How Much Weight Should I Lift if I’m Just Starting Out and I Have an Autoimmune Condition?

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How much weight should I lift if I'm just starting out and I have an autoimmune condition? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Blakely from Instagram asks, how much weight should I lift if I'm just starting out and I have an autoimmune condition? Hey, it's JJ and I have thyroid exercise expert Dr. Emily Kaibart here to answer this question. She's a New York City chiropractor, strength enthusiast, and mama to Elvis and baby Brooklyn. She helps women struggling with Hashimoto's learn how to work out without burning out. With using her own program, thyroid strong and making lifestyle changes, she has put her Hashimoto's into remission and fun fact. Emily used to work for bear management in Yellowstone National Park. She'll be right back with the answer. Stay with me.

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I love this question. I think of my client Stephanie first starting out with kettlebells with this question. She ordered her 12 kilo kettlebell, which is about 25 pounds and she wrote me saying just bringing that kettlebell into the house from the porch felt like a workout. How am I ever going to do this? Now, probably a year later, she is swinging a 16 kilo 35 pound kettlebell, 100 reps every other day and she feels so strong. But my point is we all start out in a different place. Some of us may be more deconditioned and some of the listeners may need to actually dial it back from.

In.

The gym to maybe something like three to four days a week. Starting out, I would choose a weight that you could press overhead if you haven't lifted in a while, 10 to 15 pounds if you have lifted in the past and kind of fell off the wagon and now returning, I would choose an 8 kilo, 10 kilo, 12 kilo bell to press overhead which is about in the range of 18 to 25 pounds. I would then choose a kettlebell that you could deadlift. Two kettlebells you could deadlift like a 12 kilo and a 14 kilo. I personally like kettlebells because they are so forgiving when you are first learning form. And I love the kettlebell and strength training over cardio, especially with an autoimmune condition because strength training will help you focus on your muscle tissue. And why is the muscle important? It will help with your energy levels. It will help with turnover of your thyroid hormones as well as weight loss. And sometimes I think we can associate wanting to lose weight with putting on our shoes and going for a run. But really focusing on the muscle will help us burn more calories, give us that energy boost, especially in the long Run. I think another reason to focus on strength training, especially with an autoimmune condition, is it will help with the integrity of your joints. Sometimes I see with autoimmune conditions, this element of hypermobility where the knees will travel back behind the ankles, the elbows will hyperextend, and we're kind of just hanging out on our joints. And if you strengthen the muscles that cross those joints, it will create this integrity where you will no longer feel like you just want to hang out on the joint. The other thing I see with women with an autoimmune condition is they get really sore after working out longer than the typical person. And that is because with especially hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid, there is a slower turnover of our tissue. What does that mean? Our tissue is constantly regenerating and replenishing, and thyroid hormone is required for every metabolic process in the body. And when we have an underactive thyroid, it takes longer for that tissue to replenish and regenerate. So what does that look like in the body? Oftentimes women with autoimmune conditions will have shoulder pain, knee pain, especially that infrapatellar tendon, that tendon that goes from the kneecap to the lower leg, and it will look like pain. With getting on the floor, playing with your kids, trying to do a lunge and get back up, you'll get knee pain. So the way to combat that is not through yoga, not through stretching. It's through strength training, really strengthening the muscles to stabilize the joints. And I think that is so important, especially for the ladies with the autoimmune conditions.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com.

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