Aging Powerfully With Muscle Building, Nutrition, and Peptides with Dr. Eric Fete

Hey JJ Here. Every year around this time, I get the urge to make my home feel a little extra special. A space that feels just like the holidays. And Wayfair is my go to for that. Think cozy textures, twinkly decor, warm lighting, and all those little touches that make you want to curl up with a good book and a blanket. You'll usually find my books stacked on a great little end table I got from Wayfair, proof that function and style give can coexist. Now, whether you're adding last minute hosting essentials, picking out gifts for loved ones, or refreshing your decor for the season, Wayfair makes it easy with beautiful finds, great prices and fast delivery. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Plus, with free shipping for any order over $35, don't that's fast delivery and a total peace of mind. It's the perfect mix of joy and order, bringing the holiday spirit in, then storing it all with ease. If you're ready to make your home feel as good as it looks, get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair Every style Every home that's W A Y F A I R.com hey, it's JJ here. You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners. Those brighteners don't actually clean anything, they just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family sheets or skin. And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating and non sensitizing. I really like how simple it is and how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on your first order.

Ray Ban Meta glasses come with open ear audio so you can listen to your favorite music without blocking out the world around you.

Hey Meta, play Gorgeous.

Here's Gorgeous by Doja Cat. You can also ask Meta AI questions.

Hey Meta, when's Doja Cat's next concert?

Doja Cat is playing at the Los.

Angeles theater next Tuesday. Sweet Ray Ban Meta glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers.

Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome and thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. Here I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top people in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, health detox and lots more. So if you want to get healthy and get off the dieting for life merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better fast.

All right.

You know how much I love talking about muscle. I am determined to get it out there that we got to like forget the whole aging gracefully thing and that we, and especially we, us women need to be focused on building muscle. And I, and we, we gotta say all of us like I'm on my husband too for doing this and we go to the gym together. I'm like lift heavy weights. So you're gonna hear more about that today. I've got the fitness physician with me. I've got Dr. Eric Fate. He is the founder of Prime Xcellular nutrition and fitness and kind of was a recovering ER doc that went down the rabbit hole of age management and hormones and peptides and, and really landed on like a, you know, bottom line is all these things are fantastic and start with diet and exercise and I'm like, you're my man. So we're going to be digging into all that and talking a little bit about peptides. So you, if you haven't heard about them, you can under start the understanding of them. They're pretty cool. We've been using some of them. He is a graduate of Miami University. He's got a bachelor's in microbiology, his medical degree from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and he's certified by age by the age management medicine group in age management medicine. So very interesting conversation that's going to give you the whys you should be doing these things and some hows as well. I always like to make things super actionable and you will be able to grab his muscle growth guide@jjvirgin.com Doctoreric D R E R I C and I will be right back with Dr. Eric. So stay tuned. Hey, jj, Virgin here.

Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me. Travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things. And suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season. Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of your reset could be a real goal this time. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

Welcome to Walgreens.

What can I help you with today? Hi, I need a last minute gift for a secret Santa. Something thoughtful, impressive. Not a fruitcake.

We've got Ferrero chocolates, artisan coffees, even a spider spa kit. Any vibe you're going for?

Whatever says, wow, this guy's great at giving gifts.

How about this premium skincare gift set? Just needs a bow.

Will look like you planned it weeks ago.

Well, happy holidays, gifts, holiday decor and more. The holiday road is long. We're with you all the way.

Walgreens.

Dr. Eric Fett. Fate Feet. It's fate, right? It's fate.

Fate.

I'm super excited to have you here. I was like sniffing around on your website and I go a guy talking about Doc. Talking about building muscle for women over 40. Come on in. So happy to have you here.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate being on. Looking forward to it.

Sure.

So how'd you get interested in that specifically? Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, I'll give you the ab. Well, somewhat short story. So a long time ago, I was kind of on the other end of medicine. I was an ER doctor and I did that for many years. And I was kind of on the sick, sick care side of medicine model. Right. And I loved it. You know, it was great for some time, but I always had to, I was told by a wiser, older physician always to have a plan B. So I was always looking for other things. I've kind of had an entrepreneurial mindset, so I was always looking for that plan B. So. And then I kind of started seeing, you know, the people, you know, kind of what we're seeing now, the sick care model of medicine where people are just ill. And I saw a lot of people that were quite young and you know, on the laundry list of medications and disabled and having surgeries and all these things could have been prevented with a healthier lifestyle and some better choices and simple things. Instead of, you know, being disabled at 30 on a list of meds and getting surgery and you know, not able to exercise and having all these issues that a 90 year old person should be having. I thought, God, this could be prevented, shouldn't it? Right? So you know, and ER and surgery, it's great for when there's bad things happening, but for prevention and nutrition fitness, it's, it's kind of lacking. So I started looking into that a little bit, I deviated a bit. I was in a, I was doing some other things and like I had a partner, we did a, had a cosmetic surgical clinic. So we did a lot of varicose veins, aesthetics, skin care, botox fillers, started getting to like stem cell treatments where we do like utilizing PRP and stem cells for rejuvenation of joints, muscle, sexual dysfunction, things of that nature. And then I got into, you know, hormones, kind of branched off from there, started doing hormone optimization therapy and trained, learned, got certified, did a ton of training for that for years. And then I kind of branched off and got into the whole world of anti aging. That's when I got hooked up with the world of peptides. So I kind of combined my practice with some mix of things. So more kind of like the cellular medicine model. It's like a mix of functional medicine, personalized medicine, and just overall wellness medicine I guess. So kind of treating the body at the cellular level. So we use a mix of a base of nutrition, fitness, lifestyle medicine, of course, functional aspects. And then of course we get into the things like hormone optimization, peptide therapies, signaling molecules, small molecules, supplements and all that. So kind of combine that and you know, we try to get together with like, you go to Conferences, meet up, meet up, have mastermind groups with a bunch of other docs around the world. And, you know, we collaborate and it's just fun talking. We're always learning. As you know, there's a million things, you know, we're always learning. We never know it all. Every day I learn more and more what I don't know. So that's kind of how I got into it. And so my tagline is Dr. Eric, the fitness physician, the muscle doc. So I kind of focus on everything, but definitely on the fitness side, because I think a lot of people, as you mentioned, women especially, just kind of forget about muscle and they don't want to build muscle. And as we get older, we lose it. And it's not just for looks. It's an endocrine organ. And it's very important for not just function, but our longevity and our overall health and our metabolism. And if you can fix that, we can fix pretty much everything else. So that's kind of.

I'm giving you an amen there. This is like the biggest thing I've been out talking about is forget aging gracefully, age powerfully, and go lift some heavy weights. And even, you know, I started out as a. An exercise physiologist 35 plus years ago, and women were so afraid to lift weights because they'd get big. I'm like, you're not getting big, you're.

Not going to get big.

You know, way back then, God, Marion Nestle was at Tufts doing research, and she was like, every time women lift weights, they get smaller because it just hold it. I called it Metabolic Spanx. But I feel like that message is still not out there. In fact, you know, you still hear people say, well, if you want to lose weight, you should just do all the cardio first, lose the weight, and then put on the muscle. I'm like, no, you know, backwards. So I would love you to dig into this first of all. Why? Let's just start with the foundational basics. Because, you know, the fact that you're using, when you started to list all the things you did and you started first with fitness and nutrition had me jumping up and down. That's fantastic. But why is muscle so important?

So muscle is massively important. And it's the foundation, you know, we think of, you know, anytime. It's kind of like building a house. You have to start with the foundation. And everybody thinks, well, obviously your bones, right, but your muscles, you know, it's the framework of everything. And it's important, of course, structurally, to obviously enable you to move and function and exercise and live a good life, et cetera. But that's kind of where most people stop thinking about. They're like, oh, I just, I don't care. I'm okay. I don't want to get a, you know, bulky, bulging muscles. I don't need a six pack. It's. I'm fine where I'm at. But unfortunately, the reason it's so important is as we get older, we lose it. And a lot of people are like, as you mentioned, like, well, I need to lose weight. I know I want to live longer. I want to live better. Well, that's one of the keys, because sarcopenia or muscle loss is a massive key to aging well or aging not well. And if you have sarcopenia, you will. You're not going to age well, and you're going to get osteopenia or bone loss. Hip fracture, you fall, get hip fractures, lose your balance and fall and injure yourself and many other things. And on top of that, muscle is the. Is the largest endocrine organ in the body. It is massively involved with your overall metabolism. You know, again, women want to. And men want to lose weight. They want to improve their blood sugar metabolism. Everybody's worried about insulin resistance. Everybody's talking about fasting and diabetes and blood sugar. Well, muscle is intimately involved with that. If you. The more muscle you have, the better you're going to be in that regard. You're going to improve your insulin sensitivity, shuttle blood sugar so you can eat your carbs, and it goes to your muscle. It doesn't go to your belly and go to your liver where it's not supposed to go. And you can eat the things you want to eat. You don't have to be on a starvation diet. You can eat well and fuel those muscles. So instead of focusing on getting smaller, focus on building up your muscles, and then everything else will fall into place.

Amen. I love hearing that so much. It's. You know, when you look at this, if you just. I want to reframe the way we look at scales, because I know there was that, the little card. I don't know if you saw it, Eric, that came out that people could hand to their doctor that said, don't weigh me, it triggers me. And I thought, you know, no one would walk into their doctor and say, don't take my blood pressure. It triggers me. Or, don't take my. Don't do a blood test. It triggers me. And the fact that we've got, like, we are missing what we're getting there as information. And I think, I think the big challenge is I think of total weight, like total cholesterol, not meaningful, no reason. Like, what do you do with that information? And if we could instead have people go in, get on a scale, identify both visceral adiposity. Where's that? Where's the, with the bad fat hanging out around your organs and then muscle mass, fat free mass, and really focus on getting optimal fat free mass first. Just like what you just said, it would change everything because everyone's. You hear all the time, I need to boost my metabolism. Like, well then put on muscle.

Put on muscle, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. It's costly. You want expensive, you want to have an expensive body and muscle is expensive. It's going to use a lot of calories to stay on there. And just like you said, and I was just interviewing my friend, Dr. Beverly H. She's like, muscle's just a blood sugar sponge. So it's a way better place for you to be able to store carbs than to have to turn it into fat and store it on your belly. Wouldn't you rather have it in there stored for energy to use next time?

Yeah, everybody wants to lose weight and they dread going on a diet because then I have to give this up and get that. Well, if you train your muscles, you don't have to give it up. You can have your cake and eat it too, literally and be fine and actually look better.

I remember early on I was reading a research, I was in grad school, it was like probably 30 years ago and they were doing, and everything back then was about long slow distance. You had to do at least 30 minutes of cardio. Otherwise don't bother because you wouldn't get the fat burning zone. All this ridiculous, ridiculous, damaging stuff that was coming out and that you had to create this caloric deficit and all these things in the first. There are two studies that came out and they couldn't explain either one. And I think now in the light of day, they're pretty obvious. One of them showed that people who tried to maintain their weight by aerobic exercise alone, like if they skipped a day of aerobic exercise, what would happen? They gained weight, right, because they'd, they were losing muscle, not building it by doing all that long slow distance aerobics. And then if they didn't do it for a day, their body was so used to using that amount of calories and that's the amount of calories they ate. And guess what? They gained weight. And then they did Another study where they gave people, they had two different groups. One was supposed to exercise 30 minutes a day in one fell swoop. The other was supposed to do it in three sets, 10 minutes each. And the three sets, people improved across the board. They lost weight, they had better heart rate, cardiovascular fitness. And what they discovered was those people that were doing the 10 minutes, well, you either did 30 or you didn't do it at all. But the 10 minute people were doing it harder.

Yeah, right.

So, I mean, it's pretty clear information out there. So how important is it, like, in terms of putting on muscle and really thinking, I think the way to flip this and reframe it. I love what Peter Attia talks about when he talks about the centenarian decathlon and like, training for how you want to be when you're 100 and what activities you want to be able to do. Like, how important is it to be focused on this in your 40s, 50s, and 60s?

Yeah, very much so. The younger, the better. Kind of, you know, finishing off on the topic we were just discussing, the last part that kind of ties into this is that with muscles, it's, as we mentioned, about the metabolism, but muscles also secrete a lot of myokines, which are those cytokines that are produced by the muscle, which have numerous benefits on the body, such as bdnf, brain dried neurotrophic factor, which helps with the brain prevention, cognitive dysfunction, helps bones stay strong, help produce, produces cytokines like IL6, et cetera, that could be helpful for metabolism and handling insulin, handling blood sugar, helps with liver health and so many other things that unless you're stimulating that muscle and growing that muscle, you're not going to get those myokines and then your entire health is going to suffer. So all these things that people are worried about, getting a fatty liver, you know, getting Alzheimer's or getting fat or getting a weak hip, you know, those are going to happen. So again, and the further along yet that path, you are, the hardest can be to gain that back. So if you can start focusing on this, the earlier, the better.

Now, right now, right now, wherever you are, not tomorrow. Now, I've worked too long in diet pills or in diet, you know, the diet world. And it's like, if I say tomorrow, I know what happens.

Nothing.

But I think that that's really important to. To note that, like, you do not want to put this off at all. I was looking at some research that was showing kind of the co. The risk people have 65 plus in terms of Accidents and what happens when they break a hip and what happens when they fall. And. And some of those signatures of, like, longevity or the ability to. To, like, stand and balance on one leg. I did it this morning in yoga and, you know, being able to get up off the floor, how important these things are that we just don't. You don't think about till it's too late. I used to work in Palm Springs, and I remember a woman came to me in her 80s, and she. Her whole reason she wanted to work out was so she could wear her high heels and go up and down the stairs. And I'm like, that's awesome. You know, that's what motivates me. Yep. Wish we thought about it a little bit sooner. So what are your big tips then? Since, you know, clearly we want to build muscle and that will help have stronger bones and it will help, like, with brain health big time and all these things. What are your tips then for working out? Like, what's the regimen?

Well, as you know, there's a million regimens, you know, so it's just a question finding what works for you. But in today's crazy society, I always start with the foundational stuff, right? You know, sleep and stress. I call it the double S. Like the superhero. You know, you got to get that your recovery, your sleep and stress dialed in. Because if you're stressed out and you're only sleeping five, six hours, it doesn't matter what kind of workout regimen you're going to suffer. So we got to, you know, you got to. I always tell everybody, train hard, but recover harder, you know, so focus on your recovery. Get your. Get your. All your ducks in a row, make sure you're sleeping, et cetera. And that takes time and it takes work. And then start hitting it. And you know, for me, the simpler the better. So, you know, if someone's new, that's a whole protocol versus someone who's experienced. But as you mentioned earlier, just hit the waist, lift some heavy shit like you talked about. Um, just get in and do a basic strength training protocol. Something very simple. Maybe just start out with a whole body routine, three day, two, three days a week, and walk, you know, the rest of the days, and then slowly sprinkle in some other yummy goodness.

Like, for, like, if someone just starting out, like, and just going in, they would, like, go into the gym. Not like, they go, I don't know what you're talking about. So, like, just a basic. What are some of the basic things that you would. You would have them do like you'd recommend for them.

Yeah, so if they're like a total newbie, you know, just start them out, you know, again, depending on their overall health and any health issues. But, you know, walk every day, you know, everybody knows that, right? Just walk every day. And then maybe I start them out like two days a week. You know, just do a basic strength, a push, a pull a leg kind of thing. Okay, get on the ground. I'll show you how to do a push up. Or if you have a gym, go do some type of pressing movement, do some type of pulling movement, like a row, do some like a pull down or probably won't be able to do a chin up. So get on the machine and do a pull down, you know, and then a hinge or a squat type movement. All they can do is squat up and down with their body weight. If that's all they can do, that's a good place to start. And then slowly add the weight and just build from there. Start with this, keep it as super simple, otherwise they're not going to do it right.

Well, here's what you said that's really important because I find people, you'll see people in the gym and you see them doing bicep curls and then they'll go do like calf raises. But I'm like, stop that. Those are the vanity ones that if you have time at the end and you're like, want to finish the podcast you're listening to, go ahead. But the big focus should be these multi joint exercises. So you talked about pushing and pulling and hip hinging and so a simple thing like a push up that if you had to, you could start against the wall, then go to a bench, right. Then go on your bent knees. Like you can just keep changing it up till you can do it on the floor, on your toes. And it might take six months to get there, it's fine. And then you talked about a pull down or a ben or a row, which is another fantastic one. I love bent over rows because they mimic so many things. Like there's so many times in life you have to bend over and grab something and you know, and I love the fact that you really talked about things that were not machine based, that they were free based because then you pull in the balance part too, and much more of your core. Because I had a friend say this once, he goes, yeah, we're not bolted to the floor. So like, you know, but you get so much more bang for your metabolic buck when you go do exercises using either cables or free weights or body weight. And you're doing multi joint movements because you're crossing, you're pulling in more muscles. So love all that. Are you telling like in terms of how many repetitions, that kind of stuff. What's your advice there?

Yeah, for sure. So compound movements like you mentioned are the key. You know, it's building that. Not just building muscles, but getting stronger. As you mentioned, the longevity studies indicate loss of strength, you know, spirals down even faster than loss of muscle size. And that correlates with longevity, you know, grip strength picking, like you mentioned, getting off the ground. So those big compound movements are great. And again, start with something simple. Maybe just do two, three sets of five to six reps, you know, or five to seven reps somewhere in that strength kind of borderline quote unquote hypertrophy range. You know, we all know we can get hypertrophy with any rep range, any weight, depending on how, how many you do. But I think for overall strength, you know, a lot of people talk about like the five by five protocol or doing three sets of eight, three sets of ten, something like that. Totally fine. Wherever you can start with. And as you mentioned, I like to do something they can do anywhere where they have access to a gym. Oh, I don't have a gym membership. Okay, well, you can do it at home, right? You push up. You can grab a heavy paint can or something and do a row, right? So just start simple, you know, do two or three sets of, you know, 10 reps, you know, keep it simple and then kind of build from there. And then I'll, I'll talk to him about, you know, mixing it up. You know, do high reps, low reps, different, you know, mixing up, undulating, periodization, things like that. So just start, just start and then we'll build.

The holidays are all about family, but at the Chrysler Wrap up the year sales event, it's all about you. Enjoy every mile in the most awarded minivan in America. The Chrysler Pacifica with the most standard safety features in its class, Available stow n go seating and the available stow and back built in vacuum. Make the most of the holidays with a great deal at the Chrysler Pacifica Wrap up the year sales event based on Ward's small van segment. Based upon the latest available competitor information, Chrysler is a registered trademark of FCA US llc.

Tell you one thing I got to be a big fan of. That I think was the biggest solution during the pandemic that probably got ignored is those TRX trainers.

Yeah, those are Great.

Those are like. That is now my solution if I'm traveling and I don't know where I'm going because especially during the pandemic, you'd go somewhere and the gym would be closed. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

What do I do now?

Yeah, yeah, it's like, now what do I do? So this TRX trainer, if you haven't seen this, this is a great thing that you can travel with. They're amazing. Yeah. So I have one hanging out on my tree. I have one in my home gym so that I can. And I use it at the gym too. So you can do a lot to mess around with that because you do want to keep mixing it up. Now let's talk because, you know, you always hear that your biceps are built in the kitchen. So let's talk about how now fitness and nutrition, you know, get together here to make a difference and what you're seeing, especially in terms of looking at, you know, building muscle and longevity. What you recommend?

Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest thing is, you know, again, I like to keep it simple, just whole food diet and as you know, like, I think we talked about this when we first jumped on a lot of people, men included, but definitely women just don't eat enough darn protein to build the muscle. And that's crucial. You got to have the, you got to have the foundation, you got to have the building blocks to build it. So, you know, whole foods based diet, you know, keep it super simple, you know, you know, load up your plate with some vegetables and a big slab of meat and maybe a side of something else, you know, some healthy fats and you're good to go. So a lot of people, you know, I get full, I can't eat that much protein. So I love, not that I'm a, you know, a meal replacement guy, but if you need to, I think protein shakes are a great way to supplement protein.

I'm a huge protein shake person. I think they are the best thing to start, especially women off in the.

Yeah, it's so easy to do first.

Meal and you know, the more I'm looking, I just listen to, you know, Gabrielle Lyons mentor, trying to remember his name. But he talked about really bookending your protein and those the first meal and the last meal being the most important really for, you know, especially that morning one triggering mtor which we should talk about. And I just find a protein shake and then adding in, you know, some extra collagen is just a good way to ensure, especially for women that they get what they need.

Yeah, protein shakes are awesome for women because, you know, they don't like eating a big huge 10 ounce ribeye, you know.

Well, I do, but three times a day.

Some women do. Yeah, my wife does. So, yeah, doing a protein shake. I love them. I think they're great and they can be supplement and they can be helpful for fat loss too, depending on how you time it. But it's just an easy way to slam a couple of those throughout the day. And if you do it right, you can be halfway to your goals and then you add in your meals and it makes it so much easier.

So what are you doing for protein recommendations? Because it's so interesting in the nutrition world because if you look at what's out there, pretty much people don't talk about protein. It's just a static thing. The only argument on protein is whether it's plant based or animal. And then everything is the fight over how much carbs and fat. And I'm like, you know, really, I think everything should be built around protein. Like first proteins first, you build around that. And so you won't get like, you won't not be able to eat your protein because you ate your protein and veggies first, whatever else you can fit in great. But that's the important thing. So what are your recommendations on protein? How much should someone have?

Yeah, so you know, what you, what people typically talk about is, you know, gram, you know, per pound of body weight. Right. And of course that's based on your lean body mass. And again, you talk to someone, especially a woman, they're like, oh my God, that's a lot of protein. So, you know, I think some of the other, here's some of the studies have come out showing you can dial it down to a little bit, maybe to 0.8.9, you know, gram per pound. So you convert that to kilograms, you know that typical 1.7 to 2.1 grams per kilogram if you want to convert into kilograms. But they've done a lot of studies on, especially for fat loss and you're dialing up even higher, you're going up to two and a half, almost three grams per kilogram, especially for fat loss. So if you're, if you could do it and you're definitely going to be supplementing protein shakes because that's a lot of protein. So. But again, keep it simple. You know, if you just shoot for that gram per pound, that's an easy number. Most people are not going to hit that. But if you can get damn close to it, then that's, that's a good place to start. And then build everything else around that. Keep it simple.

Well, and here's what's easy about that, is if you start there and build around it rather than do it as the, you know, so often it was like your protein should be the deck of cards. It's like the condiment. I'm like, well, what if it was the main. It was the star of the show. Right, right, right. It should be the star of the show. And I mean the research is pretty darn clear with it. And especially, and there's two things I'd love to talk about is especially with what happens as we age with anabolic resistance and then with that first meal and really triggering MTOR and the issue with MTOR and potentially plant based proteins. So anabolic resistance, what's your take on that and what we need to do there? Just push more protein or what?

Yeah, it's funny, I just did like a multi part video and podcast on anabolic resistance, so.

Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

All right. Check out my podcast, my YouTube channel. I put it on there. But I did like multiple videos. But in a nutshell, yes, I think number one, as with everything is just prevention. Right. It's not just a, you know, gorge fest. Eat, you know, tons of protein and a whole pizza and just eat as much as you can. That's where a lot of especially guys get into trouble. They're, they're, they're doing their, their bulking phase, right. And then they eat too much and then you get some issues in the cell and you get issue in the liver, you get. And then it spirals out of control.

So I think, and we're talking about women, we're talking about having 8 to 10 ounces of wild salmon instead of 4 to 6.

Right.

You know, they're not having salmon on a pizza.

Just so, you know, women, I think not to have much of a problem with this. It's usually the guys that are trying to bulk, you know, the bodybuilder dude. So yeah, I think just playing, playing smart as we talked about, make, make the protein the cornerstone. Make sure you're getting all your other nutrients with, you know, big slab, you know, big, big piece of meat, you know, your vegetables and balancing it out. And in terms of mtor, you know.

Well, wait, wait, let's just, just because I threw it out there and I realized I didn't define it. Define what? Anabolic res. Audience. So they understand why they need to do this.

Yeah. So basically what can happen is if you overdo it and eat too darn much or too much of the wrong things, what can happen is your body doesn't like that very much. You get, you tend to start putting on weight and then you kind of get into a plateau where you're not putting, you are putting on weight, but now you're starting to put a lot of fat in addition to muscle. And then your workouts aren't. You're kind of stagnating and you're getting flat and you're getting tired and you're like, what's going on here? I'm eating more, I should be working hard. And you're not. And you start getting fat and you're getting tired. So basically your body is telling you like, whoa, slow down, dude. You're. You're put on the brakes. You're getting. Eating too many calories. You're not recovering enough. There's other reasons too. And then it starts to accumulate. You get too much, basically caloric intake, and you're starting to spill it into your liver. You're getting a fatty liver. It's spilling into your cells. So the bottom line is it's basically, you're kind of think of it as overstuffing your pillow. You're getting way too much in there and your body's just telling you to slow the heck down and back it off a little bit.

Yeah, And I don't think most, most women do this. The one important thing for us women to understand is that unless you are just starting out, you're not fit at all. But once you've been working out for a while, you either have a choice. You're either building muscle or you're losing fat, but you're not doing the both together. So when you're putting on muscle, you are going to increase your intake some, especially a protein, and you might see your weight go up a little bit. And for a woman, that is a freak out. Like so. But here's the big important thing. And I say this. I'm working on my next book, Eric. So I started messing around with this and I knew I wanted to put on a little bit more muscle and I watched my weight go up and, and then I had to do have this whole mental game of like. And I have a $5,000 bioimpedance scale at home. So I was like testing everything, but I'm like, it's still the, the mental thing that we women have. You know, my clothes are looser you know, but so it's really important for you to understand that you're, you're probably going to have to up your calories, up your protein. You may see your weight come up a little bit and quite often your weight comes up and your clothes size goes down. Right. But if, but even if you wanted to say lose overall weight, I always said you want to lose weight or size. Because if you want to get your clothing size down, it might require adding a little bit of weight, more muscle, but then it will also adjust. But the first focus would be muscle. So there's that. Let's talk mtor.

Yeah, so MTOR is great. Everybody thinks of it as a double edged sword, right? Because you can have too much MTOR stimulation. So MTOR is just one of these many cellular processes inside the cell that triggers muscle growth. Now MTOR is involved in other things in the cell too. Cell proliferation, differentiation, meaning making your cells do what they're supposed to do, build, grow, heal, recovery. It's involved in other metabolic functions too. There's actually two, two subtypes of mtor, but that, not going to get into that. But the basic mtor, what most people think of, yes, muscle growth. And then of course you hear the other side that oh my gosh, MTOR is bad, you're going to get cancer, you're going to have all these bad things happen to you. Which, yeah, if you go crazy, you can. But a very nice easy way to do it is again, everything is balanced, right? If you balance everything out and you have your recovery cycles and you're not going through these constant feeding bulking cycles, you're going to be fine. And you mentioned collagen. I love collagen. Because it used to be that, okay, we got to do some protein restriction or take days where you're not eating a lot of protein to balance it out. You don't have to do that. And if you just do collagen and get those other amino acids, it's going to balance out that excess of methionine, which is the most common amino acid in meats and protein powders that's going to cause MTOR stimulation. And you can get a balance of that and get all the longevity benefits without that excessive mtor. So you're going to get the best of both worlds. So again with everything, it's all about the balance. So if you're doing what we talked about, you're going to be fine. And you have to stimulate MTOR to grow muscle. You absolutely have to.

Right. And you're Cycling it, you don't eat, you know, you have a great overnight fast, then it comes down, then you eat, then you do a workout, you have some protein, it comes up, it helps you build muscle. So I think it's important, like with everything, too much insulin, bad, too much, no insulin, you're done. You know, so all these things we, we need, it's really important. And you talked about at the beginning of this, you talked about recovery. So I'd like to circle back to that because I feel like that's still kind of a missing piece that people as they tend to start to get into working out, it's like more is better. It's like, well, no, not really, you know, so, like, what's your recommendation here on. And you talked about some sleep and like, how does someone know if they're really getting good sleep? What, what are you doing on the stress side? What are your recommendations for recovery?

Yeah, that's a huge topic. We could talk for hours about this, actually. I just, I'm getting ready to launch a whole lifestyle course I'm going to have. And I'm dealing with all these things one by one, too. So that's good. Perfect timing. But yes, I always tell everybody as I talked about, you know, train harder, recover harder. I mean, and it's so easy to not do that. I mean, I've worked with a lot of trainers and very well known, you know, social media celebrities who are fitness trainers are known all over the country. And, you know, there's a couple that I worked with that they themselves, you know, I coached and I helped, I worked with them and they were over training and I had to pull them back. And they know better, right? We all know better, but we can still do it. So it's. If they're doing it, mom, and you know, Joe, and Joe and Sally in the gym are probably doing it too. So, yes, the mantra especially, you know, here in America, we're always like, go harder, harder, harder, harder, Right? Work out more, work out more. Go to Orange theory, go do CrossFit sleep four hours, go do it again. Right? And that just. You're going to hit a wall. So I think, especially if you're starting out, just make sure you're recovering, you know, take it, work out hard, take the next day, offer something easy, just alternate, just keep it simple, you know, and if the other thing I tell people is just go by and it's hard to learn, right? But you have to learn how to listen to your body. And it's so hard to do because okay, today is whatever leg day, and I have it in my head. But if you. If you didn't sleep good the night before, you're stressed, you got in a fight with your spouse and you're just not feeling it, well, you'll know and don't do it. Do something else. Don't push through and. Or if you start a workout and within the first five minutes you're not feeling better, you're starting to feel worse, then you need to stop or do something else. You need to learn to listen to your body. And that's that whole autoregulation, and that's hard. It takes practice. I mean, I still catch myself doing that. I'm like, oh, I'm going to do this. I have this workout in my head.

Do it anyway.

I'm going to do it. No, no, no, no. Practice switch breach. Listen, dude, you're not feeling it, you know, or something.

Well, what's great is I was like, I don't know if you. I was trying to see if you had an aura ring on, but I kind of tag team my Oura ring and my Apple watch. And they'll tell. Now you have to listen to them because they'll say, hey, looks like you, like, need to take a rest day today. And I'm like, you might think so, but I'm not doing it.

But I'm not listening to your ring.

Yeah, you be quiet. I'm shutting the app off. But it is good to see that because it will be like, oh, yeah, okay, I'll just lighten my load today or do something easier. And I. And I think, you know, that's. It's a big shout out for why we need to mix things up. My husband and I have incorporated. I'm not going to say I like this, okay. Because I do not. But we do hot yoga. We do hot yoga twice a week when we're in town. I literally count the minutes. I go, oh, I'm 10 minutes in. I'm one sixth of the way through. It's a whole mental game. Like, I'm, you know, but it's so, you know, it's like, but the more we can do different things as well than just lift, I'll default and go throw heavy weights around all day long. And then I, you know, it's like the sign.

You need more of that. Right? You know, that's. My wife is the same way. She hates yoga because she can't turn this off up here. I'm like, that's why you need it.

Because you need to exactly. I got yelled at in yoga. In fact, they put a sign on the door now. So I'm in yoga and I had the best idea and I thought I'm going to forget it. And I had this whole inner dialogue going on. I'm gonna forget it. No, you won't forget it. And so I'll just, I'll just make a little note. She won't see. Get grab my phone to make this little note and shirt like she had 6th cents beelines over to me. Put your phone down. You know, And I was like going, now there's a little sign on the door. No cell phones. I go, God, really?

So now you did it.

But I have ideas. She's like, bring a notepad. I'm like, what is the difference? She said notepad in the cell phone. It's still the same, still the same stuff. Yeah, it's, it's, it is exactly that. You tell your wife, that's why she needs it. She has to do it.

Fair enough.

All right, perfect. I, I would love to address one more thing and it's just, we'll just kind of touch on it because I think it's a really fascinating area is this area of peptides and, and what peptides can do. And I just love you to just give quick primer on what the heck are peptides? You know, someone looking into them. What, what might they be looking for? What are some of the opportunities for someone with peptides in terms of recovery, anti aging, all of that.

Peptides are great. Yeah. As I mentioned, I got into that after I combined that with the hormones as needed as I try to fix everything naturally and anything that's free or cheap. We'll start with that lifestyle and training and then we'll add on the other stuff.

Well, don't you agree? I see. I think that you should not be allowed. I think unless you do diet and exercise, you don't get to have the hacks. Like to me, biohacking should only be. And once you're doing diet and exercise and sleep and stress management, then, then you can start to do it. But it's absolutely ridiculous. It's like, you know, you wouldn't go bring an old broken down car in and say, I know the engine's not gonna work, but let's just give it a really great paint job. That would be stupid. So the classic high horse.

No, you're absolutely right because I get guys who, you know, women too, but guys are like, you know, they want to, you know, get better and they're Asking about testosterone, I'm like, why are you telling about your sleep? Are you working out something about your diet? Because I just tell them, I said, look, if you're going to sit on the couch all day, McDonald's not work out and you want testosterone to get big muscles, I'm not your guy. It's not going to work. I'm telling you right now, it's not going to work. So no, I laid down the law, trust me. So, yeah, peptides. But sometimes there are people who are very metabolically ill, for lack of a better word, who sometimes they're so bad or broken the metabolically they need that to just to get them into the gym. So sometimes I will start them on a hormone or peptide just to get them feeling better and then they'll start working out and then it's a beautiful cycle and it starts building on itself. But a lot of times again, yeah, start with the foundation and build. And usually hormonal is the issue first, especially with women who will come to me wanting to lose weight or having thyroid issues or pcos. It's huge. As you know, it's a big problem. So start with that. Peptides are a great additional strategy and there are so many out there that we can use that do so many different things. So they're signaling molecules, they're protein molecules. Just think of them as a truncated or a short protein molecule. I always tell it give the analogy of insulin. Everybody knows what insulin is. Well, insulin's a peptide. It's a protein molecule. It's one of the first ones that was discovered back in the 20s. So these peptides are now we make them in our body. So basically what we've done is just basically make them in the lab, just like we make testosterone and thyroid hormone. And they can be used to enhance the body's functions in various ways. So there's. They act mostly as signaling molecules. They do different things in the cell to get them to work. So and there's a bunch. So the most, probably the couple of the most common ones that I use are the. Is a recovery healing peptide called BPC157 and another one that's. There's a couple like examples. CJC and epamorelin are two examples of. I always call it the growth hormone peptides. So because everybody knows what growth hormone is, you know, back in. Been around forever, you know, back in the 80s, all the big stars were using it to get lean and put on muscle, et cetera. So. And growth hormone habits has its place. But it's harder to use. It's a little bit more expensive, a little. Few more side effects. So the peptides can stimulate your body to release more of its own growth hormone. We make plenty of it even in our old age, but we just can't release it. So it gets it to release it in at the right time in the right circadian fashion to enhance its benefits. But it has benefits on the body other than just the growth hormone, which, you know, I can get into later. But basically the whole point of it is to get the body to heal, to grow, to get the cell functioning at the cellular level, to get the tissues functioning better, which is going to get the organs working better and then your body's going to be working better. So again, it's like as I mentioned, building that house. So the peptides are a great way to enhance certain functions and to do specific actions. Like for example, some people have gut issues, leaky gut issues, or all these. It's prevalent nowadays, can heal the gut. Others can be helpful for healing. As I mentioned with the bpc, can heal soft tissue injuries, gut issues, gut inflammation, acid reflux. There's other that are helpful for brain function, enhancing brain function. If I have like a professional athlete or a shooter, someone who really needs to have that, that calm brain but focused brain. And there's peptides that can help with that or they can be helpful for prevention of brain cognitive issues. Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's and things like this. So the peptides are a great addition to our stacks of whether using nutraceuticals or hormones and everything to basically enhance the body and to get some of those goals achieved that we just can't get with just the basics. Yeah.

And it seems like long term, although we'll see if this can happen. They really replace the need for a lot of these pharmaceuticals.

Yes.

We'll see if the companies let that happen.

Big pharma's on its hair right now to try to get rid of them all and get rid of more. Oh, I know they don't want us being healthy. They want their pills and sick medicine. And it's scary and it's sad. That's all. At the same time, it's a lot of economics and politics. Which is uncomfortable. Yeah.

Which is ridiculous. That there is politics and health. But we've certainly seen it over the last couple years. What I love is getting back to the basics and showing how the basics can make such a profound difference is so especially as we're aging. So thank you for all that and I know you're going to gift everyone a guide on muscle growth. So I'm going to put that at. I don't even think we've had a Dr. Eric yet. So I'm going to put jjvirgeon.com Dreric D R E R I C and we'll put it there so everyone can grab it and then they'll be able to learn more about you too. There you go. Dr. Eric, the fitness physician. And for those of you in Ohio, you can pop over and see him. And I think you've got courses online too, don't you?

I do have courses online. I'm going to be launching my lifestyle, cellular nutrition and fitness course and then we go on a new telemedicine program as I do a lot of telemedicine, but one specifically as I mentioned, for women and fat loss.

Nice.

All the other stuff that I do for men and women. So@doctor Mex.com is my website. So happy to help anyone.

We will put that all into the show notes. It sounds like you're in a bowling alley over there by the way.

Oh really?

Yeah. I was like, what is going on over there?

The wind is picking up out here. You can see, see all this? Ah.

I was like, huh, something's going on. It's like literally where is.

I'm outside. I'm at home right now. I came outside because I didn't want my dogs to bark in the middle of the show.

And then the bowling started. Okay, so Perfect. Again, it's JJVirgin.com Dr. Eric and thank you so much for hanging out with me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It was a lot of fun.

Okay, so eat more protein, lift heavy weights. That's my mantra for today. And make sure that you recover, recover even more than you lift. And I'll tell you when you're lifting heavy weights, you need the recovery. So my workout routine now really is heavy weights. Then I'll rotate in some easy cardio and walking and I'll rotate in. I do hit training swells, you know, and I rotate in some hot yoga. Shout out to camp yoga in Tampa. I have a love hate relationship with you but pretty amazing place. And so those are the things that you're going to want to be doing and incorporating in. And again, you can get that muscle growth guide@jjvirgin.com d r e r I c Dr. Eric. And if you've not yet subscribed to the show, make sure you do so you do not miss anything. Subscribe to JJ.com. see you next time.

Hello listeners. This is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.