Getting Lean for Life with Dr. Bill Campbell: Part 2

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I'm JJ Virgin PhD dropout.

Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author.

Yes, I'm a certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness.

Hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity.

And love of science to keep asking.

Questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can.

And that's why I created the well.

Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify.

The science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from.

Personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to.

Healthy aging and prescriptive fitness.

Join me on the journey to better.

Health so you can love how you.

Look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100.

All right, I know you've been waiting for it impatiently. Today I'm featuring part two of my.

Conversation with my new friend, Dr. Bill Campbell, a professor of exercise physiology and.

The director of the only Performance and Physique Enhancement lab in the country. Now, if you missed last week's conversation, you definitely will want to go back and listen to it. We talked about some really foundational mission critical things he's learned in his research, like at what body fat percentage women feel energetic and can prevent chronic disease, what happens if you don't train for.

Power, and what and when to eat to burn fat.

Now, the second half of our conversation is just as interesting. And if you're stuck on a fat.

Loss plateau, there are some gems in.

Here that will help you start moving.

In the right direction. So let's dive back in. Hey, it's J.J. here. Now let's be honest. The holidays are basically a financial ambush. Travel, hosting gifts, surprise holiday school things. Suddenly you're wondering how December turned into a spending spree. 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 your phone. What really grabbed my attention is how fast those little holiday expenses pile up with Monarch. Seeing everything in one place makes it a lot harder to accidentally overspend. And honestly, I appreciate anything that keeps me from starting January with a money hangover. You'll love exploring the holiday spending category. Imagine how good it will feel to actually see what's happening before your credit card statement does that whole dramatic reveal thing. Monarch basically shows you exactly where the money is going in real time. And that level of clarity could change everything, right? Don't let financial opportunity 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 code Virgin.

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In terms of losing fat, what is your recommendation? Because again now there's the you can only lose 2 pounds of fat a week and I would assume that's an up to £2 and that's really gonna depend on if someone's morbidly obese or if someone's as lean as they can possibly be. So where are your recommendations for fat loss?

So I tend to take a little bit more of a practical approach. While we need to focus on fat loss, I'll start with just scale weight and typically that is about a maximum of 1% of your body weight per week. The reason I like that whether you're obese or somebody that's smaller that wants to lose a little bit of weight by basing it as a percentage of your body weight, it's better than just saying 2 pounds because like you said, 2 pounds for a 400 pound person is different than 2 pounds for my teenage daughter. But a percent per week, that's scalable to any size. So I'm about 200 pounds. So my maximal rate of weight loss should be 1% per week. So that would be 2 pounds per week based on my body size. If you're 150 pounds, we're talking 1 1/2 pounds per week. And the reason that I feel confident in basing this on body weight is because we know two things. If you're losing weight at that rate and not faster than that, you are maintaining your muscle. And let me also say, I'm assuming that you're hitting your protein targets. On all of my fat loss studies, protein is at least what we just said, 0.75, sometimes up to a gram per pound. And I will say this. The leanest people I've ever met, the leanest females, and you, you would be ve one of the females that's very lean. There's always one thing in common across the board and they eat a lot of protein. Do you know how much you eat?

Oh, yes, I track it. I track 160 to 180 grams, sometimes 200 grams. I, I have always. And in fact, I remember someone was doing some kind of microbiome test on me. They go, oh, you're someone who does better eating higher protein diets. I always have felt better eating more protein. And in fact, I was a vegan for a while back when I was at usc. It was when I was playing with the vegan diet. Now prior to that I'd read out at 10% body fat. Now I'm doing a vegan diet and you know, this is going on for a couple of years and I'm doing loads of cardio. I'd always been doing the opposite, 25% body fat. We were doing all sorts of body fat measurements. So we did it multiple different ways. And I'm like, oh my gosh, 25% body fat. And I remember at the time one of my docs was like, you either need to go eat a chicken or I'm going to hospitalize you. Like, I'll do, I'll take the chicken. Lots of protein. It's where I feel best.

Yes. And again, that's just my personal observation. The leanest females are the ones eating really high and resistance training, typically.

And yet the most common stuff out there for women is higher carb, low fat. It's still there.

Yep. And yeah.

And pretty much ignoring protein and doing cardio and Pilates.

Yeah.

And it just blows my mind that it is still going on like this. Crazy. So let's also talk while you're doing that. Are you in your lab tracking how much they're losing from fat, how much they're holding a well designed Plan. Because I remember in the old days, you couldn't put on muscle and lose fat at the same time. That was like you had to do one or the other. And I think if you really want to build muscle. Yes, you focus on that plan. In fact, that was what I did right when I had that second decks. I actually. I went from 147 to 154. Like, focused on it for a couple months, then went in and did the Dexa.

And you gained four pounds.

I don't know how much I had. Cause I hadn't. I'd only done it via Tanita. I just knew I was exactly the same as I was at 39. Then I went and ripped it down. The last Dexa, I was at 11, and I was 1:42. So, yeah, this Tanita is reading me at 8.

Yeah. And that supports my typical Dexes usually are gonna read higher than most other measures. At least that's been my experience. And I've done.

And I would assume now one of the things early on that I discovered and I didn't know what to do with the information. And it all happened because I had this woman, Graziella, who was like a potato on stilts. And I was doing all my body comp testing back then. Cause we didn't have BIA bioimpedance. I was doing tape measure and skimpolt.

Yeah.

So I was doing skin fold. And I was like, she can't have the body fat that it says she has. Because, you know, like, someone who's aging will start to gain a lot of visceral fat and lose their extremity fat. So she was lean on her arms and legs. She was so extended in her belly that it looked like she had no belly fat. Cause it was all visceral. So I started doing calculations. I went. I could do a calculation to figure out how metabolically unhealthy someone is just based on the disparity between bioimpedance and skin folds.

Yeah.

You know, Anyway, this was way back, back in the good old days. But back over to this. So what I'd love to look at is losing body fat. Because I would assume most people. And I'll tell you the story of Vicki, who came to me. She had a BMI. I think it was like 20, 21. She's like, I want to lose 10 pounds. I go, you don't need to lose 10 pounds. She was 25% body fat. We worked together for a year. She got to 18% body fat. She dropped two clothing sizes. She dropped 10 pounds of fat, put on 10 pounds of muscle. She didn't lose any weight.

Yeah, right. She was focused on the.

She was upset. I was like, wait a minute.

That's where the. The. The education has to come in. Yes.

You know, you can say it and say it and say it. There's just something in us. I felt like I wanted to lie on the scale for her because she would have been so excited. I was like, look at yourself. Like, you look amazing.

Even despite all that, she's so like.

But I really want to weigh. I'm like, oh, my gosh, who cares? Like, isn't it?

Yeah, it's sad. It's almost sad. Like you've just changed your entire body.

But women are still afraid of putting on muscle. Like, even creatine.

They'll go, I'm afraid to do that.

I'll get bloated. I go, you're not going to get bloated. You're going to pull more fluid into your muscles. This is amazing and fantastic. You want that? Let's talk about, you know, that shift in body composition, what you see as possible and what you're seeing. So the average person, I'm assuming, let's take the average woman, 40 plus, they wanna lose body fat and they need to put on muscle mass. Okay, so what would your prescription be?

So I would ask them to prioritize. Let's put the eggs in the basket. That is most important to you. So if that's fat loss, I'm gonna give you one plan. If you're gonna build muscle, that would be a different plan. Now, can you lose fat and build muscle at the same time? Yes. You've worked with people. It is possible. I always say, though, it is not to be expected and it is the exception, not the rule, to do both. So I like to have people identify your goal, and let's attack that goal. And then once we have success, let's go to the other one and then attack that one. Because if you set out to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, it's to some extent for most people. It's kind of spinning your wheels.

Can it be done? Yes.

It's just not expected. In our example, let's go with somebody who wants to lose body fat. So F5 may ask, does our hypothetical person. Are they already exercising or not?

Let's have. This hypothetical person is doing some Pilates, Okay. Like twice a week, and they're walking.

All right.

They walk every day.

So I'm going to congratulate them. You're not sedentary. You're walking, you're doing Pilates. Yes. Those are great things to be doing. Is this the only things we should be doing? No. So I'm going to take this from a minimalist approach. First thing I would do is tell them your goal is to lose fat. Yes. We know what they're doing. I'm going to tell them we are going to change nothing about your calories. You're going to eat the same amount of calories, but we are going to do one change and after about two months, you're going to have noticed losing body fat and you're probably gonna have gained muscle. Even though we're not changing anything about your workouts or your calories. So what we're gonna do is we're just gonna increase your protein. What are you currently eating? We're gonna increase this. Two studies, if you've read my research review, one of them, I'll just say the one they gave females, the only thing they did was increase their protein for eight weeks. And these were women with normal weight obesity. What that means is they weren't obese, but they had a lot of body fat, meaning that they didn't have as much muscle mass. The only thing they did was increase their protein. I think it was from 05 to 08. So right around where I'm saying everybody should be, they lost significant amount of body fat. They actually gained lean body mass. So there's the first thing. It's easy, the lowest hanging fruit.

So now when you're saying that, are you telling them to keep their calories the same or are you just. Are you okay, so.

So we would reduce some carbs or fat, whatever they would choose.

But the reality is they're going to be less hungry. Yeah. Like if all you did was say eat more protein, they'd probably end up eating less overall calories. Plus they'd have the thermic effect of the protein.

Yes. And that's exactly why I believe that they would lose fat. So there's the first change again, there's no dieting there. We're just changing one habit. Even if it's just your philosophy, let's just get protein first. That may be enough for them to put them over that threshold. The next thing I would do is say, okay, now let's train your body. Let's put a new stimulus on your body. Are you willing to lift some weights? And this can be one time a week for this person who's never lifted before. You don't have to live at the Gym one to two times per week initially to put a new stimulus on your body to build muscle. Now we have this protein. Let's give the body a stimulus to adapt to. So that would be the second thing. What we're going to see then is some greater fat loss, now even more muscle gain. And to the woman who says, well, I don't want to get bulky, my answer to that is, if you don't like what you see, you just stop. Your body will revert back. Nothing is permanent here. So if you don't like, and I'm going to tell you, you will like what you see because you're going to see a body that looks fit and strong and healthy. So again, if I'm wrong, just stop the stimulus and you'll go back to what you were doing. So notice so far, I've not even touched calories. Now I've touched protein, but I have yet to say, let's reduce your calories. I'm handling some more lifestyle things in this situation now we can be at the point where I want to lose more fat. All right, so what my research lab has investigated over the years, mostly in females, is we're going to reduce your calories by 25% if your protein level is optimal. And your resistance training. What we've learned is all of the weight you lose at this caloric deficit comes from body fat. We maintain almost all of our lean mass, if not in certain cases, even gaining more additional lean Mass. So 25%. It's not aggressive, but it's also not a walk in the park. It's enough to induce fat loss, but maintain muscle mass. And by the way, we have to do everything we can to maintain muscle mass. And when you lose muscle mass, you're setting yourself up for osteoporosis, osteopenia, sarcopenia. We have research suggesting that you're hungrier, you're more frail, more susceptible to injury. So my lab, yes, we're a fat loss lab, but we prioritize muscle during the fat loss phase.

Gotta have muscle to lose fat. Yes, well, and you know, the hunger side of it is that is a piece of that because you're likely to be more insulin resistant with poor muscle quality.

Well, our work has been more on crash dieting, and that's not to say that there's not an insulin.

So maybe the metabolic adaptation piece of the crash dieting.

Yes. So if crash dieting, when you lose muscle, what several studies have shown is when the diet is over, so you're losing all this weight but you don't care where it's coming from. You're just. You're starving yourself for weeks.

Like I will tell you on Dr. Phil, I brought in the body composition machine, but they only wanted to use the weight side of it. I was using the body fat and stress testing to make a difference. Adapt. Yeah.

You were a fitness professional.

They didn't want that way. But the day we had a big contest and whichever group won the contest got to go to Canyon Ranch and they were. The groups were within one half pound total difference between the two groups. You know what one group did the day before?

Sauna.

They didn't eat. They didn't drink. They did cardio all day long. Then they went in their rooms, they shoved towels under their bathroom doors. They turned up their showers and they sweated all dehydrated. And I could see it on the body because it was biomedence. I could see it. I was like, like, yes. Oh, you know. But that wasn't what the contest was about. No, wait, like you look at Biggest Loser, it's not interesting to do the other.

Yeah. It would take a very educated and nuance watch grow. Yes. And that's sad. But again, but a lot of this stuff isn't sexy.

So the way you said it is really cool and important. And this just shows that you're used to working with real people because you said, okay, first we're just gonna do protein. That's it. So keep calories the same. So you'll bump out something. And did you care whether it was carbs or fat?

So in our studies, no, we. We track calories and we track protein. Whatever you want to do with carbs and fat, that's up to you because the research would suggest it doesn't matter.

Yeah, protein matters. So you push out whichever. It's just protein. Once that's underway. Now all of a sudden you've lost some fat because you were prioritizing protein. You probably held onto lean mass. Next up is adding resistance training in which is gonna help you. And I know it's just little bits as you add muscle helps with your basal metabolic rate. But then you've also just got the more energetic cost of muscle. You've got a little oxygen debt afterwards. You've got insulin sensiti improving. Yes. So you've got all of those metabolic helps. There's all that stuff. I had a great mentor early on who said you don't lose weight to get healthy. You get healthy. And I would put metabolically healthy to lose weight. Like if you think about it, you know, you're improving muscle quality, you're improving insulin sensitivity. Yeah, that goes a long way. So then once they've got that under place, now you can go and start doing the caloric restriction because now you're in a point where your body now is building muscle. So you're not going to put yourself into that risk.

Yeah. And, and also notice that I didn't say we're going to increase your protein, you're going to start resistance training and you're going to reduce your calories all at once. Yeah.

And you're gonna come back in three days and go, I'm out.

Yes, exactly. And you didn't hear me say supplements. Supplements can be helpful, but they're not gonna move the needle as much as the things we just mentioned.

Speaking of, do you have any favorite supplements?

Yeah, so the. I only take three creatine, which we talked about a little bit.

I think every woman, every human. And this is sad. Like I took it years and years ago and kind of forgot about it and just started taking it like, I don't know, six months ago. I go, where was I? How was I not taking creatine again?

It's doesn't get the attention. It helps stroke recovery, it helps with, for people, for acne.

I've been using it with my son who had a traumatic brain injury. So, you know, it's like they look at it go, why isn't this something we all start right away on?

It's not just a sports supplement anymore. It is a health supplement.

It's a longevity supplement. This is the ultimate supplement for any 150 plus. Like, you know, you've got frail seniors like this. This is crazy. Okay, what else besides creatine?

So creatine and fish oil. I take fish oil, creatine and a protein supplement and that's pretty much all I take. And I've done a lot of supplement research. That doesn't mean there aren't others that are beneficial. It's just that they don't move the needle enough for me where I want to spend my money on them. So creatine? Yes. Protein? Yes. Fish oil? Yes. Because I don't eat a lot of fish, so I, I wanna make sure I'm getting my essential fatty acids.

And I mean, is it just too early on some of this anabolic potential of fish oil? What's your, have you looked at that at all?

Yeah, early research, the first few studies suggested that it was anabolic. My impression of the research is it is not Going to build muscle. So I don't take it thinking that I'm gonna build muscle now. If I'm deficient before, I take it now I'm healthier, maybe in that case. So again, I'm taking it more as a health supplement, not as a muscle building supplement.

I just wonder if the reason they might have seen some anabolic effects is because of the anti inflammatory properties of it improving, reducing inflammation. That could have been impairing muscle protein synthesis.

That could be. There are studies that have reported it does increase muscle protein synthesis.

I always want to know the mechanism. You know, if you know the mechanism, then you don't have to wait till all the research is in. That would be my question on it. One of the interesting things that you're doing that again to me is such a cool real world thing is this whole diet break. Are you the guy doing diet break research? I haven't seen anywhere else.

I'm the only person doing it in fit people. So there have been other lab groups that have investigated it in obese populations. But in one other lab has done one study in resistance trained people. So my lab was the only lab to do this in resistance trained females. And we did another similar study, what I call the weekday diet. So it was like a short diet break on the weekends that was in males and females.

And to be clear, because I have a big problem with the cheat days. The cheat days make me crazy. I'd love you to explain what these studies are looking at and what a diet break means. Because a diet break is not a pig out day, right?

Yeah. When people embrace that they don't lose body fat, they actually, in many cases they gain weight. I just had somebody in one of my students to say, yeah, I was doing intermittent fasting. I could eat whatever I wanted for six hours.

And that's not really what intermittent fasting is.

No, but that's what she thought it was. And she's sitting in my class. My class is called the Science of Physique Enhancement. It's a grad class and we talked about all the protein research because I've lost all this weight just then. I've just been doing the protein that we've been talking about. Mike. Well, that's what the research says. So diet breaks, traditionally, the way that the researchers have done it is you, you have to figure out what are you doing before you're gonna go on a diet. So I call that your maintenance calories. How many calories are you eating so that you're not gaining weight or losing Weight, that number is important, or that range, that might be like 2,000 to 2,200 calories, then we have people go on a diet. So now they're reducing their calories during the diet. And then whenever the time comes to do a diet break and we can talk about what would be the optimal times, we allow them to go back to their maintenance or pre dieting calories. So is that a free for all? No, it is not. Eat whatever you want as much as you want. They're still having to exert some level of discipline because they're not allowed to go above their re diet or what I call maintenance calories. And the beauty of this is when you're on vacation, if you want to celebrate an event or it's the weekend, this cyclical pattern of dieting and then taking a diet break, when life gives you opportunities where you don't want to diet, it works beautifully, it works with you. So what the other alternative is people go on a diet and then they fail and then they feel miserable and they're like, I'll do it again on Monday. No, let's design a diet using diet breaks. That works with you. And we're planning for you to increase your calories to make your life more enjoyable.

So couple questions here. How are you figuring out their maintenance calories? Are you doing it based on a. On breath, on scale, on tracking, on a app? Like, what are you doing?

So we do it through life. I think it's the best because any other method app, it's just a guess. Exactly. And guess is better than nothing. And you can adjust quickly. But what we do is in our research studies, and again, when I work with clients, I do the same thing. I tell them, you need to track everything you're eating. So yes, there's an education component to this. Yes, you're going to have to monitor if you're getting a snack. Whatever you're eating, we need to know how many calories you're putting into your body. We also need you to weigh yourself because we need to know, are you gaining weight or are you losing weight? And typically when we say, don't change anything about what you're eating, just continue eating as you normally do, but write it down and take a body weight every morning, usually within two weeks. We pretty much know how many calories you're eating on average and if your body weight has gone up or down.

So are they putting that into an app, weighing and measuring it all?

Maybe not weighing, sometimes weighing, but at least measuring.

At least say no. Don't you find, though, just the very process of actually having to track everything they're eating makes them alter some of their behavior?

Well, research suggests that over and over. So what we say, we're very intentional.

Yeah.

Do not change this. Our entire plan for you is predicated on you not changing your habits. So you will be tempted. Like, as an example, you normally have, you know, 10 beers on Friday. Well, I'm only going to have five because Campbell's research. Yeah, we don't care. We don't care. We want you to eat what you normally do. So with that attention and that education, I'm. I like to think that we're getting non altered logs. But yes, historically, people will change. And that's another good thing. You can just have somebody to start tracking and that's enough to start things.

I will tell you when Tim discovered his 25% marker and he would not track before that. And I go, you gotta track, like, track. Finally, he was like, okay, I'm gonna track now. And, you know, you don't have to track forever. So he did. He tracked for three months, but what he discovered was how many CFK chips and how much olive oil. I was like, dude, it's an education for life.

If you track for three months for the rest of your life, you can't unforget or unknow what you've learned. So I agree.

It's hugely important. It's just like, I also believe that you should step on the scale every single day. Working in weight loss for all those years and for so long, there was this whole thing against the scale. I go, it's. You wouldn't have a campaign against taking blood pressure. Just think of it like it's a tool.

Yes.

It's not a shameful thing. I think there's something to that campaign against blood pressure. Right. I mean, it's like everyone's plopping a CGM on but doesn't want to step on the scale. I'm like, no different.

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 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 what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.

There's something to what I call caloric variability. Like this idea, and I like that you just built it in that we wouldn't be eating the same amount every single day in this rigid way. And that if you wanted to go on a diet. And I don't know that the, the diet research has shown this, I don't think it has. But it just seems like to me that if you did it. Cause I think what you showed was they lost the same amount of weight, but it just took a little longer for the diet breaks. But I also wonder if they would have less metabolic adaptation if they also planned maybe like heavy weight workouts on those two days that they were bumping up their calories, they could do something with that. Well, there might be more to it.

There is more to it in the sense our lab showed this and a group from Australia showed this and these are in fit people. Both of our labs showed that the groups taking diet breaks. And let me just define that again. During a diet, we would have a week or seven days when we would say, stop dieting. You've been dieting long enough. After a few weeks, go back to maintenance calories. And this is all part of the plan. So follow the plan. What we found was that in both studies, their subjective feelings of hunger were significantly less. So the act of increasing your calories improved hunger throughout the entire dieting process. And we know hunger always wins. You can beat hunger today, you can beat hunger tomorrow. You will not beat hunger in the long term. So anything we can do to help with hunger makes your diet much more successful if you can control hunger. And one other thing on this, we know through research people eat more on the weekends. They just naturally increase calories on the weekends. I think it makes a lot of sense. Let's design a diet around your natural eating patterns. So if we know you're gonna eat more food on the weekends, let's design a diet where you're dieting Monday through Friday and not dieting on the weekends. We did a study on that. Fat loss was the same, but they maintained greater amounts of muscle mass.

And I think the important thing, and which is huge. I mean, that's everything. The important thing is it's not everything has been like, you're either dieting or you're off the rails.

Yes.

And what I like about this is it's the plan. The plan is to not diet versus the alternative is people, if they keep dieting for weeks on end, they're gonna eventually, if they're human, fail, and then they feel bad about themselves. But you don't feel bad when you're coached. Or the plan is, oh, I get to increase my calories. In fact, if you don't, I would say you might be doing yourself harm by not taking a break from your diet.

The other one that you just. I forget where you post this. Maybe it was your research reviews or it was on Instagram, but it was. It was talking about people. And I think about this now because I was telling you earlier, I love weight loss, resistance, anything that could get in the way of you losing weight or cause you to gain weight. But I think a lot of times we're jumping to all of these things like stress and food intolerances, when the primary issue is that people have no clue how much they're actually eating.

Oh, yeah, they're under reporting how much.

And you said something. And I went, what? Yeah, I'm talking about.

There was a study where these are people with obesity. And they asked them, why are you having problems losing weight? And their answer was, well, because of my genetics and because my metabolism is low. So they put them into a lab, I think it was for seven days. And they measured every single metabolism test you could do, and they realized you don't have a. There was nothing wrong with their metabolisms. But when they compared how much food they said they were consuming to what they were actually eating, it was over a thousand calories. They thought they were eating around a thousand calories. They were eating a little over 2,000 calories per day. So it's sad because a lot of people are in a bad situation thinking that, well, it's my body. The research would suggest. No, it's more to your perception of, hey, a bowl of chips. Oh, that's 200 calories. No, that might be 700 calories. Or I just put on a little bit of peanut butter. You put on 4 tablespoons of peanut butter. So that study really Highlighted the importance of being aware of truly how many calories we're consuming. Again, this is just taking this to a scientific level. That's body by science.

It's so weird when you think about growing up that you're never taught things like calories, fat, exercise. Like, think of. In school, we were taught how to have a good relationship, how to balance. You know, I guess we don't have to balance checkbooks anymore, but understanding how to invest and then understanding how our body works and how many calories you can figure out you need each day. And what does exercise look like? And what about sleep and how to manage stress? And we actually learned that in school instead. And how different things would be.

Yes. Oh, abs. Yes, absolutely.

Like, it'd be entirely different. But you just. The calorie thing itself, like, if I had it to go and do all over again, the very first place I would start with people is just do an audit and just track what you're doing and see that first, because it doesn't take much to make a big difference there. And then again, what you said, increase that protein. And then had in some resistance training. I started lifting weights when I was 16 with the football players at my. Oh, wow. There were no gyms back then.

Like, you were the only female.

I bet I was the only female. It was a bunch of football players, literally. And they thought this was really funny.

You were a trailblazer.

I was like, it just was so clear to me, the whole muscle thing. And I remember I wanted to be a model because I was tall. And I went in and they go, you have to lose 20 pounds now. I weighed about what I weigh right now. I can't lose £20. I can't. I. This is ridiculous. And I started to lose a little weight, and my dance teacher was like, are you anorexic? What's going on with you? Like, what's your problem? You know, so it just. It's such interesting stuff because it really. What I love about all of your research is it's actually pretty simple. Yeah, it's really quite simple.

It's the best compliment you could give me as a researcher.

Yeah. And it's easy to put into place. What I'd love to know is what you actually do. Like, what's a day like for you? I know you just did this study on you. I don't know if you can talk about it yet. I. That's interesting. He's going to use himself. We all use ourselves as guinea pigs all the time. Right? That's always My, my first project and then I take it out to other people. But what's your plan look like? And if you can talk a little bit. I don't know if you can about what you just did.

I can. So I'll talk about what I did. So I, I put myself on a case study where I actually gained a lot of weight. I was obese.

How much?

I was 231 pounds, which previously in my life the most I ever was was 2:16. Right now today I'm probably 2:10. So I'm still heavier than what I'm typically. But I was heavy. And the reason I did this was the chatter finally got to me. Just so many people saying you have to eliminate carbs, you can't eat carbs to lose weight. So I said, okay, I'm going to eat not only a lot of carbs, but the worst kind of carbs. So I gained a lot of weight.

So you supersized, you did that?

Yes. And I didn't just gain this weight and then start the diet. As a scientist I need to, I needed to maintain. So I gained weight. I maintained it for six months. Yes. Before I had any intention of losing it. Maintained it, made sure that all of my diet was stable and my, my workout protein. So this is, this was done at a scientific validity level that will publish this in a journal as a case study. So I got blood work, dexa, metabolic testing.

What was your body fat when you started and what did it go up to?

My body fat was around oh when I started I was, I don't know, 15, 18% maybe when I started, but at the peak or what I maintained and I did a DEXA right before I started this, it was right around 30% body fat. And the goal was I'm going to eat high carbohydrate diet and highly processed foods. So the things that everybody says, you cannot lose weight when you're eating those kinds of foods. So I prioritized those foods. Never have done this in my life.

So what did you eat?

A lot of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Fruity Pebbles. I also had oatmeal. I mean not everything was, but a lot. Never in my adult life had I had so little protein. And remember for six months, even before I started this, my protein was low. I'm a high protein person. The goal was my research team and I planned this study, I would lose 10% of my body weight. That's a clinically significant amount of body weight eating this. So we're analyzing. I can't share a lot Cuz I don't know a lot yet. My team's analyzing my diet, which every single thing that went into my mouth, my body. I drank more sodas during this, like cokes than I had 10 years prior. A lot of breakfast cereals, you know, more sodas, rice, but I've always had rice. Were you hungry? You know, this would be the worst way to diet. Cuz again, low protein. When I put my mind to something, it's just my wife gives me a hard time about that. She's like, can you eat normal now? But yes. When the diet was over, my family didn't eat like this. So I kind of had to eat separate from my family. So we, yeah, lost 10% body weight. And for my body composition it was a, we used something a high level called a four compartment model where you're looking at water, you're looking at your density, you're looking at the bone mineral content from Adexa. So I'm. We're still analyzing a lot of this. I actually don't have a lot of the numbers I can tell you. I lost 10% of my body weight eating carbohydrates and mostly highly processed foods. But my calories were low. My calories were 25% lower than typical. And I took a lot of these breaks that we're talking about weekends when I was traveling for vacation or speaking engagements. I got blood work as well. Oh, one thing that I can share that I know when I started this, my testosterone was as low as it had ever been. It was borderline lower than the clinical threshold. Now again, I was obese, clinically obese. And at the end of this I just looked at my blood work and this just ended like a month ago. My testosterone now was back to where it typically was, like in the upper middle range. But we know that there's this problem with men having low testosterone. I just reinforced it's a body fat problem.

So is it a body fat problem? Insulin resistance problem? Conversion over to estrogen problem.

I did not get measured estrogen and I didn't do. I mean I did fasting insulin, I did fasting blood glucose. Those really didn't change much for me. I lifted weights, I had healthy muscle mass going into this. Had I not had that, I think we would've seen some.

It's probably take a lot longer to get.

Yeah. And this was about eight months, so March to the end of September. So whatever that is.

March, April. So that's actually more interesting. Testosterone tanked independent of that.

Yeah. Cause I maintained and I got my blood work right before I started the diet, so.

I just can't believe you. Like, I used to have to get actors and actresses ready for films, and then there was one where I had to have them get emaciated, then gain a bunch of. And I was like, oh, gosh, I just don't want to do this with you. Like, I just don't want to have to. Like, I know how to make you fat fast. We'll just, like, load you with agave syrup.

Yeah.

You know, and overload your calories.

Were they fat and sugar? My impression of actors and actresses, like, they're so serious and professionals that they do it right or did they struggle?

It's interesting. No, they'll do it. I had one once that had to lose weight for something who turns out behind my back was like eating cereal at night and do.

I was like, going, so it wasn't working.

I was like, I don't understand how this is not working. Like, we are doing. I'm working for two day and I know what I'm giving you. And some. This is not. This does not work. You're metabolically healthy. There's a problem here. But I just read an interview by. I don't remember which. It was a gal. I think it was Charlize Theron who was like, I will never do this again. Maybe it was Renee Zellweger. It was like, the amount. You just trash your body doing these roles. Like, you know.

Yeah. I always think of Matthew McConaughey and the. The one. The one movie he got really emaciated.

Yeah. And someone just had to get, like, gain a ton of weight. It's. Oh, no, forget it. You know, hey, they're.

They're true to their craft, though, if that's the part they're playing.

Although I. I helped Brandon Routh get his muscles for Superman, but they end up put you in the suit, like a big muscle suit. Anyway, I go, why? What was the like?

Well, maybe just mentally he could carry himself in a way.

That suit was really heavy. But yeah, that's. That was another weird part of life. Yes. Oh, it's fascinating to me.

I love your professional life.

It's way more interesting. Like, to me, the most interesting thing is really, like, I heard Peter Tia talk about the centenarian decathlon, and I got all fired up. Did you hear him talk about this?

I have not.

The idea is, what are the activities you want to be able to do in your 90s? And so you have to train for em now.

Okay. I Have heard some of this. I think now that you.

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. And then you hear, and I just was listening to something he was talking about this morning. You know, like at 50, everything falls off the cliff and you can't put on muscle. And I heard that and I go, I'm going to call BS on that and I'm going to see what I can do. Like I just, A lot of this stuff, I'm going, you know, all the anabolic resistance, everything you hear about sarcopenia and the muscle loss and stuff with aging, how much has to really happen? How much is natural aging and how much could you offset if you put in the right nutrition, both diet and supplements and you put in the right stimulus? Not, you know, Goldilocks it. Not too much either. I think that's, you've got to recover well, but if you can dial that all in, why can't you put on muscle at 60 and 70? When I was at SC, we had master's level athletes in their 80s and 90s who were amazing, you know, so. And especially if you've never really worked out, like, you can't tell me that you're going to take a 50 or 60 year old who's never really exercised. Of course you could put muscle on him. Yeah, like even easier.

We have researched. It's just not as much as when you were younger. But yeah, we know you can get stronger. And here's something else. When we look at all of this aging research, there's nobody like you in this. It's all people who were sedentary their entire lives. We don't have big cohorts of people who were fit and aging. Does that make sense?

Well, why not? Aren't you doing this? This is what your lab's like anyway. Yeah.

Well, so far I guess you gotta.

Find the unicorns, right?

Yes. Yeah, so far it's been mostly younger females is what my lab's focused on. But as I said, we're, we're starting.

To get into very exciting. Everyone's talking about menopause now. It's a. There's two very distinct pieces to it. There's perimenopause right up until that one day. So there's perimenopause. And post. Post is easy. And post with hormone replacement therapy. Like it's amazing what you can do. Peri is, is the time when it's rock and roll and everything's all over the place.

Yeah.

So.

And not a lot of answers, would you agree? Like, I think conflicting Information.

There's conflicting information because of the Women's Health Initiative that now has been so disproved that everyone's going and. And not following that advice anymore. Yeah. So that's the good news, because I think if you approach perimenopause and you. You are monitoring thyroid, cortisol, insulin, and sex hormones, and you're doing what you have to do, it's. It's a hard time to do hormone balance because you have to do it based much more on symptoms than labs, because the labs change every day. Like, how do you take a hormone panel on estrogen and progesterone when they're going to be different tomorrow?

Yeah, that's. That's a moving target.

You have to, you know, you'll know progesterone, you know, they're going down. Estrogen's doing this, but, you know, progesterone, stomach. So you have to dose it more on symptoms and make sure thyroid and adrenals are doing well because you're leaning into your adrenals during that time. I mean, I went through it and just started in early with hormones and just had to really watch. I could tell I couldn't recover the way I was supposed to at the gym, and that's when I would have to change my estrogen. So you just have to. Someone's going to do this really well where they can do it more based on symptoms, because that's where it needs to be. Okay, validate with labs based on symptoms.

But, yeah, you know, yeah, that.

That makes sense. But, you know, all the information out right now, your metabolism doesn't change till 60. I go, your metabolism may not change, but your hormones are changing, and they're putting you into a place where you preferentially store fat. It's that fat. So it may not be your metabolism, it's your hormones. It's ending up creating the same problem. Yeah. So we have to address it. So have fun with that.

Just starting. I'm on the journey.

I will tell you, one of my friends who's a big menopause doc was like, I don't know that I want to do this because everyone's so angry. You know, it's an interesting. It is an interesting time, because mood, et cetera, it would be cool just to do one on creatine and perimenopausal women. Yeah. That alone would be an interesting study that maybe could calm everybody down about weight gain, too. So there's lots you can do.

Yes.

I just appreciate that you're willing to take us women on.

Yeah, like I said, it's historically overlooked. And why, like, it's Exercise science is 90% focused male, male focused research.

Well, even when, you know, in my department, it was mainly men.

Yeah, that's true.

You know, there were very few women in there. So you go, thank you for doing the good work.

Well, thank you for appreciating it. Thank you for letting me talk about it. There's nothing I like talking about more than my research.

This was my longest ever. We'll probably divide it into a couple parts. I'm going to put all of your information@jjvirgin.com body by science. And I think you also have that freebie of I think it was your best of Body by science, which was tremendous.

Yes.

And then following you on Instagram for your fun research updates.

Yeah, I ask a lot of true false questions, multiple choice, so if you like to be quizzed every day.

Yeah, it's fun. And you don't fight with anyone?

Not what I like to do.

Interesting and novel.

When I want to fight, I just say, thank you for commenting. When you hear me say that, that's when I'm like, all right, I'm not.

Going to get in.

Fill in the blanks up. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you.

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