Habits and Hustle
Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Tue, 14 Jan 2025
Have you ever wondered what it really takes to achieve optimal health and fitness as you age? Or if you’re doing it all wrong - making all the common fitness mistakes? In this Habits and Hustle podcast episode, I am joined by JJ Virgin, 4-time New York Times bestselling author in the fitness and health space, to discuss the truth about healthy aging. We dive into her expert insights on powerful aging, the critical role of skeletal muscle for metabolism and longevity, and her personal daily routine for optimal health in her 60s. We also discuss the pros and cons of GLP-1 medications for weight loss, popular fitness habits that can actually be detrimental, and so much more! JJ Virgin is a triple-board certified nutrition expert and Fitness Hall of Famer who has built multiple successful businesses, including the influential Mindshare Collaborative and a 7-figure personal brand. As a prominent media personality, she has co-hosted TLC's Freaky Eaters, appeared on major TV shows, and authored four NY Times bestsellers including The Virgin Diet and Warrior Mom. Her impact extends through her massive social media following, popular Well Beyond 40 podcast with over 20 million downloads, and role as a transformational leadership coach who has worked with notable figures in the health industry. What We Discuss: (06:11) The Essentials of Longevity and Fitness (12:55) Hormone Replacement Therapy and Creatine (19:22) Benefits of Creatine for Women (23:11) Body Composition, Creatine, and Daily Routine (34:29) Morning Routine and Fitness Workouts (41:09) Functional HIIT Training and Fitness Routine (45:06) GLP-1s and Metabolic Health (58:42) Nutrition, Fitness, and Healthy Habits …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from JJ Virgin: Website: https://jjvirgin.com/ Podcast: https://jjvirgin.com/main-podcasts/ Instagram: @jj.virgin
Chapter 1: What are the essentials of longevity and fitness?
Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their tri-light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go.
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So I'm just going to say a quick, like two sentences about JJ Virgin because JJ Virgin has, you've had like how many New York Times bestselling books in the fitness and health space? Four. Four, okay. Four.
And you are one of my go-tos for information because what I love about you is that you're really good at breaking down sometimes very complicated matters or things that may be just kind of like overwhelming into layman's terms. And I appreciate that about you. So I love that you're on my podcast today.
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.
30?
Like, how many years?
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.
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Chapter 2: What is the role of hormone replacement therapy in aging?
Or was it just like a love for athletics or tap dancing or what was it?
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.
And I think what I want to ask you this, because I feel like over the years, right, everything kind of has like their fads and trends and ebbs and flows, right?
Mm-hmm.
And sometimes people don't want to know and hear about the actual things that work, right? Like, you know, basically eating properly, exercising a certain amount. There's all these like longevity hacks and health hacks and fitness trends. What would you say over the years, right? Would you say...
have been kind of, you think, that stands the test of time, that are the things that actually move the needle, that people don't want to know that they should do and without the fluff.
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.
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Chapter 3: How can creatine benefit women over 40?
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.
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.
Well, yeah, my concern with a lot that I cover, I talk about longevity all the time. I do so many things myself and like people are always saying to me, well, does that work? Does that actually work? And honestly, God, I don't know. Right. Because I'm like, you do so many things. You're not you don't know what works, what doesn't work.
What do you say and what do you feel are the things that work like for sure? Like give me like when you're saying diet and exercise. OK, we got that. Is there a particular diet? Yes, exactly.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 4: What does an effective morning fitness routine look like?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 5: What is functional HIIT training and how does it work?
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.
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.
And do you feel at this, like at this stage, are you still having to tweak it depending on different things? Or now you have it, like, is it dialed in at a certain point?
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.
Chapter 6: How do GLP-1 medications affect metabolic health?
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.
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?
So I find that the problem is that I hear a lot. I get asked this a bunch. If people are going on testosterone, but they're not doing estrogen yet, and there's so much information out there, and I think people then stop. They don't even do anything because it's basically like analysis paralysis, right? You don't know what to do, so you don't do anything.
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.
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.
What about supplementation? For example, creatine is a hot topic now. Everyone's talking about it. And I think women are still very nervous about creatine because we remember that men who are always taking creatine and they look big and bulky. What's your stance on creatine? Do you take it?
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.
I like it.
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.
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Chapter 7: What nutrition and fitness habits promote healthy aging?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We do. And of course we do. It's all psychological. That's why we are cardio junkies, right? Because we think if we're sweating harder and we're moving faster and we're doing it longer that we're getting a better result. And that's like the same thing. That's so 80s. It's so 80s. It's so 80s. But yeah, that's what you see.
Like there was a great meme that was going around that someone sent me of like middle-aged women exercising. They're doing everything but with the exercises they should be doing. You know, they're like bouncing on a swing outside or they're doing... They're on the rebounder.
Yeah, they're on the rebounder.
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