[Beginnings & Breakthroughs] Breaking Free From Foods That Hurt You With Laura Spisek

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People just like you who are on.

A mission to heal their metabolisms, feel better fast, and live their best lives. We will be walking through what's worked for them and what they've discovered on their journeys. And then I'll coach them on their next best steps. And if you're interested in being a guest, stay tuned. And I'll be sharing how you can join me, too. All right, I will be right back with our awesome guest. I am super excited to introduce Laura to you. Laura had found the virgin diet. She grew up a junk food junkie. We were sharing our mutual. I grew up eating Pop tarts and Captain Crunch. There. Now you know my dirty secret. And so she really had no clue what eating healthy was like. And she went on the virgin diet, changed everything, and then kept refining it over the years, which she'll share how she's done that. And so now we're just. She's got this great foundation laid, but some shifts happened. Sounds like probably because of menopause, could have been because of thyroid and to her cholesterol levels. So we're digging into what you need to do to really identify your challenges with cholesterol, where it's coming from, what the problems are, how much at risk you are. And then we're also looking at shifting her exercise a little bit because you'll hear her obsession with pickleball. So some simple tweaks again, the little hinges that swing big doors we're making here, that will make a big change in her. And. And so I'm excited to introduce Laura to you. And by the way, if you would like to either be on the program where I will coach you, or you're shy and you would like to just submit what's going on with you and then I can address it. Either one works well. Right? We're all in. You know, wherever you are, meet you where you're at. All you need to do is go to jjvirgin.com signup and we will be.

In touch with you.

All right, hang on. And I will bring Laura on foreign. Hey, it's J.J. here.

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All right, Laura, welcome to the show. Super thrilled to have you with me.

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

So I read all your stuff and it looks like I have helped to recover a junk food junkie.

Yes, absolutely. I grew up in a household where we really did not eat the healthiest of foods.

Like what? What was it? What was it like?

Oh, well, you know, devil dogs before dinner and Twinkies and cupcakes and, you know, just anything that was really quick and easy to grab. I think I met somebody once who called, said that I was on a Pop Tart diet because.

Wow. But what people don't know, Laura, about me is that my nickname growing up was Poppy. And it was Poppy not for the flower. I was growing up in California. Nope. It was not for the California Poppy. It was for the Pop Tarts because I ate Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning if I wasn't having Captain Crunch. So isn't it like, somehow we survived this? All right, so you did that. And at what point did that all seem to catch up with you?

Well, it was really, after I had my children that I started to lose control of my weight, and I continually gained, and I wasn't as active as I had been in my earlier years, so I wasn't able to keep up with it. So I started to really gain a lot of weight at that time, and I really. I didn't have the tools that I needed in order to figure out how to deal with it, because I just never. I didn't know what I didn't know having grown up, you know, the way that I did.

And it is one thing that I think, you know, I get parents that go, how do I help my kids eat healthy? I go, you eat healthy. You know, it's. And you're. And what you're showing is just an example of that. Like, you know, if you eat healthy, that's what your kids know. And sure, they might go and get, like, some ice cream or pizza here and there, but if the majority of it's healthy, that's what they're used to. That's what they go for. Right. So exposure equals preference versus if you're used to Pop Tarts and Captain Crunch, it's a different story. So. So I know that you found the Virgin Diet and that, like, helped you get through this.

What.

What happened as you went through that program? What did you learn?

Well, what I learned was that I actually was attracted to the Virgin Diet because it was an elimination diet. And I felt that there was probably some foods that were not agreeing with me. And I did not know how to go about doing an elimination diet until I read your whole book. And it just made so much sense. So I was so geared up after reading the book that I couldn't wait to start. And I started. I followed it to the letter for 21 days. I dropped all seven high five foods, and I lost, I think, like, had to be 15, 20 pounds, maybe even more than that.

Holy smokes.

Yeah. The thing was, I do remember in the first week, I think I lost, like, eight pounds.

Yeah. And, you know, here it is. When I used to work a lot with people, one on one, I'd kind of score their diet going in. And my thinking was, well, if they're getting a D, like, if we can just bump them to a B, it's going to be miraculous. And that probably was what happened there is. You were so used to eating all this processed food and inflammatory food. It was like your body just went, whoa.

Oh, absolutely. My energy level skyrocketed. It was. It made a huge difference in my energy level as well, and then I started going through each of the different foods and reintroducing them into my diet. And I did have reactions to them and really strange reactions. But I did learn how my body was reacting to them and realized that it does make a difference.

Yes.

So that helped me actually to continue to stay on it and go through the maintenance phases and continue with it was because I started to realize how much the food was affecting me.

Nice. And that is really the point of it. I would love to get into our diet culture that you use a diet short term therapy therapeutically to learn things, to learn what works for you, what doesn't. You might find that the diet didn't work for you. That's great. That's information you store in and go, oh, like, and eating a low fat six times a day diet doesn't make me feel good, like, or whatever the information is. So it is really connecting those dots. So now you're here and take us up to like, where are you now and where do you want to go from here? Like, what's your next, what are your next big goals or concerns? Okay.

Well, you know, beyond the first time that I did start the diet, which was well over 10 years ago, I did bounce around a little bit with my weight.

You mean you're human?

Yes. So every time, you know, like, I found myself at a higher weight and I started to feel unhealthy, I would jump back onto the virgin diet and start over again. And it was the easiest thing for me to do because I already knew how to do it. But every time I did it, I improved on what I did last time. So I was able to find more foods that were working for me and I would learn more, more about what I could and couldn't eat, how much of it I could eat to maintain, et cetera. So it's been a gradual learning experience over the years. And at this point I have found that, you know, I'm able to pretty much maintain. I have a much better idea of what I'm eating. But there are some challenges that, you know, I come up against where I, you know, have, I have a high cholesterol right now. I need to lower.

Is that new, your high cholesterol?

That is fairly new, yes. And I am working on getting more fiber into my diet, but in some ways I'm not even sure how to do that because we'll talk about traditional methods are very small amounts of fiber and it just doesn't make enough of an impact.

Well, that's not going to be the only thing that's not the only thing. When did your cholesterol shift and what else shifted?

Actually, you know, like, all of my other blood work seemed fine. It was. How old are you cholesterol? I'm 58.

Okay, so did it shift when you went through menopause or did it shift before?

Actually, I think that that had a lot to do with it because I just went through menopause and it's about six months later that my cholesterol was.

There are two things that are. That could be at play here, and then I'm going to give you the actual labs you're going to want to look at, and I'm going to give you some very specific things to do. So two, you know, there's two big levers that can impact your cholesterol. If it's been fine and then all of a sudden it's wonky. One is your thyroid function. If you're hypothyroid, and by the way, if you're doing traditional lab markers, you can be hypothyroid and look like your normal range because they're basing it off of, you know, an average population, and only 5% of our population in the United States is metabolically healthy. So you can see the problem there. So you've got low thyroid function, can absolutely impact, will start to raise your cholesterol and specifically raise LP apob, which we're going to talk about those markers as what's important to look at. The other thing that can lower, that can raise cholesterol is when your estrogen drops. So if you aren't doing bioidentical hormone replacement and you go through menopause, you will see that your cholesterol may go up. And if it does, then we have to. Because that's what I always want to know. What's. Is this a change in diet? Was there a lot of stress? You know, change in lifestyle? Did you go through menopause? Is there anything going on with your thyroid? Those are all the things that can impact, right? Because first we want to know why this has happened. Now, you know, we can tighten up your diet. And there's some things I'm going to teach you on that. But I also would look at making sure, checking your thyroid and then really looking at your cholesterol profile and some specific numbers going to give you because it's going to really unpack that number. Because a total cholesterol to me is like looking at total weight. If someone weighs 120 pounds and they're 30% body fat, they aren't healthy. If someone weighs 120 pounds and they're 20% body fat a female, they've got, you know, a good body composition, they'll be more likely to be healthy. Right. The person with the 30% higher body fat more likely to be inflamed, insulin resistant, et cetera. So I use that as an example because if we just used a scale weight, we're really not getting the answers. If we just use total cholesterol. I have no idea if your total cholesterol was 250 and of the LDLs, they're big and fluffy and that you've got a lot of HDLs that are big and fluffy, then you probably are okay. And you're not plaquing. But you've got to know what it's made up of. Right now, most likely you've got some issues because 250 is an overall cholesterol is just a high number. Right? But here are the things you really want to look for. You want to look for these, these specific lab tests and you want to ask your doctor for them because they are, you know, because of your elevated cholesterol you should be able to get this through. If not, I like to use yourlabwork.com because they do direct to consumer testing and so it's way less cost. Right. And so the numbers I would look at are APOB, LP, PLA2. These are all going to help you see how sticky, plaquey and small your cholesterol particles are. Are they the bad ones wreaking the havoc in your system? Then you want to look at homocysteine and this is really a marker of more of your B vitamin status to see if you've got this toxic level of homocysteine that can contribute to heart disease. And and you also want to look at something called hscrp that's really how inflamed are you? And then a triglyceride to HDL ratio. This is the stuff that's really going to give you paint the picture of what's going on. Then you're going to look at that and go. And then along with that you want to look at your thyroid by looking at your TSH free T3 and T4 because if your thyroid's low, it's mildly hypothyroid. And I will tell you, Laura, mine was just under 2 and my cholesterol shot up. I got constipated. Like all this stuff happened with just a mild elevation in my tsh, slight HYPOTHYROIDISM So that's the first one. And then obviously you've gone through menopause, so your estrogen is lower. And so if we can add in some estrogenic food foods, my favorite of all being flaxseeds, that can be helpful too. So that's the first step with that. Now the other what what can impact cholesterol besides low thyroid? Low low estrogen stress is also a driver and, and diet and exercise. Doing the right type of, you know, doing good exercise can raise hdl. Eating more fiber can raise hdl. And then getting rid of damaged seed oils and what I call dirty processed foods and sugar can lower ldl. So what we have to look at first, and I would recommend the next diet for you is sugar Impact diet, because that's where we tackle where is sugar sneaking into your food? And in my next book, I'm really taking on damaged seed oils, but I'm going to give it to you now to see. And then one other test you should look at is something called the Apoe 4. What we do need to find out is are you someone that does better with more or less fat? Because sometimes genetically, and I'm one of those people, we shouldn't have as much fat and especially saturated fat, and it will drive up your ldl. Now, since it seems like it happened post menopause, I'm more likely to look at it as an estrogen or thyroid issue. However, we may have to do all the other things to support it at this point. But if it's a thyroid issue, then you'll need to fix your thyroid. You know, probably supplement with a thyroid glandular or an actual compounded thyroid if it's an estrogen issue. Besides bioidenticals, you can do again that flaxseed and some of the phytoestrogens you can get in food. I really love flax. It's like my favorite. So there's the options for that. But again, if we start to look at sugar impact diets, the step after the virgin diet that starts now, really look, is sugar sneaking into your food. Where is it sneaking in? How do we lower that? And I'd combine that with where are any damaged seed oils? Damaged seed oils being canola, corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean, vegetable oil. And it's easier to focus on what you should be having, not what you. What I want you to really focus on is extra virgin olive oil. And it can be super helpful for cholesterol as well. And then getting good clean fish and getting the fat from those fish and taking fish oil, coconut potentially. But it really depends if you're one of those people who has a trigger of saturated fat raising cholesterol that may not be good for you might be something you have to limit. And then avocado oil. So I will cook with avocado oil. I use extra virgin olive oil on my salad. I make sure I get a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in every day. That can be helpful here. But really make sure that. And I say this because so many of these posing health foods and you know, we're working on the next iteration of the virgin diet right now. It's going to be called swap to drop. And as we've gone through all these products and I call them, you know, posing as health foods because they will say no sugar added. And they used apple juice concentrate, which is one of those things that will absolutely wreak havoc on, you know, cardiovascular markers. And then they'll have things like canola oil in them. And so we've got to really watch and make sure you're not buying products that look like they're healthy but really aren't because they have these things in them. So that's the big thing there. So that's what to look for diet wise. And again, thyroid estrogen, adding phytoestrogenic foods of which my favorite is going to be I just do a smoothie every day and I add freshly ground flaxseed meal into it. Two tablespoons. It's a one, two hit because not only did I get the phytoestrogens from the flax, I also got the healthy fats from the flax. I also got the fiber from the flax. Flax. So it's like, you know, trifecta. So that's one thing that you can add in there too. And then again, let's get do sugar impact diet. Make sure we don't have sugar ultra processed food sneaking in and get rid of those seed oils. That's where I would really focus. And we have to see what that cholesterol is made up of because fiber tends to, you know, it helps you detoxify. Some of the LDL antioxidants are important here too because they help prevent it from oxidizing. So, you know, that's where a good solid multivitamin mineral antioxidant formula can come in and help. And also something we're about to launch with our menopause formula. I actually think we just launched it. We have a menopause support formula that's got CoQ10, very cardioprotective, annatto E GG that actually can help with bone health, estrogen, testosterone, but also is cardiovascular protective and a great antioxidant. And then dim, which helps detoxify bad estrogen. So that could be something that you could add in. We just got it. I think it's in the store. Like, it's just. Just got like, we did a trial last year where we put like 30 women on it to see. Like, I was like, before I bring this out, these are things I use every day. But let's see what they think. And, you know, they notice their mood, their energy, reduction in, like, inflammation, hot flashes, like, okay, all right, that works. So those are the first things. Now that's the diet. Diet to support the. Lowering the cholesterol, really monitoring it to know what you're looking for. Now I'm going to give you the next thing and doing SID because you're a really good program follower. So, like, that makes it easy. And really I wrote virgin diet, and the biggest question I got after that was, well, what about sugar? And I'm like, that's when I wrote sugar Impact Diet comes after the virgin diet. It helps you really identify how you feel best in terms of how much carbohydrate you have, how you make sure you're getting carbohydrate as close to nature as possible. That doesn't have added sugars, that's got more fiber and really knowing how to incorporate that. So that's what that was built to do. So it's great for heart health, cholesterol, blood sugar, diabetes, all that. As far as your body composition, because I know that you do pickleball. I have a pickleball court, by the way, outside my house.

Oh, do you?

We share a private suite with the neighbors. And my neighbor was a big, big tennis player and she is a pickleball player. So we actually have a. I still haven't played. I was like, okay, it's too hot right now.

But I'm going to.

I'm going to take it up this winter. So tell me about your exercise plan. And I'm going to augment that.

Well at the moment. I recently found pickleball and it's become an addiction for me. So I've been playing probably six days out of the week, about three hours a day.

Holy smokes. Now, is it. It's. It's a double sport, right? Or is it singles?

Okay, it can be singles also, but I typically play doubles. But beyond that, I mean, I do, I used to walk a lot, but you know, not nearly the same amount of exercises I'm getting from this. But I don't do any kind of weightlifting. I don't do really anything other than pickleball. And I'm not sure that that's very balanced. Way.

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All right, so there's two things I'd love you to do. Number one is I'd love you to get a body composition scale. And the one I really like, Tanita has one. I think we have it on our website on the resources because it's like 99 bucks and it tells you your body fat, your fat free mass. So basically on our body we have two main components. We have fat, we have everything else. So what you're going to look at is how much of your body is the everything else and what you can change in the everything else is how much muscle you have. So we want to make sure as you're aging, if you're not using it, you're losing it. And like the single worst. Now you've been active your whole life and very sporty, so you're in luck. But as we age, lifting weights become super duper important. Like we've got to be able to hold onto that muscle, right, and build it. And it also is a little more forgiving. Like it's, you know, muscle helps us improve insulin sensitivity. It sucks carbs into it to be stored as energy for later. It can only suck so many, so it doesn't mean you can go have a bunch of pie. But you know, it does, it does help there with better glucose tolerance. It protects our bones, it boosts our metabolic rate. So it's super important. And the way we need to build muscle as we age is we need to make sure we have enough protein in our diet. And so that is going to be the very least amount of protein you would want to have. Let's say if you were a 120 pound woman, the least amount, your absolute floor would be half a gram per pound of weight. And that's like the least amount if you were doing some fasting or something, 60 grams of protein. What you really want to strive for is more around the 1 gram per pound of body weight and hitting sometime between three fourths of a gram to one gram per pound of body weight. If you're really working on building muscle, you'll want to be around more on the 1 gram per pound of body weight. And that is not your current. That is where you want your body weight to be. What's interesting about body weight is quite often we sit there and we look at weight, but I find for most people, they might need to lose some body fat, but what they really need to do is shift the composition. They need to lose fat. Build muscle. If you build muscle, it's more metabolically costly. It requires more energy to be turned over on your body and kept. It's not something that just stays there inertly. Your body has to always be breaking it down and rebuilding it. And it takes a lot to do that. So it's more costly. It's also more costly to recover from, like, anaerobic type of exercise than it is from, say, a walk. So it's really more costly to do that. And that's great for our metabolism. Right? When people say, I want to boost my metabolism, I'm like, do weight training. Just weight training alone will do it. And putting on more muscle changes your metabolic rate all throughout the day, all day. And it makes you more glucose tolerant, more insulin sensitive, which will improve your cholesterol. Right? So the weight training thing is going to be really, really important. So the question is, do you want to go to a gym? Do you want to do it at home? How do you want to accomplish it?

I would prefer to do it at home.

So I'll tell you some of the things that I love that I. I have a home gym, but I discovered something I like even more than a lot of the stuff I have in the home gym. And it's great because you can basically create a home gym, like at any budget. If you have a budget of 100 bucks, you can get a TRX trainer, and you're good. If you can spend 200 bucks, then get a big fitness ball and a couple free weights and go up from there. And what I love to do, the TRX trainer can hang from a tree. I've got my. I've got one outside on the tree and one inside on the wall. And you can do squats, assisted squats and lunges and. And chest presses and rows, all sorts of stuff with it. And it's literally like this $120 pulley system. So I love that. And you can just go online and you can get, you know, like go to YouTube and look up TRX training exercises. And then also Deborah Atkinson of flipping 50 has a stronger program where she basically, basically in 12 weeks works you through how to build muscle. So that is another one. We'll make sure we put that in the show notes. And that's easy to do at home. Easy things you can, you can work out at home and do. Because muscle as we age is the most important thing that we can do. You've got the cardiorespiratory thing down with the, with the pickleball. Now you just need to add in the resistance training.

Right, that sounds great.

Easy peasy, right? I mean, here's the thing. You have a great place to take off from because you know how to follow virgin diet. So now you're just going to do the same with Sugar Impact diet. We really need to dig into those tests because clearly something else is at play. But you know, it's easy enough to monitor and modify based on, is it thyroid, is it estrogen? You know, is it just some diet stuff? So we tweak the diet, we tweak the exercise and then we look at the hormones because if your thyroid's low, everything gets, you do not want to have that happen. And then messing, changing the exercise because if you change the exercise and you build more muscle, it is going to impact all of these things. Now you said you wanted to lose 10 more pounds. Can you walk me through what a typical day is like for you, food wise? Like, and what, like what time do you wake up, what time do you go to bed and when do you eat?

Okay. So I would typically wake up at about 8am I have a virgin shake.

When do you have the shake?

Well, it depends because I do some intermittent. So some days I'll have it at 10am and some days I wait until noon.

Okay.

And when I wait till noon, then I just have one more meal in the evening at about 4:30 or 5:00'. Clock.

Oh, I love that. So some days you do a time restricted window of like six hours.

Yes.

Great.

And, and then other days I'll, I'll do three meals. So I'll have a shake at 10 and then I'll have a light lunch at like 2 o' clock and then I'll eat maybe at 6.

Oh my goodness. You're just, you're, you're like my dream. And then on those intermittent fasting days, that's where you kind of go I make sure I get my floor of Protein 60, but if I can build up for there, even better. And in the morning, smoothie. And I think you're using the Paleo inspired, which I'd be hoping you would do, because that's going to help you more. Because it's got branched chain amino acids in it, it's got some collagen. It's from bone broth protein. But I would also advise getting the collagen and adding that, too, because it's going to be really helpful for helping you recover from. From exercise. It's great for hair, skin and nails. It increases the protein. So that's another one that I throw in there, along with those two tablespoons of flaxseeds. Flaxseed meal. Okay.

Yes.

Okay. So what is your typical lunch and dinner?

Okay, so typical lunch. Well, when I do eat lunch, I will have usually, like, leftovers from dinner, so I might have, like, a small piece of chicken, about 4 ounces. I'll have some salad with it. Just some kind of vegetables because I try to stay away from too much potatoes or starches or rice at night for my dinner. I do have maybe about a quarter of a cup of rice or potatoes along with, you know, a lot of, like, broccoli. I've been getting into sprouts lately, so I've been eating a lot more sprouts and microgreens.

Great. Are you eating broccoli sprouts?

Yes.

Yes. You get the home win, home run. Winner. Winner.

I've been putting them in my shakes.

Gosh, you are so, like, I bow to you. So I actually am having my son make them for me, grow them for me. And just for anyone not. Not listening, not aware of what broccoli sprouts are. They're like broccoli on massive steroids in terms of the amount of sulforaphane in them. So they're definitely something you want to incorporate. And you can make them grow them at home. They take five days, which is the easier way to do it because they're expensive in the store. Or even better, have your son do it for you. So there you go. All right. So that looks good. And then. So you're upping your veggies. Are you getting at least 5 servings of vegetables in a day? Hopefully more.

I do try to. I think there are some days where I might be a little shy, but I try to add them into my shakes because I know that it's really easy to get, you know, at least. At least an extra serving of Vegetables.

So if you get an extra serving in your shake, and even if you're just having your shake in a dinner, you know, easy enough to do. My latest addiction is arugula, and I finally got my husband to like it, which is a huge thing. And we just got back from Italy, so we're like arugula and olive oil and sea salt, and we're good. But, you know, like, add in two to three cups of deep green leafies with a little extra virgin olive oil, and you're set, you know, along with your broccoli or Brussels sprouts or cauliflower or whatever that you have with it for.

I really love kale chips, so that's sort of a replacement for me with any kind of potato chips.

All right, well, hold on. Hold those kale chips. Are you making those kale chips?

Yes.

Awesome.

Okay.

I grow the kale in my yard, and then I.

Of course you do.

You're the best.

You're the best, Laura. So, no, because, you know, you know, you can get those kale chips in the store. And I'm like, I had to buy them once I saw the chocolate chip kale chips. I'm like, okay, I have to buy these just because it's so ridiculous, you know, because it's like 5 calories of kale chips, and then it's all the processed oils and chocolate, and I'm like, this is. Eat a piece of dark chocolate. Have some kale. Do not do this together. So, okay, so you're making them yourself. Awesome. It's still not going to get you, like, you know, tons of vegetables. Let's be honest. Like, that's still not getting you. Maybe you get a cup or two when you do your kale chips.

I don't know. I fill up a whole pan and I eat the whole thing. So. Cool.

So maybe you get, like, two cups there. So that's great. So ideally, I would say the floor is five cups of vegetables, and that would be a half cup cooked or a cup raw. So most likely the kale, you could put a cup of raw, and it probably comes down to, like, a little bit. So you might even be getting four cups in there. So roast away. Especially if you're putting a little bit of, like, you know, olive avocado oil there, because that'll help you really absorb more of the nutrients from the deep green leafies. That would be helpful and that. Oh, really?

So the avocado oil is better there than the extra virgin olive oil.

I don't like to cook with extra Virgin olive oil. I do not cook with it. I cook with avocado oil. The heat points.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I better mark that down because that's really good advice. I didn't.

And what time do you. So we hit the sleep. So. So honestly, looking at all of this, it's confirming your hormones and looking your laps, it's making sure you're getting enough protein. Might need to up your protein a little bit. Adding that collagen in will help. And maybe just instead of a four ounce chicken, you have a six ounce. And then changing, adding in that resistance training is really your big stuff.

Yes. No, this is great. I'm so excited.

This is doable. I'm so excited too, because I want to hear what happens in three months because we should be able to see some. Now here's the first thing with resistance training. If you haven't been doing any of it, the first four to six weeks when you start resistance training is really your body trying to understand what you are doing. And it's neural programming really where your muscles are learning how to. They're getting degraded more than they're building up. So the first four to six weeks, while you'll notice yourself getting stronger, you're not probably going to see a big shift in your body composition scale where you're building muscle. And women do not build muscle easily anyway. So now that menopause pack the GG in there can help support you building muscle. So that'll be good too. And having more protein and it may be, you'll have to see, I find most of us, I do it every single meal. Not shakes, but just meals do better with enzymes that help you break down the protein. We tend to get a little bit of anabolic resistance as we age. So we need a little more protein to overshoot. But because you need to have enough protein to rebuild for the muscles, right, Enough amino acids and they have a lot of other jobs to do in your body. So give yourself four to six weeks. That, that point you should start, start to see some shifts in your body composition. But it's not, it's a, it's a slow build, right? You have to build muscle. So, you know, if you could in the course of, you know, six months, put on five pounds of muscle, four pounds of muscle, it'd be amazing. Like go you. But a lot of that'll have to do with your hormones as well. So we'll have to see even three pounds of muscle. It changes everything, right?

Okay.

Okay. Okay, cool. Then what I want to know is what's happening with you. So please report back.

Okay? I most certainly will.

All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for playing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alrighty.

Thank you.

See you.

Bye.

Bye. Bye. All right, lots of great information to share with you on that. So check the show notes for the new menopause packs, the your lab work and that Tanita scale as well. Well, so you can grab these things and the TRX of course, too. And you can follow along at home. All right. And again, if you would like to participate, go to jjvirgin.com sign up. And if you've not yet subscribed to the show, hello. It's easy. Go to subscribetoj.com See you next time.

Foreign. 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 take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. 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 whatshould I read next podcast.com to find out more.