a lab test where they do estradiol on a blood test to see if you’re getting to where you need to be, level wise. And also how do you feel? So you’re taking estradiol for your bones, for your brain, for your heart, and also to help reduce inflammation. Right. So how do you feel? Is it working? If it’s working and your levels are where you want them to be and you feel good and your heart looks good, your LDL’s good, you know, your blood pressure’s good, your brain functions, everything, maybe this is where you need to be. If you don’t feel good, then it might be a conversation. Say, hey, I’m wondering if maybe an estradiol cream would better for me. That would be what I would ask.

38:40
Speaker 1
That’s just the information you may also want to get how to Menopause by Tamsen Fadal, because she goes through all of this and gives you that information. So then you can come armed and have a conversation to explore what’s the best thing for you with your doctor. And just make sure that the doctor you’re working with has been trained in menopause. So have they taken a hormone, you know, any kind of a hormone course, certification, there’s bioidentical, there’s the BHRT Academy as one look, one great training course. There’s also the Menopause Society. There’s also the A4M has a great hormone training course. So just, you know, see where your doctor’s gotten their education to know what they’re doing and then see how you feel. Because ultimately that’s the most important thing and that your levels are where they should be.

39:33
Speaker 1
What’s your opinion on intermittent fasting for women over 40? I this whole. So first of all, we got to really define this because it’s all over the place. So remember when we would eat in about a 10 to 12 hour window every day? That used to be what normal eating was. That’s what I think we all need to get back to. And I don’t think we need to call that a diet. I think we need to call that normal eating. I think that for the majority of us, we should be eating between a 9 to 12 hour window. Turns out Dr. Sachin Panda from Circadian Code has now done a lot of research on this and found that we eat about 15 hours a day based when we start eating when we wake up and we stop eating when we pass out.

40:09
Speaker 1
This is ridiculous. So what you want to think of is eating about an hour or two after you wake up in the morning. I think the sweet spot’s probably about 90 minutes. And stopping eating two to four hours before bed. If you do this and you’re getting good sleep, that will take you to a 10 to 12 hour window. Really like probably a 9 to 10 hour window. Which I think probably is great. It depends on why you’re doing intermittent fasting. Most people are doing this for weight loss and the research is completely un. Doesn’t show that there’s any additional weight loss because of time restriction. That really it’s because it’s restricting your calories. I think we’re better off eating during getting our light. Right. Per Dr. Deanna Minick. I have a great podcast episode with her.

40:51
Speaker 1
And eating the majority of our calories when it’s light out. Unless we live in Alaska or Iceland. So you know, eat your bigger meals, breakfast and lunch, lighter meal, dinner. Have regular meals. Don’t snack all day long and don’t eat after dinner. Right. Wait a little bit before. After you wake up in the morning. Get your time for your body to get back online. Your pancreas to wake up before you eat. And don’t eat after dinner. Close the kitchen. I don’t really like breakfast skipping. I find most people do better when they eat breakfast. The research is pretty clear on that. But there’s always the snowflake that doesn’t do well with that. So again, you gotta figure out what works best for you too. Should I be taking hormone replacement in menopause or try natural methods? I think hormone replacement is natural.

41:34
Speaker 1
You know what I see is people doing all sorts of other stuff when they could have just solved the problem by taking bioidentical hormone replacement. They’re trying all these herbs and all these other stuff to be natural. Here’s what I think is best. Do all the lifestyle stuff. Eat well. Stress, resilience, exercise, good sleep, great relationships have a purpose. Supplement. Get all your core foundational nutritional supplements in. Then see what you need in terms of your bioidentical hormones to get you where you need to be. You can spend a whole lot of time trying to do this all with supplements to try to replace the hormone. When you’ve just replaced the hormone, you feel great. So I personally think, and this is how I do it, just go to the source, like use the bioidentical. To me, that is natural.

42:26
Speaker 1
So I’m getting my body to where, you know, naturally would have been. What’s your take on the keto diet for women? Is it safe long term? Well, it depends why you’re doing it, says low carb Lisa. Safe or best or what? You know, diets are tools. So it depends on your goals, what you’re using it for. If you’re someone who’s doing it because you’re for issues with cancer or for brain injury or for seizures, this might be what you need to be on long term. If it’s for something like weight loss, I don’t think it’s the best thing. I think this is one that can be used short term therapeutically for some reasons. If I was looking at, for other things like what I just listed, that’s different.

43:03
Speaker 1
But for health, I personally think you’re better off doing more of a, you know, metabolically flexible diet. When you do a keto diet, it tends to make you more metabolically inflexible where your body has trouble using carbs for fuel. Live from chat. Let’s see. Melanie MacKenzie, do you recommend fasting before a weightlifting session? There’s mixed advice. Oh boy, isn’t there? Oh my gosh, this is. This mixed advice has been going on for four years. All right, 40 years of being in this field. There has been the debate between fasted and non fasted. You know, what’s the easiest thing to think about? So first of all, why would you do a fasted workout? Two reasons, couple reasons. Number one, you do a fasted workout to burn more fat during the workout.

43:42
Speaker 1
If you’re doing a high intensity session, either resistance training or high intensity interval training, your primary fuel source is not fat, it’s carbs, right? The best time for you to burn fat is when you are sitting on your butt. That’s when you burn the most fat. The only way you’re burning body fat though is if you’re in caloric deficit. Otherwise you might burn fat during a workout. But if you have more calories than you need, you’re not going to burn off your stored body fat. So if you’re doing a fasted workout to burn more fat, you’re really trying to lose more fat and that comes down to caloric restriction and being in a little bit of a deficit.

44:20
Speaker 1
If you’re doing it because you want to create a bigger stem cell production post workout that’s a little bit different thought process or create more autophagy. Here’s my take. Our biggest goal with a workout is to be able to work out hard, as hard as possible, and recover well. If you find that you eat right before you work out and you can’t work out hard, don’t do that. If you find that you haven’t eaten and you’re fasted and you can’t train hard, don’t do that. For me, I find that I do best if I’ve eaten about an hour or so before the workout. Now if I’m traveling and I have to get up and go work out, and that’s my only time to work out, I know that if I go eat a big thing before that, I won’t work out well.

45:03
Speaker 1
So what do If I’m traveling? I do collagen and coffee. And then I put my chiatine, my. My amino power powder and my electrolytes in a big jug and I take that with me. And so that’s how I can do a workout. It’s pseudo fasting. Because I did some collagen and aminos, it allows me I can work out and have enough oomph. So see how you feel. If you can train hard, fasted, and you feel better that way, great. If you don’t feel great that way, don’t. Okay, that’s my simple, easy peasy. I have the virgin diet from 2012. Do I need a newer, updated edition? Sadly, the newer updated division edition is in my files and I haven’t published it yet. Here’s the funny story. So I wrote The Virgin Diet 2.0.

45:50
Speaker 1
I have it and I was gonna publish it, but then I got this download that I wanted to publish, the Metabolism Fix. I literally, this book just downloaded itself to me. I was like, this is the book I wanna do. So I have the Virgin Diet 2.0. Once the metabolism fix gets birthed here December 29 this year, then I will likely publish Virgin Diet 2.0. But for now, you’ve got the most updated version. Live from chat. Sherry, I’m post menopause by eight years. Is it too late for me to get on HRT? Listen to my podcast with Dr. Felice Gersh. I’ve actually done a couple with her. This is her specialty. No, it is not. You just want to work with someone who knows how to do this. So very exciting. Glad you asked that one.

46:33
Speaker 1
All right, well, that was a lot that was fun. Here’s a big takeaway. Like midlife. It doesn’t have to be confusing, right? Most women are overwhelmed because they’re getting all this conflicting advice. Should I train fast or should I not? HRT supplements, natural, blah. But reality. Okay, here’s the reality basics first, right? Do the fundamentals first. Do your resistance training, get in your non exercise movement all throughout the day, do some HIIT training, eat your protein first, get your sleep going, stabilize your blood sugar, do some stuff for stress, take care of your gut and do all that stuff before you ever worry about a hack. Because you probably won’t even need the hacks when you do all that stuff. All right, thank you for hanging out. I love, I love this time we have together.

47:16
Speaker 1
And if this life helped clear up some confusion, subscribe to my channel Pretty please and share it with someone who could use it too. 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. Here’s how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review and third, text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-565-2627. When you do, I’ll reply you 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.

48:18
Speaker 1
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. 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 or on the show is solely at your own risk.

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