Stop Exercising for Weight Loss After 50 - Do This Instead | JJ Virgin | #177

JJ Virgin (0:00)

For so many women, they've been given the wrong playbook, especially for those women 50 plus. We were raised on aerobics. We were raised on Jane and Fonda. We were raised with Susan Powder saying, stop the insanity and don't eat fat. All this crazy stuff. I was taught in grad school, do not have people lift weights till they lose the weight. Can you imagine more incorrect advice than that?

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:22)

Let's talk about bulky, because I try my best to be as strong as possible, and I still don't look bulky.

JJ Virgin (0:28)

I started helping women lift weights over 40 years ago. I've never had a woman resistance training get bulky. You're not going to wake up in the morning and go, oh my gosh, look at how big my thighs have gotten. This has done more damage to women's metabolic health, their metabolism, but more so their mental health.

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:44)

There's nothing magic about being a size two or a four. Just get over that people.

JJ Virgin (0:48)

Every woman everywhere has gone on a diet, done everything perfectly. The next morning they get on the scale and the scale is up. Those regular scales are only to weigh your luggage.

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:58)

I love that.

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Everybody, welcome back to The Dr Vonda Show Podcast OMG. I am so excited to have my guest today because not only is she a triple-boarded nutrition expert, fitness hall of famer, four-time New York Times bestseller, entrepreneur, product formulator, but here's the thing that matters most to me. She could be all those things. But JJ Virgin was one of the first people, when I really started launching into this space, that reached out and communicated. I probably reached out to you, but communicated, you're so generous. JJ Virgin, you are so generous with your wisdom and your time and your connections, that you're an example of what we should all be to each other. I'm so thankful to be in the same space as you and even physically, last year, eudaemonia, we were physically on the floor together. That was fun. So welcome, how have you been?

JJ Virgin (2:20)

I've been busy crazy like all of us.

Dr. Vonda Wright (2:22)

I love that, I love it so much. When I think of your body of work and everything you've done, really leading this space for decades, right? You don't get the body of work you have by doing it yesterday. You have decades of leading this field. I wonder what your perspective is on something I encounter every day digitally or even in my own clinics, JJ, women coming in saying, Oh my God, Dr. Vonda, I am doing everything I think I'm supposed to be doing and she'll list it off, nine, 10, 20 things. Some days I just still don't feel like myself or I'm not as powerful or if they're using the language in mind powerful.

Walk me through how you approach women in your life like that because they're really trying hard.

JJ Virgin (3:18)

I know. We're trying so hard and I feel like for so many women, they've been given the wrong playbook.

Especially for those women 50 plus, you look at how we were raised and I'll tell you a little story about what happened for me that changed that for me. So I never bought into it. I had a brief buy-in and my body comp showed it. But we were raised on aerobics. We were raised on Jane Fonda. We were raised with Susan Powder saying, stop the insanity and don't eat fat. All this crazy stuff where we used cardio to burn calories.

I was taught in grad school, do not have people lift weights till they lose the weight. Can you imagine more incorrect advice than that? Yes. I mean, right?

Dr. Vonda Wright (4:10)

Well, because now I have people lift weights to lean up.

JJ Virgin (4:15)

Yeah, exactly. It's so obvious. But one day we will be able to actually measure, we'll actually really be able to measure skeletal muscle, but we'll be able to measure the fat within the muscle, and then we'll be able to see what's actually happening when you're doing this and how you are really leaning out, which right now we really can't do so well, but we can see women getting stronger, and I love the shift into powerful because even 10 years ago, my buddy Dr. Daniel Eamon wrote this book, and it was Unleash the Power of the Female Brain, and I remember telling him, I go, Daniel, women don't want to be powerful.