JJ Virgin
Appearances
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Yes. And by the way, it's different and the most important, as we know. And that brings up the very first topic of you've got to know what you're looking at, because how would you know if you lost fat or weight unless you were actually looking? Now, this can be as simple because most of the time when people want to lose fat, they want to lose the fat around their waist.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
They want to lose that visceral adipose tissue, right? So just simply having a tape measure. So once a week you do your waist and hips. So you have a waist to hip and a call waist to height measurement. And there is actually a Bluetooth tape measure by Renpho, $30 on Amazon. Greatest thing ever. It reads right into your phone. So you just do this every week.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
That way you know if things are going in the right direction. So I say that first because what we measure and monitor, we can improve.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
I don't know how you do this without knowing that. Like, the single most important thing... In a perfect world, we would not have scales. We would only have body composition. Because the scale has done so much emotional damage to people over the years. Now... I am 5'11", 6 feet tall, and I've been lifting weights since I was 16. And I remember going in and wanting to become a model, right?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And them telling me I needed to lose, gosh, I'm trying to think of what it was. It was either, it was like 20 pounds at least. And I look about like what I look right now then, right? I was a little, not as muscular, but basically I was about the same. I can't lose 20 pounds, right? It's not physically possible. I'd have to lose muscle in order to do it. And it messed me up completely.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And I know I'm not like... We have to know what our weight is made up of. And if we did that, if we used a scale as a biometric tool rather than as a mean friend, right? And we really had all the information, it would shift so much. And then you'd also be able to see what's your best body composition for you. I've always been a super muscular person. I'm an adopted gal.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
When I met my birth mom, she had the same body type. That is our body type. I always wanted to be the curvy one. I'm not the curvy one. I could try as hard as I wanted. If I gain weight, I just get wider. I don't get curvy. Doesn't happen. So we all have to find that best body type for us.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And then monitor with body composition to make sure that we are holding on to our muscle to, as we know, like bone density is a lagging indicator of poor muscle mass, that we have quality muscle. Because it's not just about having muscle. You don't want fat infiltrated muscle. You don't want to be a ribeye. You want to be a fillet. And that our body fat is not dangerous.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
There's a huge difference between having body fat on your thighs and hips and having body fat around your viscera, right? So we want to make sure that we have body fat in the right places. So we can't tell that with a scale. And I can't tell you how many people DM me on Instagram saying, well, this isn't working. I go, but you... you know, tell me what your body composition is.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
They go, we haven't tested. I go, then I don't, how do you know? You don't know. You have no idea by just stepping on the scale what's happening here. You can't see under the hood. So we have to know our starting points. I mean, same with food. If you're going to be making sure that you're getting the right amount of protein and you have to weigh it, how would you know?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Even dieticians tend to underestimate what they eat by 25%. If they're not doing it, How does the average person have any idea of eyeballing how much food that they're eating, right? So in every one of these things doesn't mean you have to do it forever. Although I think we should be managing body composition forever. We should do that. That should be something that's just part of your routine.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And the research bears that out that those people maintain their weight better.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
in terms of measuring your body composition what's available to us in the tools that are out there for first us to get a baseline and then track our progress along the way so the very best is cost prohibitive is would be an mri so the best i think for what we have is dexa and i mean those are so easy to get now and even if you just did it once a year
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Think about like this used to be something you only did for bone mineral density and you didn't do it until you were in your late 50s, early 60s to show that you had osteoporosis. So it's like let's go see that the eggs are cracked. It's so ridiculous. You can't uncrack them.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
So this is something that we should be doing in teens when we can actually start to make a demonstrable difference in bone mineral density. So if we started doing this, let's say someone did this in their teens and it was just part of the annual physical, like they did that, they did a VO2 max and some push-up tests, imagine how amazing this would be.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And then ideally, once you hit 40 plus, maybe every six months, but then what you can do is correlate it. So at home, you could get a bioimpedance scale. So DEXA is going to be the best thing that you could do. Typically, you have to go to like a clinic or a doctor's office. There's a lot of centers. Not expensive. They're now under $100. A lot of doctors now have something called an in-body scan.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And an in-body is bioimpedance, which is based on total body water. And it sends a wave up your body and tests the resistance to it. And the resistance to it is how much body fat. It predicts body fat and predicts it in specific areas. So it's predictive.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
based on total body water, which means that if your total body water is lower that day, you're dehydrated, you will look like you are fatter, right? You've got more body fat. If you're super hydrated, you'll look like you have less body fat, but your weight will go up. So this is where this is a little bit challenging because we fluctuate, right?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And this is why what I like to do is have someone have a bioimpedance scale at home They do their DEXA, they come home, they check where they are at home for over a week, every single day, they get that average and they can correlate it. I know that my DEXA reads me lower than my at home scale by a couple percentage points, right?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
But I can use my at home scale just to make sure that I'm staying where I wanna be. And what I think we should do is just have a Bluetooth. You don't even have to look at it if this makes you nuts.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
But you just take the average over a week because you cannot look at your weight every day and make any kind of intelligent decision because weight fluctuates a couple, you know, can go up a couple pounds, down a couple pounds based on what you ate, right? Or if you traveled. So we don't look at the daily to make a decision or beat ourselves up.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
We look at the average over a week and then once a week do measurements as well, do that waist and hip to look at it as well. But what we're looking for is am I losing body fat and specifically body fat around my waist? Am I able to hold on to or build muscle? Those are the things we've got to look at and make the decisions based on.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Right. And I think with this tracking, I'm really talking about food tracking, although I really think we should be tracking food, sleep, stress, movement, and body composition. That's a lot. Now, here's the thing. Don't have to track those all forever. However, as you're learning about your body, these things are fantastic. So step one.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Now, when we talk about tracking food, this doesn't mean you have to track your food forever. But I think as you're starting, you need to track your food for at least a month. And what I like to do is you've got to get a food scale. They're $10. So this isn't something that's hard to do. It's even more important than the measuring. You've got to weigh. So for one month, you start out.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And the first thing I have people do is just... get their protein optimized, eat protein first, and track and focus on that. We haven't changed anything else. All we're focusing on is tracking what you're eating and making sure you're getting the right amount of protein.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Then I like to upgrade the plate and start to make sure you're getting in five or more servings of non-starchy vegetables, a little bit of healthy fruit, and then we'll start to look at fat. And if someone's looking, they go, okay, I want to actually drop some body fat and either recomp, lose body fat, add muscle, or also lose some overall weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Then we'll start to look at what we need to do to shift calories. But at least at that point, we've been tracking and we know how much you're averagely eating a day. Like I know what my average calories are to maintain my weight. Right? Because I've been doing it for so long. I know just where I need to hit what feels good.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And some days I eat a little more, some days I eat a little less, it's fine. So that's the first place. And honestly, I hear so often people telling me I'm stuck, nothing's happening. And then they'll do that and go, Oh, oops. I thought I was eating a lot more protein than I was. I didn't realize how many carbs I was eating.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
I mean, I think last time I told you the story of my husband who was 25% body fat and he was eating like half a bag of Siete chips every night and a bunch of hummus. And I was like, why are we eating before we're eating? Like this was pre-dinner, didn't make any sense. But that was great feedback for him. And then, of course, the next thing is to make sure you're tracking that body composition.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
I think it's important. And the research is pretty clear that people who track their weight are better at maintaining their weight. I just want to make sure you're tracking your body composition because we don't want to maintain your weight. If you weigh the same at 50 that you did at 30, but you aren't actively doing resistance training, it's not the same weight. Hmm.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
You might be a size or two bigger at the same weight. That was my husband was, you know, his waist size was two inches bigger, same weight, totally different body composition. Because if we are not actively supporting and building our muscle mass as we age, we will lose it, as we know. And then the other part is tracking that sleep pattern.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And, man, if you – I just read a study where they looked at short sleepers, four and a half hours. They took people down to four and a half hours of sleep versus eight and a half hours of sleep and, you know, basically stopped their weight loss. Like couldn't lose weight, couldn't build muscle.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
You've got to – you basically really put blocks on muscle protein synthesis when you're not sleeping well. So sleep is critical and, of course, managing stress. Now, I don't start with all of this at once. You can't. You can't. You wouldn't do anything. So when you really look at what you need to do, I think you've got to do a body composition to start with so you really know your starting point.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
But then pick the thing. Maybe the first thing for you is you go, you know, I've been sitting all the time. Your first thing is activity. Start there. Focus on one thing. Nail it. We had that discussion last time where I said it took me six months to to get meditation under my belt. Six months, I didn't focus on anything else. I just worked on that. Right now, I had been working on doing steps.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Now that the steps are solidly being, you know, 10, 12,000 a day, I'm working on really kicking up my HIIT training. So I don't focus on improving multiple things at once because then I don't do anything. You focus. One thing.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Well, you'll get even better, because they probably did a foot scan. to see if she had osteoporosis or osteopenia, but like full body, Dexa's gonna show it. It's just amazing to me that a ninja warrior would have... Well, this is before.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Which is the opposite actually of being healthy when you think about it.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Which you can do, and that's a really, it's really fantastic, and that's why you've got to catch it. Yes. But I'm amazed she caught it that, like, she catches it in her 60s and was able to do it. It's so huge.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And so try to catch it early. Yeah, all those years of not having the energy of not feeling like you could do those things. And the key takeaway, what you talked about there was she just started and built. And I think that's one of the challenges I see that people do as they age is they'll go, okay, I'm going to jump into this. Nope. That's why I say, let's change your fork.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Then let's get you moving. Then let's add some intensity to the movement. Now let's start some body movement. Like let's just build and build and build. And you'll be blown away where you are in a year, but don't go like crazy rushing into some CrossFit class.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
For the person that I'm working with right now that has 200 pounds to lose, used to be an athlete, a major athlete. And so what we've done is just bring them back there. I go, we have the picture. We have them mentally there. And that's part of it, too, is like future pacing yourself to go, what are the things that I want to be able to do?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Because I think for so many of us, and I did this too, Drew. I'm kind of blown away when I start to think about it. I'd had all these goals of what I wanted to be able to do at 50, and I didn't reset. I didn't think, okay, now what I want to be able to do at 60, at 70, at 80. And I just went on autopilot and I was autopiloting everything. And you're like, oh, this is good for me.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
You know, if you look around at everybody else, you're like, oh, I'm doing fine. Who wants to do fine? Like, don't you want to be the best version of yourself at every age? So you can't look around at what society is saying because then you're going to be average and there's no reason to be average.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
What they're showing us about aging now, like there's, to me, two totally different schools of thought. And where I'm most concerned is that woman who's always tried to control her weight with diet because what the research shows is those people tend to be toffee, thin outside, fat inside. Right?
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And that they will tend to have poor muscle mass, they'll have sarcopenic obesity, so they don't have enough muscle. And they're so used to controlling by just doing more cardio and eating less, they're just, you're devastating your metabolism, devastating it. However, you can turn that all around. by starting to move, add the intensity, add the body, add all the resistance training and change it.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And what's fun is rather than focusing on the scale, you're focusing on, I used to be able to do one pull-up, now I can do six. I used to be able to do 10 air squats, now I'm doing air squats with weights. Now I'm jumping at the end of my squat. So the feedback you're getting is really, what am I able to do? which is the whole point of this anyway. It's not a number on a scale.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Why I worry about focus on body composition is I know that if I'm improving muscle and losing fat, it's meaning that I can do more everywhere. And that's the point.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
You know, being a little old lady. It's like, I'm never going to be a little old lady. Actually, I've never been little in my life, so the chance I'm going to be a little old lady is slim. But I think it is interesting because we're focused so much on muscle, and that's important.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
But when you really look at what happens as we age, and again, I'm really unpacking right now how much this is aging and how much of this is the habits that we get into as we age. And I'm starting to think it's a lot more of our behaviors now. than actual physiological aging. And so we lose muscle, but that isn't really what's scary here.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And as you start to unpack it with muscle, we have two different types of skeletal muscle. We have slow twitch, and those are all the things like right now we're sitting up, our slow twitch muscle fibers are keeping us upright. If we're walking, if we're standing, those are all our slow twitch muscle fibers.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
fast twitch muscle fibers and they can they can get bigger but the ones that really tend to do more of the hypertrophy are the fast twitch muscle fibers. So as I started to look at this I went it must be that we're losing more fast twitch as we age which is clear.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
As we age while we're losing muscle what we're really losing is two to three times more strength but what the biggest thing we're losing is power. So muscle hypertrophy is your muscle size and you want to think of that but you also want to think of quality. Like having a big muscle doesn't necessarily mean you're strong.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
A lot of those guys over there at Gold's Gym weren't that strong, they just knew how to build muscle. Strength is how much you can move something one time and it turns out to build strength it's a little different than how you actually build muscle. There's crossover but they're not the same.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Power is how fast you can do something and I think when we think of power we also have to think of agility because As we age, it's that ability to catch ourselves, you know, move quickly, run up the stairs. That's what we lose. But again, we don't have to.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
But I think we start to look at it and you look at the, you know, adult exercise classes and they are standing there with the chair and doing chair exercises. And I think, you know, that's not going to help us in life, sitting, doing our exercises in a chair, because in life we have to get out of the chair. And so, yes, your knees might hurt, your back might hurt.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
That's not the reason why you shouldn't do something. That's actually the reason why you should. I blew out my knee at 17, and they were like, you're gonna have to have a knee replacement. And... But you want to put it off as long as possible because these things only last like 20 years. And so I just strengthened everything around it.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And I thought, all right, all the things they tell you couldn't do with a blown out knee squats and lunges. I did all of it. And I put off a knee replacement for like till I was 52. And I remember when I walked in, they go, we don't know how you're walking in here. Wow. I go, I've just kept everything super duper strong.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Again, think of your reason why not is probably your reason why that we have to train to get better at life. And in life, we're going to have to get out of the way of something fast. We're going to have to pick something up off the floor, catch something, grab something.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And so train for that in a controlled environment so that when you get out of that controlled environment out into the wild, you don't get hurt.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Right. I mean, it's time to be the matriarchs here. This came out of me starting to talk more about, okay, build muscle. I have been focused on muscle building since my early 20s as I started to work with clients and everything was focused on cardio back then. This was in the 80s. Everything was vegetarian, vegan, and cardio. Lots and lots of cardio. And what I realized was it didn't work.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
My clients were 45 plus and it wasn't working. And I went, well, they're not going to pay me to get worse, I'm pretty sure. And I discovered resistance training and I was taking people to Gold's Gym and I saw people in their 60s and 70s that were amazing. I went, this is it. This is how you change everything. If you have more muscle, you change your metabolism.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
If you're doing cardio, you have to keep doing it all the time. It's like you're making money and spending, living on paycheck to paycheck versus having a great bank account and you're just living off the interest. having the great bank account is having a lot of muscle. Living paycheck to paycheck is just doing cardio. So it's been really clear for a long time that this is the way to go.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And I have been fighting this silliness for now 40 years. And I cannot believe it's still out there that when you talk about muscle, the biggest thing I hear is I don't want to get big. And I'll tell you, I mean, for years I've been saying, hey, you know, do you know what it takes for a woman to put on one to two pounds of muscle a month? It is a fight. Even a man.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Right. So you look at it and go, you know, lose up to 1% of your body weight, body fat, body weight, really, a week, and putting on one to two pounds of muscle a month. That's like Herculean. And people are afraid they're going to get too big. And the only time I've had a client get big is when they quit and decide to sit on the couch and eat. That's when you'll get big.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
Muscles, metabolic spanks, it holds everything in tighter, boosts your metabolism. It's not going to make you bigger. And by the way, if you did say, oh my gosh, I'm getting bigger, you could stop. That would be it. But they'll say, I want your arms. I go, do you know what I do? Like, this is a lot of muscle. This is not toning. Like this idea of toning.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
I'm just going to do 100 repetitions with a pink dumbbell. It's just silliness. But I realized hearing this over and over, I don't want to get big. I thought, you know what? Get big. What if it's time for you to get big, show up bigger in every part of your life? I remember early on working with a client and she was getting so strong and so powerful and her husband convinced her she had to quit.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
because it was threatening him. Wow. So you know how the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. I see working out transferring to every part of your life. When you go to the gym and you work out, what you're doing is you're doing things that are hard and you're showing your body, see, I can do things that are hard and I can get stronger.
Dhru Purohit Show
Don't Let The Scale Run Your Life: The Power of Focusing on Body Composition
And then that transfers into every other part of your life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And so that other stuff is causing some of that extracellular fluid retention, some of the GI issues. And that so he went to solve the problem and created an HCL version that all of it gets into the bloodstream. So you need a seventh of the dose and you don't get those side effects that are, you know, frustrating women. So I wouldn't have done this except I kept hearing from women and hearing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I was like, all right. So that's what I created was a creatine HCL version. And what you'll hear out there is, well, monohydrate's the one you should take. It's the most studied and all the rest are marketing hypes and they're just more expensive. Except the reality is you need a smidge compared to the monohydrate. So BS. And I had all the research studies to show this uptake and it's significant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So it's pretty interesting. So that's what we just launched because I want women to take it and I know how crazy we get with weight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah, they're on the rebounder.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Do you remember the rebounder? So when I was at UCLA, I still remember this in the sorority house because somewhere the idea was like you could burn 100 calories with 10 minutes of rebounding. So literally people were like pigging out and jumping on the rebounder. Totally. I mean, our body is not a bank account. I mean, come on.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You don't have to you don't have to believe it, but you'll you know, the proof is it's just it's just science, you know, and here's the big challenge is unless you're tracking your body composition, you wouldn't know anyway. And this is why we have to move off of weight and we have to go to what that weight's made up of.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Because, you know, my husband, case in point, weighs the same as he's always weighed. And he's always been athletic. He's a volleyball player. He was a baseball player. And so a couple of years ago, we go get our DEXA scans because I'm like, I'm getting in the best shape of my life for 60. So I trot him on in there. He's always like, we'll go along with whatever I come up with.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And he was a skinny fat. He was 25% body fat, which is high for a man, you know? And he was a skinny fat. I was like way lower than him. And I was like, wow. At first I was like, the machine must be wrong, except it can't be wrong. It can't be that wrong.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
right yeah so we completely shifted his programming he he'd been resistant to going on testosterone he had lower t gets on testosterone therapy but also starts finally tracking his protein and getting the protein and he needed starts finally doing his creatine like he does all the things that i'd been like yakking about to do he does them all starts lifting heavier
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, thank you very much. I took a personality test, and I am a simplifier. Really? Oh, which one? Which one did you take? I forget which one this one was. Like, usually all the ones all say the same thing, but this was a totally different test, and it gave four different ways people behave in business, and I'm a simplifier. And I go, that's absolutely true.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And he goes, he drops 27 pounds of fat and puts on 24 pounds of muscle. Now, three pound change. Looks like an entirely different body. I mean, like, this is like, he looks like a high school, you know, volleyball player body now. Wow. It's a three pound change. Three pounds. He went from 25% body fat to 10% body fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
He was never doing, he does volleyball. He'll do that for HIIT training. He was never doing, like when I met him, He was drinking smoothies with like juice and running. So we stopped that quickly. But, you know, he was not doing heavy, heavy weights and he wasn't eating enough protein and he wasn't consistent with things like creatine until he got the DEXA.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And that's why these things are so important. Because when you see it in real life, like you can't go, oh, you know, because he looked fine. You would never have thought anything of it. But the difference now is insane. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You may get a little bit of fluid into your muscles if you're lucky. That's what you want to have happen. You might get a little bit of it. If anything, it would be a half pound to a pound that would normalize. But you want that. Like if you could get that, you should celebrate it. You didn't get that. I wish I had because that's good.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Remember, when you're doing bioimpedance scales at home to check your body composition, it looks at total body water because total body water is how we look at fat-free mass. More muscle, more water in the muscle, right? So we look at that number. You want more of that. So you might get a teensy bit of it, but that's the whole reason I switched to HCL is you don't have to take the higher doses.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
The dosing is somewhere between 750 milligrams to 1.5 grams. I mean, it's tiny doses, so you don't have to take a lot. And by the way, the other cool thing with creatine, I've been like last summer, did so much international travel, jump in time zones. And I read about it for sleep deprivation. It's the best jet lag formula there ever has been. It's amazing. Really? Oh my gosh.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Like solved my problems. So does it help you fall asleep or is it just that? No, it gives you that energy. So what I do is like the minute I land, I take some and then I'll take it like two more doses throughout the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Your muscles will preferentially preferentially use it and you need enough to get into your brain, too. So I pop a little bit more when I'm when I'm traveling to make sure I have it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Like some of these neurodegenerative studies, now the company that has the patent on this HCL, I turned them on to some big top, if I said their names, you would know them, brain researchers who are using it now in their brain studies because, you know, they don't have to now use 20 grams of monohydrate, which is what they were doing, which was causing GI distress. Now they can use a couple grams.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Sign me up for that bloat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Almost. Well, truthfully, I started teaching calisthenics... And tap dance in high school. So if you count the calisthenics in high school, it's over 40. Wow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I have two different ways I have it. One is... in capsules. I put it together with taurine and magnesium because I wanted a little ATP booster. And both of those, I mean, we know taurine helps with longevity, but both of those help make ATP. So I was like, and we never seem to get enough of this stuff. So I was like, I'll put that all together. So I created, that's the product I created.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And it's in capsules. You take three and you can take another dose of Like I'll take three as my foundation. Then if I'm going to the gym, I'll take another three or you can use the powder and throw it. What I like to do when I'm going to the gym is electrolytes, creatine, and some essential amino acids.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
What do I do every day? I wake up, I take my thyroid. What time do you wake up? I want to know the time. Generally, I'm waking up right now. I'm a little like I woke up at 430 because I have some stuff going on business wise that I was processing, but I got up at 530. But normally, once it's not daylight saving stupid, I think this is the dumbest thing ever. Yeah. About 630. Okay.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And what do you do? What's the first thing? Okay. So what is your routine? What's your morning routine? Yeah, I've been playing around with it because I was doing meditation every single morning and now I kind of have been reading instead. So I get up, I do my thyroid, my husband hits the coffee, most importantly. And that I always get on the bioimpedance scale. It reports to my phone.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I always watch the trend lines. So I believe that we should weigh in every single day. I travel with a bioimpedance scale. I have one at home and they go into my phone. So, you know, I don't pay attention to it so much as I'm just, we'll check to make sure, because here's the thing. Twice I have had weird weight gain. Once during the pandemic.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And then once when I landed in Spain, where literally my weight would go up a pound or two every day. And one time it was an autoimmune thing going on. Another time it was because I changed my thyroid medication and didn't pay attention to the fact that like I went from what I normally do over to armor and literally gained six pounds in like three days.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So if you're not weighing in, you wouldn't know. Right. And other part of that is when you're shifting your body composition called recomping, right, you're you're putting on muscle. And I think for all of us, our biggest goal should be to pack on as much muscle as humanly possible, which if I'm lucky, maybe I can put on another four pounds in a year at this point.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It's only been all I've ever done is health and wellness. Like I was catering, but healthy food catering. You know, I did want to be an actress, but then I, you know, switched off of that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, it's like really hard once you're kind of where you can get to. But if I'm not watching that, I'd never know. So we do a DEXA scan once or twice a year and then I'm monitoring that at home. So do my do my little thing. Right now I'm doing reading and journaling. And then I do my – depends on the day. If I'm home, I like to get into my little hot sauna. I have a quick heat sauna.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And then I'll go into the cold plunge. Like what kind of sauna?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
We have a relax. Yeah, it's like a relax or a therisage. So it's one person one. So we have two saunas at home. We have the big infrared one. And I think of all of the things, you know, the red light and all the stuff – sauna to me is like the one that I think is the most important, right? I agree. I agree. And you do that in the morning. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, the reason being we'll do sauna, the infrared sauna at night and watch Netflix in there. But in the morning, 10 minutes, and then I can get in the cold plunge and I'm far enough away from my workout. Like the last thing I want to do, I could come home and get in the sauna.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
That'd be great after a workout, but I can't get into the cold plunge because that can then blunt muscle protein synthesis by blocking the inflammatory response. So I do the cold in the morning.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah, but I always do it before my husband because he like I'm in there and I either do my little red red light collagen mask, which I can't tell if it's working. Everyone asks, is it working? I don't know. I don't know if any of that stuff. I have no clue. Like I've got the big red light panel. How would we know? Like, I don't know. Exactly. I agree.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, it's, so my husband puts the neck thing on, the hat on, like, so I never put the sauna after him. It's absolutely nasty. So I have to get in there first or it's not going to happen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Okay. Yeah. It's that type. But then I have the big thing from Sunlighten. That's the far near, right? That one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah. So, you know, that's like a whole long thing and you have to turn it on and blow. Yes. That's going to get the heat up. It's like, I know it's like not two seconds. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not two seconds. So, so there's that. And then generally morning brain is my money brain. So I have my thinking things. And you know what happens is I always have projects that I need to do. And I never know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
This is why I could never be a professional writer, because I never know what's going to pop out and beg to be thought of. And, you know, so usually something comes out of my head that's important in the morning and I work on it. And then I eat breakfast. You're going to ask what? So I'll tell you. Currently, I have been playing around with dairy, Greek-style yogurt.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
For a long time, I couldn't eat dairy. Then it looked like my gut was healed and I'm back on dairy. Although I just, now I'm doing another food sensitivity test to see how I'm doing with it. So I think I'm cool with it. So what I've been doing is doing Greek-style yogurt and stirring in bone broth protein powder. So I have a bone broth protein powder, 80% collagen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I stir it into the Greek-style yogurt. So I'm getting everything. So that's what I like to do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, and you don't get enough from eggs. You have to do eggs plus egg whites.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, you could, but you're going to get a lot. Think about it. Each egg, depending on the size of the egg, is maybe six grams of protein.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Probably need a couple more egg whites, maybe another, at least another egg white.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I don't like to eat like eggs or dairy. When I did all of the food sensitivity testing that drove me to write the Virgin Diet, the like, and I looked at so many, so many food sensitivity tests. And then I talked to the head of the lab and I'm like, I see number one, eggs and dairy, eggs and dairy, eggs and dairy, eggs and dairy. Number two was corn, soy, peanuts.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, gluten is another type of test. So where you might see wheat, you're really looking at gluten. Gluten drives gut permeability anyway. You know, I just think it's something we have to be careful about getting into the every day, every day, every day with that. We've got to rotate these things, which is hard because it's so easy to get into a breakfast habit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Like of all the things like I know I do for dinner every night and it's super easy, but we rotate. But breakfast, it's like who wants to think about it?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know what? I think there's some great things with oatmeal. I don't think it's peasant food, but I don't feel good when I do it. Like I love oatmeal, but I could have like maybe a half a cup and then have the other stuff. But I find that I feel best...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
When I eat mainly protein with some fat in the morning, you know, like take that yogurt, throw in some freshly ground flaxseed meal, something like that. And then I go off to the gym with my essential aminos and my creatine and my electrolytes. And then... I come back and generally I'll have protein and carbs as my lunch. So whatever we make for dinner, we always make a bunch of.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And if we ended up like plowing through all of our protein we made for dinner, we always have some grass fed ground beef that we can make up. So like today at lunch, I had grass fed beef patties and blackberries and blueberries. Oh, I love that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I either go upstairs because I have an amazing gym that I created upstairs or I go to the gym. My husband likes to go to the gym. He likes the whole thing. I'm pretty self-guided so I can do whichever. If I'm going to do my high intensity functional training, generally I'll do that as more exercise snacks throughout the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
But if I'm doing it as actual workout, then, you know, I like to do that at home because I would look like a freak at the gym doing it. What are you doing? Tell me what you're doing. What does it look like? So it's so funny. So for Eudaimonia Summit, they're like, we'd love you to teach an exercise class. And I'm thinking to myself, I've not taught an exercise class since for 25 years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I've always loved exercise and nutrition, like always, from when I was 12. I mean, actually, you know, I started dance class at three in acrobatics. I've always loved it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Okay, I'll do it. And then I was like, what the heck am I going to teach? And with no weights, you know, because I was like, I'll teach how to, you know, an upper body workout. I couldn't because there were no weights. So what I taught was high intensity functional training, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So it's doing HIIT where we know we could do HIIT with sprinting or running upstairs, but this is functional movements like mountain climbers or burpees or jumping jacks or air jumps, squats, jumps, right? So it's functional movements, right? done in a high intensity way. So if I'm doing that stuff at home, what I like to do, I have a sprint treadmill.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I'll do some rounds of the sprint treadmill. Then I have an exciser and I'll do overhead push pull while I'm on the exciser, which is this mini stepper. Then I'll get on and do box jumps. Then I'll do some up downs. Then I'll do some mountain climbers. And sometimes I have a power plate that they just sent me that I'm playing around with. So I'll do things, you know, jumps over that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I've been just, I like to mess around with all the different things. And the way I do it is I make a list of all possible stuff. And then I just start to check off because I like to, I'm very goal oriented. So I just play around and mess around with all these different things, which you wouldn't be able to do at the gym, you know?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, if I'm doing high intensity functional training, it depends on the way I'm trying to do it. But I mean, you know, like I did it for eudaimonia and everyone was pretty much destroyed in 20. We did 20 minutes total, but we did it in two to three minute bursts that had some intensity and then a little bit of recoveries in them. And people were just like done. Done. And then here's what's cool.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
At the end of it, I learned this from Gabby Reese. She said she taught me this on This podcast we did, and I'm like, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard. I put balance training at the end because that's when I'm tired. You know, when are you going to have a problem with balance? When you're tired. I was like, oh, that's brilliant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I had everyone do balance stuff at the end, which we're all falling over. So- It was great.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah. She's a smarty pants. Anyway, so basically it depends on what's going on. Like if I'm doing HIIT training, it may be 20 minutes, 30 minutes max. You know, if I'm doing resistance training, might be 40 minutes. Just depends. Depends what I'm doing. I like to put everything. I've got the body divided into upper body pushing, upper body pulling, and then hips and thigh exercises.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I don't, every once in a while I'll throw some core work in, but the reality is I'm doing squats and pushups and mountain climbers. So it's like my core is working.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It's not a fitness trend. We did it when we went to school.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Uh-uh. So a couple times a week. How long? So I travel about 75% of the time. I'm not traveling with a rucking vest. Yeah. She's like, I'm not going to do it. So, you know, if I'm home and meeting a friend for a walk. So I have a girlfriend that I walk with and she's about 5'2". I'm 6 feet. Clearly, I got to do something here.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Otherwise, you know, so even though she's a fast one, I throw a rucking vest on. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
They want a trendy formula. I keep trying to think of a formula. Here's my overall formula, though. The first thing you do is make sure you're getting in 8,000 steps a day, at least, bare minimum. That is like flossing your teeth. Once you have that dialed, and ideally a couple times, you know, that's just throughout the day. You're moving all throughout the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You're standing instead of sitting. You're walking instead of standing. Throw a rucking vest in where you can. Add a little intensity where you can. All that. Then you add in resistance training and you train to get better at life. So you do things that mimic normal life. In life, you have to get off the toilet. So you're squatting. You're picking up groceries. You're doing deadlifts.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, you do this stuff, right? Then you add in some high intensity interval training to improve your VO2 max. And then one day a week, you throw in a yoga class. So you get your balance and flexibility. That's it. That's the formula. I love that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Oh, honey, you did not see the... It was all over. Everyone's going, this is going viral. So at Unimonia, they had a GLP-1 panel.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So it was... This Tufts nutrition researcher, I don't remember his name. I just remember Dariush, but I don't remember the last name. It started with an M. Then they had Zachary Knight, who was a neuroscientist. I was in the middle. Then they had Callie Means. Then they had Jillian Michaels. And... My belief on these, first of all, I don't believe that you lose weight to get healthy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I believe you have to get metabolically healthy in order to put on muscle and burn fat. We are in a metabolic health crisis, as we know, like less than I think it's probably less than 5% of the population now is metabolically healthy. I mean, the fact that we are almost at 80% overweight and obese and that we have a very high amount of people who are normal weight that are normal weight obese is
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
it's absolutely frightening, right? For the first time, the obesity trend lines are starting to normalize where they've been exponentially increasing, and it's because of these. The issue with the GLP-1s, I think they're the greatest longevity peptide, and they're being used completely inappropriately for what we could do with them. You know, the pharmaceutical companies have Jack these prices.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
If we could just compound them in small micro doses, they actually can heal your metabolism. And when you've got someone who's in a metabolic hole trying to pull them out of it just with diet and exercise, I mean, we would all love this. Here's the thing. What would we love?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
If everyone could eat healthy, exercise, get great sleep, manage your stress, and have great relationships and believe in something bigger than them, that would be so great, wouldn't it? But when you're in a metabolic hole that you can't climb out of, all of that looks impossible. And you hurt, you're inflamed, you can't move more. I mean, I'm working with a guy who's 385 pounds, now 350.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And he was getting 2,500 steps in a day because everything hurt. And he wouldn't go on these because of all the BS, shame, misinformation out there about them. Like it is so ridiculous to me. It pisses me off. So this whole thing over here was Callie and Jillian screaming, basically called me a liar and told me I was full of, I don't know if I can swear on this. You can swear on my thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I'll tell you what, I love the fact that Brian Johnson's spending $2 million a year to find out that diet, exercise, sleep, and good relationships are what make you healthy and extend your lifespan. I was like, no duh. And When you get down to it, moving and eating and sleeping are the things. Like they're the things.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You can. Right? Shit. Called out the other scientists who are like the sweetest guys ever. I'm like, you know, game on. I go, I have all the studies for anything I'm saying here. I've got the research. But I first got interested in them because my son's got a traumatic brain injury. And I saw I was at a lecture and the doctor had been using him for a decade, started talking about neuroregeneration.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And I'm like, are you kidding? And my son, it has changed his life. changed his life. Like, you know, whatever I have to do to continue to get this from him, he's on semaglutide compounded small dose. And, you know, this was a kid who was like, they did a brain scan and neuroquant and it's like 75% brain loss from, you know, the second injury over the course of a year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Like he was going down and dying. And this has pulled him out. And guess what? He's happy. So we know like they help with inflammation. They help improve sensitivity. They help with microvascular dilation. They reduce blood pressure. They improve lipid profiles. They are neuroregenerative and cardioregenerative. Like all these things. And there's all this BS out there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And a lot of it's because they're being dosed totally crazy. But then you have people out there screaming and yelling that we just need to eat better and exercise well. And clearly we do, but that's not going to save the planet at this point.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You guys were just together, she told me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Here's the issue. If you have fatty liver, 30% of the population now does. Most don't know they have it. If you have insulin resistance, if you're obese, you have a GLP-1 deficiency. Now, we don't know if you also have resistance because a lot of times with hormones, you get resistant as well, like insulin resistance. But let's say you have a GLP-1 deficiency.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So we can start to do the things to help your body produce it, right? Like improve your L cells, things like acromantia. You've probably heard of that. Things that help slow down the breakdown of this. There's this DPP-4 enzyme that breaks it down. So we could slow it down. We can help with production of it. However, some of these people may never have it come back online.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It doesn't need to be expensive. When you look at the compounded versions, it could be $50 a month. For a lot of these people, they're on polypharmacy. They're spending more on their high blood pressure, their lipid-lowering drugs. And if they went on this, and they eat less, right? So if they went on these things, low dose, a microdose is usually about a fifth of the dose.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And I was just at this really cool conference this weekend, Eudaimonia, and someone asked me, you know, because my buddy Dave has been out saying that you can like hack your exercise to 20 minutes a week or something ridiculous. And I'm like, no, you can't. No, you cannot. Right. You can't hack these things because you just got to move more. It's like flossing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You may have to go up to the starting dose, but then you could back down. But here's what needs to happen. If it could be the case that if you wanted to use one of these, you had to go in and get your body composition tested and be consistent with checking your body composition because it doesn't cause muscle loss. Caloric restriction causes muscle loss.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Any diet poorly designed causes a 20 to 30% loss in skeletal muscle. That is the diet. It's not the drug. The drug actually doesn't cause muscle loss. It doesn't. In fact, you can gain muscle on the drug. So that's BS. But that's the thing that a lot of people are talking about, right? Not true. It's the diet. It's the diet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So if you are any diet that does not have optimal protein and you're not doing resistance training, you'll lose skeletal muscle if you're doing caloric restriction. That's the way that works. So if you are...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
eating correctly getting that protein and maybe supplementing with essential amino acids if you're too low in protein if you're doing your resistance training which first you just start with getting the person to move because a lot of these people are the average person's walking 3 000 steps a day 3 000 so really if we just got them to walk to 8 000 if we started to get some air squats in you know we just get them moving and you know working with people who are morbidly obese
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
We oftentimes have to have an air squat over, say, a couch arm because it just hurts so much. So we've got to get the inflammation down. Then you start to improve the diet, right? You get them moving more. You get them sleeping. They might need to do some sleep therapy because a lot of times when you're obese, you don't sleep well. Then you start and you can taper it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Will they have to be on it for life? They might have to cycle it for life, low dose. But I contend that that would be better than living a life of obesity on medications.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
What are they taking it for? Are they taking it because they had issues? Vanity reasons. Vanity reasons. There's other I mean, yes, you could use it for vanity reasons. However, you could also use it for inflammation. You could use it for APOB, like my husband's on a teensy cycling dose. And these cycling doses are not meant to take your appetite away, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It's purely to lower his APOB that was chronically elevated. We tried everything, couldn't get it to go. Same with my son is using it for his brain. So you can use low doses of these, not for body composition, but for inflammation, for insulin sensitizing, for neuroregeneration, for microvascular dilation. There's other things they do. And there's a whole host.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Like if you go to Consensus and chat GPT and plug in benefits of GLP-1 agonists, it's kind of mind-blowing overwhelming. That's a PubMed, you know, thing. So... But what about the side effects? Well, the side effects when you're low dosing are not an issue.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yeah, like you should, they start, the dose they start people with is ridiculous. Like it's way higher than it should ever be.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So let's say I am not a physician. I don't play one on podcasts. If I were working with someone who I could work with a physician who would get compounded pharmacy, you know, triseptide or semaglutide, I would start with about a fifth of the starting dose. And I would start super low with that in combination with they have to track their food.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So, you know, there's just certain things that you just have to do. And if anything, as we get more and more into this, I feel like exercise used to be this kind of nice to do thing. But as we move into the longevity space, it's not an optional. It is a must do thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
They have to make sure they're getting in their protein, one gram per pound of target body weight. And then we're going to start to move. And then we see how they do. And then we get them, you know, we'll see if we have to raise it or not. And then if we do have to raise it, you just continue to do all the other stuff. So hopefully you can start to take it down.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And then cycling might be once every two weeks, once every three weeks, once every month.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I take a teensy bit of it. Now, here's what's interesting. I tracked everything with this because I have a weird autoimmune thing that every once in a while... Remember I talked about how my weight went up?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
This weird little autoimmune thing that every once in a while will trigger. And I'm like, what the heck is that? And so... I was 144 pounds and like 11, 12 percent. I think it was 11 percent body fat when I did it. And I went on and the person who initially put me on it put me on a starting dose. It was too much. It was way too much. And so that dropped me like I like. And it was funny.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Here's what's weird. I was actually tracking my calories and I didn't change what I was doing or eating by more than 200 calories. But I went down to 138. And so I popped the dose way down and started cycling it. So basically a fifth of the dose once or twice a month, right? And came back up to my normal weight, normal body fat. And so it's one you just have to watch.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
But I use the teensiest dose every once in a while. Right. All the autoimmunity stuff at bay because there's good research on that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Oh, is this like intermittent faster, do you mean? Well, you know, fasting's kind of such a tough word because what's it really mean? It could mean anything from normal eating, like stop eating three hours before bed, eat about an hour or two after waking up in the morning. That's like to me what we should be doing. Get that, you know, 10 to 12 hour window.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It could be eating, compressing that a little bit. And there's some benefits for that. Some of it might be caloric restriction, but some of it's, it's hard to say, like, I don't know when autophagy starts. I don't know how you test for it. I don't know how anybody knows this. I don't, you know, I don't know why we'd all be the same.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It would seem like it would have to be with your metabolic health. But I think there's some benefits to these things. But I also think there's some detriments to it. So that's one that I do not, I don't like is OMAD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, we just, we are complex machines. Like, you know, they are like the VW, remember growing up, everyone who had a VW bug, you could literally go in there with like a bobby pin and fix it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, it's just we're complicated and you mess with us a little bit, it throws all of our hormones off, whether it's fasting, keto, any of these types of things can be wonky for us. I'm not a fan of keto for women and less. Now, diets are tools. So, you know, if you've got cancer, fasting and keto would be a different situation, right? So, you know, I'm not talking about that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I'm looking at powerful aging. Yeah. So again, you always have to look at it because I'll get asked about all these different diets and go, they're tools. What are you trying to accomplish? And realize you might use a tool short term. It doesn't mean that that's going to be that that diet that's going to heal this issue right now is the diet you need to stay on forever.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Hmm. I don't know. Like, what are the other things that they're doing that are not healthy? Lots of things. I don't know. Putting too much fat in everything. Like butter and coffee type of thing? Like just especially for women. Like, you know. easy to overload your calories with a lot of this fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I remember as I first started to really track food and I just did an interview with Will Lee and, you know, talking about olive oil and I'm like, ah, you know, and then I started to really track. I was like, wow, I think I put a half a cup of olive oil on my salad. Right, right, right. It adds up, you know, too much healthy food's unhealthy. It's got to go somewhere.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, it doesn't take out your resting metabolic rate. Here's, you know, and you can't, don't look at your body like that. It's, yes, in a way it is a bank account, but it's much more of a chemistry lab and we can't ever look at, and I used to do this way back in the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I remember like going and eating a bunch of crap and then sitting on like, you know, the exercise bike at the gym for hours as if this was going to work this way. Right. It does not work that way. It does not work that way. Right. But if you're looking at the treadmill, it says calories burned.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It didn't subtract out your resting metabolic rate, how many calories you would have burned if you just didn't do anything. Yeah. The biggest way, actually, this is really interesting. So we have our metabolism, we have our resting metabolic rate, we have the thermic effect of food, and then we have activity. And in activity, we have exercise and we have non-exercise, right? The biggest...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
needle mover for us. I mean, for our resting metabolic rate, really the only way we can shift that is to put more muscle on our body. For our overall metabolism, the biggest needle mover is really that non-exercise activity. It's how much you're moving all throughout the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And one of the studies, like I'm thinking, I mean, there's been multiple studies of this that show in overfeeding situations, people move more and in underfeeding situations, people move less. Like our body strives for homeostasis. And so if you can start to really track, and I've become a little like, I like to focus on something to really lock it in.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And so I've been really focusing on steps and making sure I'm moving all throughout the day. And I love the research. I don't know if you've seen the research on Vilpon exercise snacks. You'll see it. So they did a study where they showed people and they looked at two groups versus nothing. So one group, no exercise snacks.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And these are short one to two minute, really high intensity things like I was talking about when we started. And so one group did 4.4 minutes of exercise snacks a day. It would be like doing, you know, two to three circuits. One group did 10 minutes of exercise snacks a day. The group that did 10 minutes lowered their all-cause mortality by 40% and their risk of cancer and heart disease by 50%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And the group that did 4.4 minutes lowered it by 28%. And we also know that if you did 30 air squats, you actually will... will lower your blood sugar response. Or no, if you did 10 air squats every hour for eight hours, 8.5 hours, you will have the same blood sugar control or better than if you did a 30-minute walk.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I think that one of these really important things for us to start to think about is how do we get more vigorous movement, run up the stairs, do the air squats, do the squat jumps all throughout the day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I mean, you know, what could that be? And here's the thing. I think it's a hierarchy. What I see in the space that drives me bananas is that we are majoring in the minors. I'm sorry. I'm not worried about your red light therapy if you are not moving. Right. You know, you're sitting here trying to pump up your mitochondria with red light. Why don't you just do a little HIIT training?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, the research also showed, I remember early on, this was in graduate school, there was a study that came out that looked at people that were instructed to do three 10-minute sessions of cardio a day versus one 30-minute session. And they compared the two groups, and the 10-minute session had way better cardiovascular effects because of it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And their whole hypothesis was that it was because you either did, you know, you either did 30 minutes or you didn't do it all versus you could do maybe one 10 minute one. But I also think if I know I only have 10 minutes, I'm going to work a lot harder than if I'm going to push myself through an hour. Like then you pace yourself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Yes. Give me your address. I'm going to. I'm going to send you now. Yes, yes. So very fun stuff. I'll give you a couple websites, but JJVirgin.com is where everything is. And that's where I have my Well Beyond 40 podcast. I created two different challenges.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
One is our Eat Protein First challenge that takes you for a week of really figuring out how much protein you need and making sure I have people eat their protein first so they get it in because I heard from too many women, I can't, I'm too full. I'm like, well, eat it first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Then you got, and you have to use a food scale and you have to use a biome or a little chronometer app. So I use a food scale and an app to make sure that you got it. So that is jjvirgin.com forward slash protein burst. And then I just launched at Eudaimonia a snack challenge.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So it's 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 minutes to win it, a snack challenge where I take them through the things that they can do for 10 days. Because I figure if you do it for 10 days, like I don't believe that it's 21 days to do a habit, like where'd that urban legend come from? Like just get used to doing it and be amazed how you feel. So that one's JJVirgin.com forward slash snack challenge.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
But again, I'm like- I love that. Simple, actionable things that we can do that will make- they'll move the needle, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, we're going to do our business one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I think there's some things that are nice to have, but there are some foundational things that it is so clear that we need to have. And like when you come down to it, it's having skeletal muscle, That's high quality. It's strong. It's powerful. It's having a great heart that you've pushed by doing high-intensity interval training.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And it's moving more all throughout the day because we were meant to move. Right. I mean, how have you changed your workouts over the years? Well, it's pretty interesting. You know, when I was in graduate school, we were taught, I kid you not, we were taught, do not have people lift weights until they lose the weight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Now, I was paying my way through graduate school as one of those first personal trainers. And what I quickly discovered was they weren't going to get any better unless they had them lifting weights. Like nothing was changing. Weights are like your metabolic spanks that holds everything in tighter, gets you insulin sensitive, boosts your metabolism. So I just ignored.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And most of my professors were like overweight, which I thought bizarre and made no sense, right? Especially when you got in the nutrition department. The exercise department, not as much as the nutrition department. And then in the nutrition department, I was taught that you could get everything you needed from a potato. From women that literally look like potatoes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I'm like, how are we going to get optimal protein from that potato right there? Now, if we're on Mars and this is all we have, OK, fine. But other than that, I think we can do better. So I literally way back then, everything was about cardio. And at first I was doing loads and loads of cardio. And then I did a massive flip. early on into resistance training and high-intensity interval training.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And I never looked back, mainly because I hate doing endurance cardio. It's not fun. It takes up a lot of time. But in my 20s, I was doing a lot of it and a lot of resistance training. And what's interesting is I have more muscle. I'm stronger now than I was in my 20s because I was doing loads of cardio and loads of resistance training.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I dumped a lot of the cardio, flipped it into high-intensity interval training. I, you know, walk and rock. And I'm now, you know, more ripped than I am now than I was then.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You want steroids?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I'm 60 wonderful. 60 wonderful, okay. 60 wonderful. And I'm an open book. I'll tell you everything I'm doing. I've been on hormone replacement therapy from the moment my hormones started to shift. And here's what was super cool about that. So when I was on Dr. Phil, he had a little chapter in his book called Weight Loss Resistance, and I thought, what a concept.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I fell in love with this idea because working in real life, working in the wild, I saw people that were eating right, exercising, and stuck, especially perimenopausal women. And this whole idea that nothing changes when you're perimenopausal, your metabolism stays the same, has got to be men saying that. Not one perimenopausal woman will say that to you, I don't think. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And when did you start? Because I think that's a big question that people are very confused with. Well, yeah, you start when things start to shift. So that's different for everybody. That could be late 30s. It could be early 40s. For me, early... early 40s, I think I was around 44, I remember all of a sudden, I used to always be the sweaty one, like sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, you know?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And all of a sudden I'm cold and I got a little constipated. I started to lose my eyebrow. And this happened like that. And one of my friends was an integrative med doc who was like, looked at my TSH, which was 2.25, I remember. Totally in the range. And I was hypothyroid. And the minute he gave me a little thyroid, it's like the lights came back on. Everything normalized.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
The next thing that happened was I could not recover from my workouts like I used to. Now I know from, you know, Dr. Vonda Wright, that this is... musculoskeletal syndrome due to menopause. But back then I was like, I had no clue. I was just like, what is going on? And my gums started to bleed a little bit and my dentist was like, that's low estrogen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So the minute these things started to show up, I started to treat it. So I started first with thyroid. Then I did a little testosterone, which helped bring my estrogen back. I never did progesterone until I started to really use estrogen consistently because for me, progesterone makes me gain weight and weep. Yeah, wow. I never felt good on it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
In fact, we had a doctor in Palm Desert, California, who literally, he was a nut job. He put everybody on progesterone therapy, men and women. He thought everyone was progesterone deficient. And he would put them on like 100, 200 milligrams every single day. And then he put everyone on thyroid with a goal to drive their TSH to as close to zero as possible. I mean, horrible.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
And he put me on progesterone. I gained 12 pounds in a week. I was like, OK, this is not for me. So now once I started to get, you know, more into perimenopause, I started to cycle it in. But low dose where, you know, most people are do about 100 milligrams. I was doing 50. So I never could use that. And that's why I say these things.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You have to know the symptoms of the different hormones and what's low and really where your ideal levels would be. And pay close attention because there's no way a doctor is going to know that. They won't know how you're feeling. They're not inside, you know, in with you. But I literally have been on hormones since my, you know, what, mid 40s.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It's dialed in. What was interesting is, you know, once you get through menopause, life is so, it's fabulous. I always say, you know, there's two amazing things, empty nesting and menopause. These are like amazing things that I hear people go, oh my God, empty nesting. I'm like, it's the greatest thing ever. Right. You have your life back. It's fantastic. They come over, they leave. It's awesome.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
How old are your kids, by the way? They're 27 and 28. Okay. That's great. Yeah. Yes. So menopause, once your hormones are stabilized, it's the perimenopause that's like crazy because it's, you know, you're trying to like shift things when they're all over the place and trying to supplement that way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
The only time I had to shift this a little bit is I went to Korea a couple of years ago and got on this very special ginseng and it made my hormone receptors more sensitive and I was able to lower my doses, which was pretty cool. Oh, wow. I know. I didn't put it together until I was hearing a lecture at A4M, and I went, oh, that's what happened. I was like, what happened?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You find a really good doctor that knows this stuff that actually specializes in menopause, right? Which is amazing that you could be in a gynecologist and not trained in menopause and you'll hear all of them telling you, yeah, we didn't get trained in it. So you find someone trained in hormone replacement therapy because you might need testosterone and not estrogen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
You know, it's like everybody is different and there's no, it's not like the guy in Palm Desert with standard dosing. That's crazy. That makes no sense. Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I just came out with a product. Actually, I launched it at Unimonia called, my husband named this, wait for it, Sheateen. Oh, cute.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Okay, here's what happened. So if I could go back in time and tell my younger self something, it would have been start creatine in your teens. Now, I was training people at Gold's Gym in Venice and they were all and they're all those big dudes and they all took creatine. I'm like, I'll have none of that. Thank you. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, creatine does not make you have big muscles.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
It doesn't. If it does, if it did, it would be banned substance. What creatine does is it gives your body creatine for the phosphocreatine system to make ATP. So it helps you make energy. And creatine is in your muscles and in your brain. If you have enough. If you don't have enough, it's not going to be in your brain. but it's in your muscles and your brain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I think it is the single most important supplement beyond the basics of like D and K, magnesium and fish oil for women 40 plus. I think it should be an absolute, you need this for a couple different reasons. Number one, it's going to help with energy production. And one of the biggest complaints as women start to get into perimenopause is that they have poor energy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
This can help, and it can help not just with body, but can help with mental, like with focus, with mood. In fact, there was a study done on postmenopausal women on SSRIs, and those who did creatine actually had way better changes in their mood than those who didn't. They're now doing studies on it for creatine. neurodegenerative diseases and for cognition.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So it helps you work out harder because of the energy. It also helps you with recovery, but it doesn't build muscle. You don't take creatine and sit on the couch and something happens. Now, here's what happened. As I started to dig into this a couple of years ago, I... looked at, I'm like, everybody needs to be on this, right? And especially women, we have less tissue stores of this than men do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
So I was like, we need this and we need it in our brains. And so I was like, you know, pushing it. I was a creatine pusher and everything I'd ever heard was monohydrate. It's the most studied. So do that one, which is true. It's the most studied, but it's kind of like, you know, a rotary phone. Just because we've always used it doesn't mean that's the best one, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
I mean, would you switch over, you know, would you still be using a rotary phone at this point? No, you would not. So what I kept hearing back from women, and these were some of my closest friends who are doctors who are like, I'm not going to take it. I don't like the way I feel. I feel bloated. My stomach hurts. I was like, just get through it. And they wouldn't. And I go, this is a problem.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Well, a year and a half ago, I was speaking at a medical conference and talking about powerful aging. I talked about creatine and this researcher followed me out. And he's the one who developed and patented creatine HCL and showed me all the research showing that creatine monohydrate, about 15% of it actually gets into your bloodstream.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I will tell you, and I don't have the study published yet, but there is a study coming out that I have been told about that shows that 76% of women who go on creatine monohydrate will struggle with fluid retention or gas and bloating.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
You know what?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So I've always been interested in it. And then I got very into diet. This is really actually horrible, but it was a turning point great thing. Because being six feet tall, I kept hearing, oh, you should be a model. So I grew up outside of San Francisco. I went to a modeling agency in San Francisco. And they told me, and by the way, I weigh the same now as I did then.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Here's the reality. Here's the crazy thing. So I said that you needed probably a gram of creatine a day. By the way, you take extra if you have sleep deprivation, jet lag. It's amazing if you're under more stress. But when you look at creatine monohydrate, the recommendations are three to five grams a day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And you'll hear that it's all absorbed. Well, it's not all absorbed. Because if it was all absorbed, you wouldn't need three to five grams a day. You'd need a gram. Turns out it's about 15% absorbed. And that's why you're getting some of the GI issues, the fluid retention, but you'll always hear to use creatine monohydrate because it's the most studied form. It doesn't matter.
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Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
We're not looking at the form. We're looking at the effect that creatine has on your body. And so a year ago, I was doing a talk for a medical conference. And afterwards, this creatine formulator came up to me. And started to show me, he goes, you know, there's a better creatine out there that doesn't cause all this stuff. And I thought this is, you know, we should take creatine monohydrate.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I was like the parrot. You should take creatine monohydrate. All the studies are on there because it's like what I heard out there. And then I looked at all the research and looked at the difference in when it isn't 100% absorbed. In fact, nothing is 100% absorbed. No. So anyone who says that is off their rocker anyway. Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It turns out that the form that he created, because he came from toxicology and he wanted to solve the problem because he was working, he was actually drug testing athletes. Wow. And so, you know, he was hearing from athletes, oh, I really want like to be able to use this and this is happening. And so he created creatine HCL. It's 99% absorbed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So you only need like 750 milligrams to get to where you need to be versus the five grams of creatine monohydrate. So what's cool about it is you don't get the bloating and you don't get the GI stuff that you'll get from regular creatine. So a lot of the stuff that women freak out about isn't going to happen.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And you might, if you are fortunate enough to get any, any fluid into your muscles, like I go game winner, you know, wish that would happen. Didn't happen to me, but we actually want that. That's a great thing, you know, and if you're doing bioimpedance testing, you'll see that as total body water and that's fantastic.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But creatine, I think every woman, I think every woman period should be on it. Now, the other cool thing about creatine HCL as opposed to monohydrate And some people feel fine on monohydrate. It's like, great, use five grams of it. It's fine. But I just, when I started pushing it out into the world, I got so much kickback from people saying, I tried that, I gained weight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And I was like, okay, no woman ever is going to take something if they gain weight. It's just the reality of it. But it also crosses the blood-brain barrier. So that's a huge thing. In fact, when I learned about this, I turned another friend on to it who's doing a bunch of neurodegenerative disease research so that she could use it in her studies. So I am super fired up about the HCL version.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And I gave you some, didn't I? No. The one I created? No, I need them. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Give me your address and I'll send it to you. So when I learned all this stuff, I went, all right, what could we do to make this work even better? And if you look at like, there's research out there showing that creatine and magnesium together work better than either one on its own.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It's an exponential, not additive effect. Then you look at taurine. Taurine can help pheatine kinase. So then it's going to work, make creatine phosphate work better. So I put together a taurine creatine magnesium product called sheatine. Really? Sheatine.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Isn't that great?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So they told me I needed to lose at least 20 pounds. And I remember at the time I was a teenager and literally I was in gymnastics. And so I was working out with the high school football team because there was no gym for the girls. Right. And this, you know, this agent tells me I need to lose 20 pounds. And I go home and I go to the library. I get diet books.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Oh, yeah. Sweet. My husband named it. I know. Well, I was parroting. I really started to really try to pay attention to what I'm saying, going, did I look at the research on that? Because... Like, you know, now I've looked at all the research and I go, where are they getting this? Then you'll hear, oh, no, you should only use CreaPure creatine. Yes. And I'm like, because it's it's done with water.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I'm like, no, they're all like it's just the BS out there. And it's smart people saying this stuff. So that's where it gets even more confusing, you know.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
You know, again, it's going to depend on your diet. Another thing I'm really a big fan of are essential amino acids. I think that it makes a ton of sense, especially for women, just to add that into your regimen. And so if someone is eating protein first, they're optimizing their protein, they're augmenting with some essential amino acids,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
750 to, you know, milligrams to a gram for say someone 140, 150 pounds, maybe. Now I will, if I am traveling or like if I'm going to go do a really hard workout, maybe I'll do 1.5 grams, but you know, two grams at the most. But I also, and I also eat a lot of I eat a lot of meat and fish. Me too. Like these people that say, I can't figure out how to get that protein in.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I'm like, what are you talking about? Thank you. Just eat it first. Eat it. Like,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So I was like looking at it going, where am I at today? Because I'm just like a little like I hear this. I go, I understand. I'm at 140, 136 grams of protein already and I haven't had dinner. me too. Like, what is hard? It's not hard. Just eat it first. The reason you're not eating, like, here's the thing, Dylan, this drove me nuts.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I was doing a talk very similar to the eudaimonia, powerful aging talk. And then I went out to dinner with a lot of the people from the talk. And I watched this woman sit down. She was at the talk in the front row. Okay. So I'm like, now I'm just curious. We all order. I order a steak.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And I'm now sitting down watching her and she has an appetizer, which is like, you know, I don't know, some breaded terrible thing. Then she has a salad, which she's turned into a sundae because it's got like candy garbage on it. And then she's going to have eggplant because she's full and she's having a glass of wine. And I'm looking at her and she's looking at me looking at her.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I start counting my calories, recording them on a calendar. And then my dance teachers thought I was anorexic. And it was a big wake up call. I remember thinking, you know, I was also running track and I just couldn't do the things that I like to do. I was too tired. Right. And I thought, gosh, well, shoot, I could either be skinny.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And she goes, you're going to protein shame me, aren't you? And I go, absolutely. Like, I absolutely am going to protein shame you. Good Lord. I go, actually, what I'm just going to do is give you part of my steak. She goes, oh, but I'm so full. I go, what she didn't realize is like that breaded eggplant garbage that she was going to eat, which eggplant. Eggplant's just a nasty tasting thing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Let's be honest. The only way to make eggplant taste great is if you soak it in olive oil, bread it, throw some cheese on it. So by the time you're eating it, you're getting like, I don't know, a thousand calories of fat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And five calories of eggplant. So she somehow thinks she's going to eat light with this, you know, fat bomb on her plate instead of her four ounces of steak.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I get that little dose that. those Sprouts cage-free egg whites. So today I had like two eggs, poured a bunch of egg whites in. Easy peasy. It's so simple. Oh my gosh.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
First of all, everybody should be trying to build muscle. Right. Well, I agree. And everybody should be trying to build quality muscle. So I also think there's, you know, because if you look at training, what was interesting when I was in grad school and I was doing this project that I was testing, if your quad strength was bigger, would you have better spinal lifting biomechanics?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Seems obvious, right? But that was the thesis. And so I had to build strength quickly. But it's interesting, building strength is actually different than building muscle. And so I like to kind of hit the middle because we do want to build strength, power, and muscle. So do heavy things fast. Remember the ultra slow training? I'm like, this is not good. You do not want to train slow. This is bad.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I know they were all like time under tension. I'm like, Train slow, go slow.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yep. It's oh, it's so I mean, like you want to lose weight. do resistance training. You want to get a better VO2 max, do resistance. Like it's just, it's so clear. And you could do, you know, some high intensity functional training.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
That's what I like to do now for my HIIT is I'll do like, you know, up downs, then I'll do mountain climbers, then I'll do, right, squat jumps. And so I'm doing that kind of stuff. I say I like to do it. I hate, like, hate, like. Anyway, so over to muscle. So What I tell people, I think the low end, the lowest end should be 0.7 grams per pound.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
From everything I've looked at, that seems to be the low end.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And then, you know, more to me, I'd rather pad it because it's an insurance policy. But for me, and I think if you're trying to lose weight or recomp, eat more protein. You'll be full. It's more thermic. Like, you know, you eat 100 calories of protein, you're going to absorb, what, 75 of those? Because it's so metabolically costly to do muscle protein turnover versus you eat 100 grams of fat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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And, you know, here I was, I remember going to the modeling agency, looking at these girls and they were pale, wafey looking things, right?
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You got 100 grams of 400 or 900 calories there. You're not using any of that in the digestion of fat. What are you going to use, like 10 calories? Yeah. So, you know, it's super costly. It's super satiating. It's most people aren't going to pig out on it. Like never, ever has anyone gone. I went to the movies and I ate 12 chickens. Yeah. buckets of popcorn.
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Like if you give me the endless bucket of popcorn at the movies, like I'm going to be the pig to the trough at movies. I'll just keep going back and just like back and back and back. So for me personally, I do more in the one and a half grams per pound of body weight because I just, so I eat about 200 grams of protein a day.
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I just feel, and I've, it was interesting. I've always felt better that way. I've always eaten that way. And I remember I did a biome test years ago and they're like, you have the genetics that just do better with lots of protein. I'm like, I don't know. I think everybody has the genetics that just does better with lots of protein.
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Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And I thought, well, I could either be that or I can be strong. I cannot be both. And I just was like, forget it. I'm going to eat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Well, and the thing is, if you're eating healthy, clean protein, you're going to get fat with it because all animal protein comes with fat. And even if you're doing egg whites, like I'll always do a couple eggs with egg whites because I can't get enough protein just from eggs. I'll so overload it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But, you know, you think about it and go, all right, you know, tonight we're having grass fed beef. We'll get some fat there. You know, I had the egg, egg white thing. So I got some fat. So you'll get fat with the animal protein. And then you'll use a little extra virgin olive oil and cooking and you're good.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But I got very into nutrition because it was, you know, I wanted to be at the time I wanted to be a stage actress. And so your body's like your instrument there. And I was very into nutrition and very into exercise and just always have been.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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Yep.
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Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
That's it. You know, you don't need to go put a pound of butter on your steak.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Almond butter on fish?
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That is the weirdest sounding thing. You have to try it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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Wow. Well, my husband's in charge of, so I make the vegetables every night and he makes the protein. So we are like air fryer freaks.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I got to tell you, salmon and sea bass in the air fryer is like the freaking best thing. And he makes these chicken thighs. Have you tried plucked? No. Oh, my gosh. Where have you been? So James Berry, Chef James, has organ meat. It's organ meat spice. It sounds disgusting. Like it sounds really disgusting, but it's fantastic. So because I won't eat organ meat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But we take this, we take like a teaspoon, sprinkle it over chicken thighs, throw it into the air fryer. And I swear to God, it's chicken crack. Really? That's what I call it. Chicken crack. Yeah. I'll tell Chef James, like he's a sweetheart. I'll get him to get you to pluck you up. Oh, please. I'm making a note.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I'm trying to put it on my vegetables. It's amazing stuff because we do a lot of cauliflower peel off is like my cauliflower. So I take cauliflower rice and then I throw the extra stuff in there. So whatever extra vegetables like tonight, last night I made dandelion greens, very advanced and like collard greens, a bunch of different greens with onions and mushrooms. We do a lot of mushrooms.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Me too. Like I'm a mushroom freak. Me too.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So I'm like green peppers and I hate zucchini. Really? Oh my gosh. I eat them every day. Oh boy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Chilean sea bass. I had to get, Tim hated it for a while. And I'm like, you hate this. So every time I went out, he's gotten over himself.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I know it does. It's the best.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Best to best.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So eat protein first. Everything's designed around protein because that's the one you can't mess with. Right. You have to get point seven. And if you want to really recomp, you want to gain muscle, drop fat, just eat more protein. It's simple. Right. I mean, so that's that's the place that it has to be at least point seven, but really probably one gram per pound.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And if you want to go up from there, make it easier, then you can.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
The next thing that I do is say at least five servings of non-starchy vegetables. I'd prefer 10 with a serving being a cup of raw or half cup of cooked. Got it. So just a lot of vegetables, then a couple servings of fruit. I prefer berries, maybe an apple. And then you're using some healthy fats in the cooking.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So probably some extra virgin olive oil and I pretty much stick with extra virgin olive oil.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
ghee and avocado oil you know every once in a while i go wild with like i love sesame oil the flavor of it and thankfully it's not one of the bad seed oils so i'll use a little bit of that but that's that's it that's like my whole fat thing if we are like this weekend my son's making korean fried chicken so we'll use beef tallow and do a deep fryer thing but that's like a treat right um
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So that like that's that's that. And then I don't really I just eat a load of vegetables, a little bit of fruit. Like, honestly, that's it. You know, I don't really eat any other. I mean, every once in a while, if I'm going to I was trying to think, like, what would I eat if I was eating other carbs?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like maybe like if I throw some lentils into cauliflower rice pilaf or have a little bit of black beans, but it's kind of rare.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I just don't feel good with like, I don't feel good with heavy carbs in the morning.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So I personally. freaking love oatmeal, but I do not feel good with it. So I don't like, I don't really eat it. Now, I think that if you're going to get organic and you had it, like, I really love the savory oatmeal. I did this once on Dr. Oz. They were like, we want to do this thing with savory oatmeal. I go, ew, really?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Well, I made it with bone broth and put some mushrooms and it was freaking amazing. So, you know, but I would probably do that more at lunch. Like I find I just do better in the morning when I don't really hit a big carb thing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I don't know. And I always hear like, oh, you're going to the gym. Do like that. I go, I probably get 10 grams of carbs in in the morning, but I don't really do much. I just don't feel good. So I don't know. No. Oatmeal in the morning makes me feel crappy. So I think I don't think it's peasant food, Dave. And, you know, clearly, you know, you want to eat the gluten free.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So in a not a gluten plant and organic and blah, blah, blah. But. I don't tend to eat grains, so I just feel better without them.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Well, but here's the thing with the whole glucose spike thing. You know, there's the spike and there's the under the curve. Yes. If you are very metabolically healthy and you eat something and your blood sugar goes up 60 points and comes right back down, who the heck cares? True. Who cares?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like, why are we getting so whacked about this? First of all, I can't stand the idea that we're going to use apple cider vinegar so we can eat a donut. I'm like, you missed the plot. You've totally missed the plot here. Right. And, you know. Isn't the whole point of this to have a slow rise, slow fall? And if you do have something that's going to take it up, it comes straight back down again.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And if you do notice it comes up, do some freaking air squats. Right, right. You know, but it's really, where's the problem with glucose?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It's total. How could it be like, OK, so I think this is where they come from is they'll look at them in terms of weight loss, but they're not looking at body composition and fat fat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
No.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So yes. Okay. Because there was the Twinkie diet guy. Remember the nutrition scientist? He was like, okay. So yes, if you do caloric restriction and you eat total garbage and caloric restriction, you could lose weight, but they're not doing body composition and going, is it muscle? Am I accumulating more visceral adipose tissue? What is going on?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So, you know, as an exercise physiologist, I was very interested in muscle and it was interesting in graduate school. Everything we did in the exercise phys department was based on cardio. And in fact, back then, this was decades ago, we were told that you should not have a client lift weights until they lost the weight. And yeah, right? I mean, this is painful stuff.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
What I used to always say is your body's not a bank account, it's a chemistry lab. However, thermodynamics matter. So I think your body is a bank account, but it's also a chemistry lab.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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And it's a history book. So, you know, traumas matter, insulin resistance matters, toxins matter. So you look at history book and it's like toxins and trunk. Then you look at the bank account and go, well, you can't just, too much healthy food's not healthy, right?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And then you look at chemistry lab and go, but ultimately you could eat the same diet, same amount of calories, but if your calories were high in fructose, high in carbs, high in seed oils, and low in protein, you would have a very different body composition than someone who was eating a high protein, the right types of fat, and a little bit of high fiber carbs with lots of polyphenols.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It would be very different. You would have very different health. But that argument with the bros, they're looking at weight. Yeah. And they're not looking at metabolic health markers. And if they are, they're not looking at them over time. I mean, one month, like, you know, they'll say the diet that heals you isn't the diet for long term.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like, that's the whole thing, I think, with carnivore diets. Like, hey, it can be a great thing for a month to two months to three months as an elimination diet and get people out of the food noise. But is that the long term thing for your gut microbiome? I don't think so.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah. Well, I mean, I just think the, you know, let's look at your visceral adipose tissue. Yeah. Like let's just do that. Let's do a waist, a waist to hip and we'll just do it. You know, put people on the same thing. You, no way. No. And maybe for a couple of weeks, but like a couple months.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Now that we got that out of the way. Yeah. Had to do that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It was, Ben. I mean, we had amazing scientists there had it not been taken over.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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We were also told back then that if you couldn't work out for at least 30 minutes of cardio, don't bother because you need to get into your fat burning zone and you had to blah, blah, all this crazy stuff. Well, what? A couple things happened.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It is bizarre. Why? Like, could you imagine someone getting shamed going on a diabetes medication or a high blood pressure medication?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
No.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like, or even using, say, BPC-157? No. Teptide?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
No.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like, no one's shaming them.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
No.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
What is going on here that we have all of this body shaming and shaming around using a GLP-1 as if it's a crutch, you're cheating, etc.? Here's the reality. You don't lose weight to get healthy. You actually have to get healthy to lose weight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And once you get that, I remember the first time I heard it, because I heard it from an amazing endocrinologist out in Santa Barbara, Dr. Diana Schwartz, and I go, that's a really unpopular thing to say. You know, she's like, it could take time for you to get metabolically healthy to be able to hold on to muscle and lose fat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But if you're doing things wrong, you'll just shed muscle, you'll hurt yourself. And so, you know, we have a metabolic crisis right now. The latest research showed that less than 7% of the population was metabolically healthy, that now we have over 40% of the population who's obese, 70% plus are overweight or obese. Of the other percentage, you look at it and go,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Very few of them are metabolically healthy because a lot of them who've maintained their weight by diet alone are fat inside and thin outside. They're tophies. So we've got sarcopenic obesity. we've got obesity, we've got overweight, and we've got fatty liver. What, 40% of the people plus are walking around with fatty liver?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Then what you hear is that people who are obese, people who are insulin resistant, people who I'd argue now it's almost a I remember hearing that, you know, 100 percent of people were going to have diabetes by 2030. I go, that is the most ridiculous thing ever. And now you're like going, well, we're really close to having 100 percent of people insulin resistant.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And if you're insulin resistant, if you have fatty liver, if you're obese. The theory is that you probably have a GLP-1 deficiency. And I'm betting that you probably could have a resistance to GLP-1 as well. Because think about it. We get insulin resistance. We get all sorts of hormone resistances. So why not? So you have people who now are eating ultra-processed foods. 70% of the diet in the U.S.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Number one, I discovered pretty quickly that having people do loads of cardio didn't do anything and that I wasn't going to get paid to help people not get results. Right. And so I was taking people down to Gold's Gym in Venice in the 80s. And these women who were like, you know, I'm afraid to get big.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
is ultra-processed food, which is whalothermic and Also, people tend to overeat on. And then you're going to say, you know what? You know what? Like one person on the panel, we just need to eat less and exercise more. I go, I cannot believe in 2024 I am hearing this. This is the solution to the challenge. With these people who are in a metabolic hole and need a freaking life raft.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
They need something. They need a helping hand to pull them out. And we finally have a helping hand. And the problem with the situation is we have drug companies controlling the dosage. Hammering people with dosages that shut off their signals altogether so now they can't think about the fact that they're hungry and they can't hear anything. And so now they're not eating at all.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Now they're losing muscle and they're making themselves worse. However, the tool itself isn't the problem. And, you know, they keep going, oh, they're causing muscle loss. It's like, no, they're not. The improper use of them is any poorly controlled diet. You put someone on a calorie restricted diet that's that level, they're going to lose muscle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
You have them not eat protein and not exercise, they're going to lose muscle. You design a well-designed diet that's high protein, doing resistance training, you give them a little bit of GLP-1 agonist. While you're doing things to restore their gut microbiome, like giving them acromantia,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
While you're doing things like Calicurb, which we know can raise their GLP-1 for four to six hours, you're doing all the things. We could turn this metabolic health crisis around in a very short amount of time and it'd be a lot less expensive.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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And you want that. You want the energy flux. You want to move more and eat more. You don't want to move less and eat less. And what do we know? We know that when you do caloric restriction, you know what your body does? It goes, shoot, I'm going to move less. And you might say, oh, but I went to the gym for 30 minutes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But you probably stopped all of your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is your biggest drive. When you look at your metabolism, how can you really change your metabolism? Put on more muscle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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Eat protein. It's the most thermic. So we've got basal metabolic rate, put on more muscle. We've got thermic effect of food, eat protein. And then we've got activity and sure, go to the gym, but make sure you're moving more. That'll be the bigger driver, right? Build muscle, move more. So that's it. There's the secret. I totally agree.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I take a little hit of GLP-1 if you need it, because it's going to heal. Like, here's the cool thing with GLP-1s. They are healing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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I'm going to say I'm going to take you down there because you're going to see 70 old women that you would die to look like. just die to look like. So I actually did my graduate work on how to build muscle, on how to build strength quickly, on resistance training. I did it on spinal lifting biomechanics. But part of that thesis was I had to build leg strength quickly. So
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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It's not a that's the difference that people don't get. This is not just like because you'll hear, oh, you have to be on for life. I go, well, first of all, you were going to be on your blood pressure medication, your cholesterol medication, your diabetes medication for life. So now you've got rid of all of those.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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You're on a little dose of something else and you might not be able to get off of it at some point. Which is worse, this one or that one? Sorry, I think all of those are way worse.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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Yeah, that's going to give you cancer most likely because we just shut down your cholesterol production that you need to make your hormones and is an antioxidant.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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Yeah, these are great. Like if you just go and start to go on consensus and look at their research on what these can do for neurocognition, for cardiovascular health, for kidney health, for bone health, for muscle health. Holy smokes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I remember the first ones I bought, I had to buy with Bitcoin.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I think all this stuff's fantastic.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
However... It's just like with biohacking. I think that what I don't want to see happen is what happened the other night I was out at gym. It was actually New Year's Eve. We were, we were barefoot and black tie on a boat dock. It was absolutely the most, one of the most beautiful evenings. And I'm sitting next to this guy and he's telling me about all the things he'd been at.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And he like jumps around all these biohacking events. And I said, so what do you do for exercise? And then he kind of sheepish, hem-ha. And so I'm like going, all right, so you're sauna-ing, you're doing peptides, you're doing all this stuff, but you forgot to lift weights. Good Lord. And you forgot to do HIIT training. And here's what I'd say about all these things.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
You can't use peptides as a replacement for eating crap. You can't use peptides as a replacement for not working out. So to me, you must start with the foundation stuff. And then, like, orthomolecular, like vitamin D, fish oils, magnesium, like the basic stuff, and then peptides for the win, you know, like let's go.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So I was like the rogue person in the department. But all that I was doing in the personal training world, I was one of the first personal trainers, me and Mark Sisson and Tony Horton and Body by Jake. And I was just having people lift weights and run sprints, pre-hit, pre-resistance training. But I had to get results with people.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So, low-dose, microdosing trisepatide, BPC-157. My husband, like, heard all the sexual benefits of melanotan.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Okay. Then, so he's like... He overdosed me. I ended up in a fetal position going, I think I'm going to throw up. So that was not effective. I'm like, no, get away from me with that. But I've been using orals from Health Jebedee. Okay. Have you heard of this company? I have. Yes, I have. Okay. So they have a PeptiStrong that I'm a big fan of.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And I also do their oral BPC-157 because what I've heard is that it can help with autoimmune diseases. more if you take it orally. So I've been doing more of their orals.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Because I really hate injections.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Wow. That's interesting. Yeah, I do a little T-shot and a little triseptide shot every couple weeks.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Yeah, I did that. I forgot. I did like like there was a while there I was doing a bunch of them and then I just kind of moved over to the orals and forgot about it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Exciting time, isn't it?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I mean, and that's why I say like, here I am 61, 10% body fat, you know, doing pull-ups, doing push-ups and jump training, all the stuff. And it's like, because I've got creatine and Pepto-Strong and like all this stuff that I didn't have in my twenties.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And you're certainly not going to get results having them go walk all over the place, right? I mean, so that was my early on thing. And so as I started to look at aging, It occurred to me that really what's happening with age is that we lose our fast twitch muscle fibers.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
been through the ringer and it's like you know all of these things that we have at our disposal now it's amazing I know it's super cool it's so funny because it's like well he's a middle age and it's like 60s or I'm like on what planet like how long like not for me man I'm still like middle age for me that's all nonsense yeah that is just whatever so
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Another book. But it's not until probably March. Literally, I'm about to turn the draft in. Oh, my gosh.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
The big thing now is my, is sheateen, man. I'm, like, determined to get women on creatine. That is my, my... Focus.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Because, you know what? She a teen. If you cover the ass, it becomes he a teen. It's right. I don't give a shit as long as it works.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Bread and butter site is JJVirgin.com. I have a podcast too. Would be fun to have you on it. Well Beyond 40. So yes, we'll have to hook that up. So the podcast is one I've been leaning into a lot. So Well Beyond 40. And of course, podcast websites got all the, all the
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
That was a great conference.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And women anyway, when you really look at it, women, you know, we have two types of muscle fibers, as you know, slow twitch and fast twitch. Well, what the listener might not know is you have slow twitch, fast twitch, and then you have these fibers in between. We used to call them
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
type 2b fibers i now think they're called x basically of these fibers that are more that are better for long for endurance for there are things we use all throughout the day those are our slow twitch muscle fibers and they're the ones that we're just going to use to stand upright postural easy walking etc then we have our fast twitch muscle fibers that's explosive move fast heavy things
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
They're exhausted quickly. And then you have these ones in between and they can become slow or they can become fast. And I thought, you know, when you really look at what happens as we age, we start to lose more fast twitch muscle fibers. Well, women have more oxidative, more slow twitch muscle fibers to begin with. That's why we're more metabolically flexible. We can recover easier. But
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
We also tend to do more slow twitch muscle fiber activities. We're doing more walking. We're doing more, you know, Pilates, more yoga. And not to diss on these things, but the problem is we're now taking the fibers that could have been more powerful and turning them into slower fibers.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And so I looked at this, I'm like, you know, if you really want to age powerfully, if you look at what happens as we start to age, starting around age 30 is we're losing, starting to lose muscle. Muscle is actually not the biggest problem. We're losing muscle. And I believe that, you know, everyone's worried about bone mineral density, but really that's a lagging indicator that we lost muscle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But we lose twice as much strength and three times as much power. Strength is how much you could move something heavy one time. Power is how quickly can you move something. So I thought, you know, what we really need to focus on as we age, as aging powerfully, is building strength. Not just building muscle, but building quality muscle, powerful muscle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I am thrilled to be here.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And as I started to look at that, I went, you know, this is actually really a bigger thing than that. It's kind of a manifesto because women our whole lives, just like I told you the story about the modeling agency, we're always taught to be small, to be skinny, to be, you know, right?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I thought this really, like the goal, and I saw an interview by Jennifer Aniston recently, and she said, I'm trying to pack on as much muscle as possible. Our goal our whole life as women should be to pack on as much muscle as possible, right? To be as powerful as possible, because the more you can put on in your 20s and 30s and 40s, the better off you're going to be in your 60s, 70s, and 80s.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Mm-hmm. The powerful aging started with a let's really build those fast twitch muscle fibers and then kind of turned into a bigger manifesto of, you know, if you don't step up now in your life, when are you going to do it? What, you're going to wait until you're 80? Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I've been running into that hurdle since, you know, I started taking people to the gym in the 80s.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I mean, forever, that has been a thing. And literally, you look at it and go, gosh, if you can put on a half pound of muscle a month, you're in good shape. And so people are worried about getting bulky. I go, you know, what's so awesome about lifting weights is if you decided that you were like overnight, you would like this drive by muscle mass gain, which I've never seen happen.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But let's say you said, oh, wow, I'm gaining too much muscle. You would just stop.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
You could just stop. So I will say in 40 years of helping people put on muscle, I've never had someone get too big. Never. It's never happened. Muscles, metabolic spanks, it holds everything in tighter. It helps you burn fat. It helps you become more insulin sensitive, along with a whole host of other things. The only time I've had people get too bulky is when they're not lifting weights, right?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right. They're not eating their protein. They're not lifting weights. They're sitting on the couch. You want to get big, sit on the couch. Yeah, right. That's how you can get big. It's not going to be you at the gym. Trust me.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It takes a ton. When I decided, you know, to get super fired up for 60 and to prove a point, I was so sick of hearing this like, you know, it's a downhill slide. I'm like, all right, well, what if it's not? I thought, you know, I'm going to get in the best shape of my life for 60. I hadn't done a DEXA body scan since 39. And so I actually trained for it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
I upped my calories because I was like, if you really want to focus on putting on muscle, if it's your number one goal, you're better off just doing that, upping your calories, not a ton, but some, and doing that. And I literally did. It was a little bit of a mental game because I was like, all right, you're doing this on purpose, right?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
But I went in and my DEXA scan at 39 and at 59 were exactly the same. Same muscle, same fat-free mass, same fat mass, same weight. And then I knew what I'd been in my 20s. And because I put this on, I now ripped down. I did a cutting phase and went straight down to where I'd been in my 20s. But the cool thing is I'm actually stronger than I was in my 20s. Wow. And so it's possible.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Like it is possible to do these things. Well, plus in my 20s, I wasn't taking creatine. I wasn't taking MitoPure. Like there's all sorts of things. I wasn't doing the level of protein that I'm doing. So I was like going, all right, I know so much more now. than I did then. I mean, I was afraid to take creatine back then because the bros did it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So women have less muscle mass than men. Duh, right? And when you look at creatine, we basically make about a gram a day from eating protein, from getting essential amino acids, right? And then we are going to also ingest creatine from meat or seafood every day. However, We have about 100 to 140 grams of creatine in our body.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
And we need to take in, we need to make at least a gram a day and take in a gram or two every day from diet. Now, women have less creatine stores than men because we have less muscle mass than men. We store creatine mostly in our muscle, a little bit in our gonads. We don't have those either. And a little bit in our brain.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So you look at it and go, OK, so we're making it from a gram from essential amino acids. Then we need to get another gram or two from diet. OK, where do we get it from? We get it from meat. We get it from fish. But cooking really takes a lot. Like you really lowers the content.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So you either have to eat barely cooked, you know, sashimi, carpaccio, that kind of stuff, meat, about a pound of it a day or two pounds of the other. no woman ever is eating that. So they're not getting it. And then you have most people doing plant-based, so they're definitely not getting it. And they're probably not getting the essential amino acids and the amounts they need either.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
So they're deficient. So this is a huge problem. So women tend to be deficient in it anyway, right? What's it going to help us do? Well, creatine helps us create energy, right? It's going to help with our ATP creation because creatine goes to creatine phosphate. It's our quick, fast energy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It's really important for the brain and it's really important for working out harder, recovering better, building more muscle, building more bone. It's important for your immune system. They're now looking at it for long COVID, by the way, and they did research with it for postmenopausal women on antidepressants.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
They found women on antidepressants who took creatine had way better results than people who just took antidepressant alone. So neurocognitive, TBIs, there's so many different applications, basically anything around brain, around inflammation, around muscle protein synthesis, around immune skin, skin wrinkling. So you look at it and go, these are all like energy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
It's all what happens as you start to go into perimenopause and we're deficient in it. Then here's the situation with creatine that I think is so crazy. First of all, there's a bunch of myths out there about creatine, like hair loss.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #4: Featuring JJ Virgin! Understanding Muscle Gain and Body Composition, Debunking the controversy with GLP-1's, Exposing Health Myths, Deep dives into creatine, Peitdes, Biohacking AND MORE!
That's like that stupid, like soccer guys where their DHT was raised, but they don't even know why because they didn't check to see if they were on like anything else, you know? And then They didn't even track that their hair went down, but there's hair loss. There's no hair loss. It's never been shown.