How Our Understanding of Health Has Been Hijacked with Colleen & Jason Wachob

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I'm JJ Virgin, Ph.D. 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. This is a new moment in the well Beyond 40 podcast. Never before happened. I have a couple on the show and it is a couple that Tim and I have gotten to be really good friends with. I've known them for over a decade now and it is our buddies Colleen and Jason Wakab from Mindbody Green. They're co founders and co CEOs of Mindbody Green and you're going to hear the story of how mindbody Green started. And I'm sure you've been on mindbody Green site. They are the premier site for wellness. They've got great courses, they've got a really great health certification program, great products, all sorts of cool stuff. I've been blogging on there for years and what's going to be really fun in this interview is they've seen it all. Oh my gosh. Like talk about seeing it all over the last 14 years with all the interviews, blogs, et cetera. They've seen all the wellness trends. So that has been super cool because they now have really synthesized what you need to do to get to your first 80% in health. So wherever you are now, what can you do to get 80% healthier and what are those fundamentals that you need to do and really looking at rather than wellness well being. And so their new book is called the Joy of well Being and it is about simple things that you can do. A lot of them that will not cost you any money or time to make major shifts in your health. And you're going to hear Colleen's story. She's a Stanford University grad. What she was doing before and then Jason's story who was a basketball player in college, I think he was at Cornell. They were both living in New York City and you know some major life changes led to them founding co founding MindBody Green and now they are Miami nearly neighbors where they live with their two daughters, Ellie and Grace. All right, I am going to put all the cool show notes@jjvirgin.com wellbeing stay with me here because I'm in a be right back with them when we again are going to talk about what are those fundamentals to get your health 80% of the way there. Then you can do all the hacks and whatever else you want to do, but you got to get the fundamentals right. And a lot of these are things you probably never ever thought about before. And again, you're going to give some tips right now that you can put into place that won't take you any time and won't cost you any money. I'll be right back with Colleen and Jason. Stay with me. 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. If you 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 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 the code Virgin.

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So I'm super excited because we have a two for one going on here today to have both of you, Jason and Colleen, on an interview. Welcome.

Thank you so much for having us. Jj, we love you as a person and we're so excited to be here.

Yeah. Such an honor. Thank you.

Yay. Well, we've done interviews before on the mindshare side, but I've never had you in my health community, and I'm very excited to share you with everybody. And, you know, I know everybody listening is a big fan of mind body green because I don't know how you pay attention to wellness without, like, you know, paying attention to mind body green. You guys have been kind of leading the charge now for what, 14 years?

Yes. Coming up on 14.

It's quite something. Quite something to have that vision way back when to even do this. So I'd love to start there as to, you know, because you guys do not come from the health world. Whenever anybody asks me, oh, you know, when did you get interested in health? I'm like five, you know. But you guys had very different jobs, right?

Definitely.

See very different jobs when you started. So I would love to kind of dig into where the heck did mindbody Green start from? And then we're going to go into some of the key concepts of your new book I'm so excited about.

So it's definitely been an evolution and a journey along the way. And, you know, if we were to go back to the beginnings, my background, I played basketball in college and was an equities trader on Wall Street. And then after I was living in New York at the time of 9, 11, and like many New Yorkers, was deeply affected by that event and just decided, like, I wanted to maybe explore other things. And that big thing became I want to become an entrepreneur. I was part of a series of companies. Most of them did not do well. But I learned a lot in the process. And the biggest learning came from the last startup I was part of, Pre mindbodygreen. It was an organic chocolate chip cookie company which was in every Whole Foods Market in the country at the time in 2007. Cookies were amazing and the company wasn't doing well. And I found myself flying a ton. I flew over a hundred thousand miles domestic in a year. My 6 foot 7 body in a coach seat is not good for me or anyone else in front of me. And the stress and the flying and old basketball injury led to two extruded discs in my lower back. L4 L5s, one excruciating sciatica. I could not walk. Went to a doctor who said, you need back surgery. I have nothing against surgery, but generally see it as a last resort. And also worth noting that the success rates with back surgery are not good.

Right? That's an understatement. Yes, it's a great annuity because you never just have one.

Very, very, very well said. Yes. Tried cortisol shots that didn't work. Sought a second opinion. That doctor more or less said the same thing. He looked at the X ray and said, you need back surgery. And it was almost like an afterthought. He said, you know, maybe some yoga or therapy can help. And I said, okay, you know, I'll try some yoga. And sure enough, 10 to 15 minutes of really light yoga over the course of six months worked. And I went from couldn't walk at all to being fine to this date, I've never had back surgery. And it was through that process I had this epiphany. We had to rewind here to 2008 now, where the view on wellness, anything holistic, was a little bit too new Agey choir people in Venice or Brooklyn or Boulder. And it was, it was very clear to me that true wellness, or as we like to call it, well being now and Colleen will explain to you why we like well being over wellness was this blend of mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and environmental well being. A lot of people did not understand the environmental piece back then. Everyone's clear on those reasons today. And that all of these pillars were interconnected. Hence mind, bodygreen. One word, not three. And that was like the why. We've had a series of whys. Colleen had a big why when she decided to come on full time. And I'll.

Yeah, so you know, my, my journey to well being, my journey to writing this book with Jason really started from near catastrophic pulmonary embolism. When I was 32. I was working jobs prior to mind by degree. I worked at Gap, Walmart, Amazon. So very different sphere. One Saturday, I was going to Tara Stiles's 11am yoga class in the city, something I did every weekend. And after class, I was walking around the West Village, and I called Jason. I was like, I'm having trouble breathing. Can you come into the city? So he came in immediately. We're walking around. I was like, I think I need to go home. So I traveled with Jason home on the subway. And then as we were walking up the A train steps, which are quite steep, I collapsed, got up, got myself out of the subway and did what so many women do. I gaslit myself and was like, I'm okay, I'm fine. I'm sure I just overextended myself. It's really hot. And, you know, came up with every excuse to justify not going to a doctor. And over the weekend, I did things I never did. Like I napped, I slept. There was clearly signs that something was deeper wrong. On Monday morning, Jason was like, you can't go to Amazon at your job unless you go to the doctor on the way. So I traveled from Brooklyn to Soho, get to my doctor. He does one test, and he's like, you're having a pulmonary embolism. I was totally confused. I didn't really know what the term meant at the time. I probably didn't have a smartphone to Google it. On arrival, he gave me a sign that said, I'm having a pulmonary embolism, because he was really confused and concerned that I wouldn't be able to articulate what was happening with me once I got to the er. So once I got to the er, they did some scans. I had showers of clots in my lungs. I hadn't seen anyone with this many clots who was still living. That was definitely the point where I went from breakdown to a very long journey to get to a breakthrough. And I wrote a story, Mind bodygreen, about this experience of having a pulmonary embolism. The story went viral. And I heard from so many women, daughters, cousins, friends, who everyone seemed to know someone where someone who was seemingly healthy, who didn't have the risk factors for a clot, had this happened to them. Even though I think the clot incident's supposed to be about 1 in 10,000, so, you know, a huge experience in terms of really being the CEO of your own health care. I think I had been like, oh, that's something that happens to smokers or other people and not people who were like me. And, you know, I definitely learned about the responsibility that I needed to take over my own health and wellness. And it was the start of this very long journey to try to get to that breakthrough of trying everything, some of it wonderful, some of it closer to Charlotte, and to kind of figure out what would work for me. And, you know, the joy of wellbeing is really the roadmap that I wished I had when I was starting on this journey that would have saved me a lot of time and hopefully got me to the answer a lot sooner.

And what's super exciting is that you have had now really 14 years of being around some of the top people in wellness and having access that most people will never have, you know, and really being able to see firsthand all this different information and, and again, kind of all levels of information, some super science based, some sort of, you know, pseudo everything in between to come to this realization. And so first off, I'd love to know like this decision that it's not wellness, it's well being. What's the distinction between that and then I'd like to go into the big shift you've seen.

So I think there's two reasons we have a very complicated relationship with the word wellness. On the one hand, I recognize that these principles and tools and techniques have helped me, Jason and so many other people in our family. However, when I look at the way in which I see wellness and air quotes personified throughout social media and the world, it causes me concern. We use this phrase in the book of Kardashian wellness. And I think that's a lot of what I see on social media, which is a lot of a focus on things that aren't going to really move the needle and less of a focus on the fundamentals that are proven to actually move the needle. And second, there's a big focus on the self. And part of that is very rational because you do have to tune into yourself and work on your own wellness before you can start in your family or your community. But I think it loses this connection that there's something bigger around us and that true wellbeing will never be attained unless you and your community and your environment are also in a state of well being.

And we view the kind of 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. And I think 1.0 is the conversation on longevity, where essentially let's get someone to live as long as they can, say to 100 years old, then 2.0, the conversation shifted in a positive way to health Span, where the idea is let's make sure you live to 100, but let's focus on quality of life. So up until say 99 years, 11 months, three weeks, you're mobile, you're healthy, you're doing all the things you want to do and then you decline very rapidly and you die, maybe even overnight, a catastrophic event like a heart attack. And then we like to shift the conversation to 3.0 and what we call joy span. Because what's the point of being healthy and mobile and doing all the things you want to do physically? If you're on marriage number eight and your children don't speak to you and you have no friends, that's not a joyful existence. And so that to us is paramount. And if you look at all of the great studies you were just referencing, a new one that came out we were unaware of, on the power of meaningful real life connection. It is just so compelling and that should be part of the conversation. And if you think about taking a step back in terms of all the things we can do to extend longevity, health span or joy span, we are embedded in the space and this is our job and we're overwhelmed. We can't do all of these things. And the major objections to our world to being healthy is I don't have the time, I don't have the resources. And then when you start digging around on social media or on Google and looking at content, it is overwhelming so much the information is conflicting and confusing. And for us, this became a passion where we are at the point where there are so many scientifically proven time tested modalities or techniques that anyone can do, you know, assuming they're able bodied, if you have a life, if you have kids, spouses that you can fit into your day and that we can get you 80% there. Because I can see how someone looking at our space, picking up the book of the month very quickly just gets turned off and they say, I can't do this, I'll never get there. And that is just heartbreaking for us.

Yeah, I hate celery juice. What do I do now?

Oh God, don't get me.

Great example.

Ironically, I did a food sensitivity test years ago and who knows if it's accurate, but apparently I was allergic to celery juice. And you know what?

How fortunate for you, how fortunate.

It's amazing.

Saved from that one. You know, you brought up a couple really important points and it's, it's interesting because I have a mom who's 90, 93, not my genetics, sadly. And she, you know, she lives in a two story house. She walks up the stairs. I have a son, a brother, who also is not in my genetics, who's schizophrenic, who she takes care of. So I feel that's some of her purpose. And she's golfed her whole life and had this golf group and everything else, but all of her golfing friends basically have died, right? All of the fan, like, everyone has died. Mom's still there. And she's like, she's lost that connection stuff that she's always had. I'm like, mom, you gotta get younger friends. Like, that's it. You know, you just gotta get some youngins in there. But it is interesting to see because literally she called me this last week, she goes, okay, I'm done with this being sad and depressed. I'm like, okay. Cause I was like, I don't know what to do here besides move you out to Florida and get you at the villages, you know, which you look at these retirement communities and you go, there's definitely a reason that this works so well, because there's all that social connection and fun and joy in them that we need to have. And Radha Agrawal and I were talking about this. It's like, there needs to be a prescription for joy. You ask people like, what have you done for fun lately? And they look at you like, especially if they're a parent. I remember someone asked me that and I went, I went to my kid's soccer game. Does that count? No. Okay. I don't know.

It's such an important point. And I think all of us, including ourselves, can get caught up in nutrition and exercise. And look, there's good reason. They do tend to work. But you know, with that said, one of our favorite studies which we mentioned in the book is a study called the Rosetto Study. And Rosetto was a small town in rural Pennsylvania in the 1950s. And you know, you rewind back then. This is when heart disease enters America. Unfortunately, however, it didn't enter Rosetto. And so they studied Rosetto because the rate of heart attacks under age 65 was half that of the nation. And for men under 55, 0. Heart attacks non existent. So it's like, what are these people doing? What are they eating? What are they drinking? Well, it turns out they're doing all of the things that all of us think are probably not good. They're smoking, they're drinking, they're eating lots of pasta and meatballs. This makes.

So it's a town full of George Burns.

Exactly. Strong social connections, multi generational living is common. There were lots of parties and parades and celebrations, but enjoying the wine and the food with family and friends, guess what happens in the 1960s? Community starts to break apart, people move away, boom. Heart disease arrives, catches up with the national average. You know, it speaks volumes to the power of connection, the science of connection, which we think is extraordinarily relevant given where we are today in 2023. There's a great stat in book. There was a study in 2019 from Cigna that said half of Americans say they have meaningful daily face to face interactions. 2019, can you imagine what that statistic is today?

Oh boy.

And you brought up a lot of people aren't able to articulate what brings them joy. And you know, couldn't agree more. Arthur Brooks coined the term a personal mission statement. And we think it's really good practice for everyone to visit and then revisit kind of their own purpose and ask themselves, what is it that that brings you joy? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What feels like a higher calling? You know, and we go into more detail around it in, in the joy of well being. But that's probably the hardest part of all of this is, you know, tuning into yourself and checking in on am I living the most authentic life for myself?

And I think most people are aware that if they're not exercising enough, if they're not eating well. But I think when someone's emotionally unwell, that's often an inner dialogue that's a little bit more difficult. And asking the question, you know, if something were to go wrong, who's that midnight call to A friend. Well, if I don't have a friend, well, that's probably an issue. And start to do the inner work. Why is that, you know, are you looking forwards to something or are you looking backwards? And emotional health often in our world just really gets put to the back burner. And we've talked about this offline. There are a lot of people in our world who are extraordinarily healthy and putting out tremendous information, but they're emotionally unwell. And it's something that should be top of mind and shouldn't be discounted. And we really want to help people with the right tools asking the right questions.

You know, I think about the blue zones and I think if there were some real way because right now it's like what you do in adrenal salivary index or you look at your hrv, but there's not something like you get on a body composition scale. Or you take your blood pressure for your emotional health. And you look at, you know, they talk about the blue zones and they try to make it about the diet. I don't believe it's about the diet whatsoever. And I think what you just talked about with that town, Rosetta showed it. I think these people are respected as elders, have great relationships, social ties, and a purpose. You look at one of the key, most important parts of health that just isn't ever talked about because probably, hey, if you're doing nutrition, you can sell a nutrition program and supplements and shakes. If you're doing exercise, you can sell training. What the heck do you sell? Parties. What do you do now? I love putting parties, so this is.

Making me quite good. And we encourage you to move to Miami so we can do that or parties.

So I think this is a huge thing to bring up and I want to go through now the fundamentals because it made me joyful just to hear this, because I feel like people approach their health like they approach, like the opposite of how they would approach buying a car. I don't think most people would go to the car dealership and go, you know what I really want to know? What are the rim options for that car? And go. I don't really care about the engine. Meh. Doesn't matter. I just want it to look really pretty. And yet I feel like we approach health in that way. What's the latest thing? What's the hack? What's the thing? Those things have a place after the fundamentals are in place. But most people haven't done the basics and they're looking for this thing over here. And it irks me because, you know, you gotta get the foundation right first. So when you talk fundamentals, what are they?

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We start with breath, because breath is life. It is the most fundamental part of our existence. We breathe between 17,000 and 30,000 times a day. And more than half the population is breathing all wrong. And they're breathing through their Mouths. Breathing is personal to me because of, you know, when I had my pulmonary embolism, it was the first time I struggled to breathe, something I took for granted. It was a six month process to breathe normally again. But I was living with this invisible illness where I looked pretty fine, healthy ish on the outside, but I would fight the senior citizen for the subway seat because it was a struggle to stand for long periods of time. When you look at the place where you can have the most fundamental impact on anxiety and activating your rest and digest system, on your immune response, it has this wonderful wellness wave on so many parts of your body. The wellness wave to us is this idea that momentum begets momentum. Once one part of your life starts working and you're starting to see the health benefits, you're like, wow, this. This made me feel really good. I got some more sleep now. I'm gonna exercise in the morning or do whatever it is that, you know, your body needs that day. Other parts of your body seem to fall in check. So when I think of, you know, the highest ROI activity for about 50% of us, that's a good place to start.

I also want to call out, like, doing lab work. And in the book, I go into great detail here, and I think, you know, in terms of killers, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in America. For me personally, that's a big one. My father died of heart disease at 47. My maternal grandfather died of heart disease at 49. And then I guess my paternal grandfather died of cancer at 44. So men and my family have a terrible track record with regards to longevity. And so that's something I wanted to get ahead of. I do comprehensive blood work, and as it relates to cbd, you know, the big ones, I encourage everyone to do APO B, lp, get a. Get a calcium score. Those are like the big three that I think everyone should focus on. And the fourth one, which I think most people are unaware, and this is very personal to me. Homocysteine. Homocysteine, for those unfamiliar, is a marker of inflammation. Homocysteine at very high levels could lead to a catastrophic event like a pulmonary embolism or an aneurysm or a stroke. Your homocysteine should be under 15. A lot of functional medicine practitioners will say under 10. When I first started to get familiar with testing, I work with Dr. Frank Lippman. I said, you know what, let's. Let's go a little deeper here than just the blood pressure. So I do the 28 vials of blood my homocysteine was 63.

Holy.

I've never, never seen anyone that high. I've never even heard of anyone being that high.

I will joke that, you know, I'm 6 7, so I have the height. So maybe that. So that.

Wow. That must just be why your whole, like, why you have this whole familial history of this. Yeah.

So my father had something structurally wrong with his heart, which I don't have. So I don't, I'm, I'm fine there. My paternal grandfather, I have no idea because he died before I was, I was born. There is something possible there. And so I'll never forget the moment I, Frank Lippman called me and he said, I think it's a mistake. Take the test. And it wasn't.

Wow.

This was years ago. I didn't go immediately to Dr. Google. I did later.

Good restraint. I would have been like on there, man.

I was like preoccupied with work. He called me in the middle of a meeting. He called, so I picked up. Usually it's like he doesn't call me and it was like, what do I do? Is there, you know, medication, surgery, diet? He was like, you're not methylating properly. I'm gonna messenger you over B vitamins. I was like, okay, this is serious. Like we both live in New York City. He's messengering over the supplements. I went from.

Couldn't wait for that next day.

I went from 63 to 23 in 30 days.

Wow.

And then today I'm 10.

Nice. And just purely by getting your methylation pathways going.

Yeah, purely by supplements. That led to like, my passion for supplements and testing and everything. That's a big one. Homocysteine. A lot of people. LP apob, homocysteine. Get them checked.

My husband Tim has. His dad died in his early 50s and so like everyone in the family, cardiovascular disease. So I've been on it. Same thing he's got, you know, we've worked through a lot of it, but high apob, plaque, everything. So I was like, good thing you met me. Saved ya.

You know, not to be a Debbie Downer, but with cbd, if you just, if you take a step back, it's going to be difficult for people to wrap their head around it. But everyone has CBD and you die with it. The difference is the distinction is, does it kill you? So everyone develops plaque. You know, there was. I talked to Peter Attia about this the other day and I think it illustrates the point. They did an autopsy in a 20 something year old young adult who died from a violent act. And sure enough, even though he died from a gunshot wound, he had plaque, he had cvd was developing. So the memo is here is it should be a concern for everyone whether it's familiar risk or not, because it's there. And if you die at 100, you could, you could die with it or you could die from it.

Well, don't you think if we approached all of this and not like I always think to be super aspirational and positive and glass half full. Right. However, if we all went, you know what, I am like pre diabetic with heart disease and cancer cells. So, like, you would treat yourself very differently if that was going on versus, you know, just kind of a free for all. So that's how I've always approached this, is assume you're insulin resistan with heart disease and cancer. What would you do, you know, and do that? Which I think is pretty interesting when you look at all the research on exercise and cancer, and it's like you just don't see fit. People getting cancer, it's a rarity.

Yeah. And I think, you know, a goal with the book is like, was, how do we get people 80% there? And we think we can get you there if you only have a half hour a day. And if maybe you've limited, you know, limited resources as well, we can get you there. And going back to like, this is why we started with breath. We breathe 17 to 30,000 times a day. Breathing through the nose alone has a downstream effect in terms of immune function, in terms of how we deal with anxiety impacting sleep. It's huge. We're breathing no matter what.

And it's free, what you're doing. No extra time, no extra cost. It's a, you know, upgraded shift. That's all you did. I know with these labs, not all of those types of labs are covered by insurance, but you've just named a couple that can be pretty inexpensive.

Yeah. Apob, lpa, Homocysteine. They're not really expensive. And I just encourage everyone to just understand their baseline risk.

Yeah. And you only have to do LP once, so.

Correct.

You know, so that's cool. Okay. What? What? And I love the 80% because that is such an important frame. Because I think we try to jump to the 20% without doing the 80%, which doesn't work.

When we strive for perfection, then we just get to this point where we don't even start. It's too intimidating. There's too many obstacles where it's like one foot in Front of the other. Let's get to the 80%. And if you want to get to that 20%, awesome. That's fantastic. It's just not the time, resources and other obstacles. It's just not realistic for everyone.

Well, you mentioned 30 minutes a day. So if someone, and I'm assuming you're talking about fitness in that one, was that what you're referring to? Because I want to know what you would do with that 30 minutes a day.

So if you're, if you're right now really embedded in longevity or health span, you know, I'll give you a typical day of what someone may see on social media. I wake up, I meditate for 20 minutes, I do cold plunge and then I go sauna and then I do plunge again. Then I go exercise for 45 minutes.

Yeah, I'm like, when are you working actually? Like, people ask me that stuff all the time. I'm like, okay, I do some stuff in the morning, but then I actually have to go work. You know, like we work, we do things. So, you know, I kind of went, if I can get one to two self care things in a day, winner.

Maybe start with just 1, 100%. But what I just outlined is something that you commonly see online and it's, it's a recipe for divorce. It's, you know, what happens when your kids screaming and you've got drop off and look.

No, but I've got to get in the sauna, Jason.

Exactly, exactly. And, and you know, like, like you, this is our life. We're embedded in the space, we're passionate about it, it's what we do professionally. And yet time for all of this. And I think, you know, look, you can put in a lot of time and we're not knocking that. If you do have the time and resources to spend three or four hours a day and it brings you joy, by all means do it. But if you don't have the time, we believe you can get there in a half hour with exercise, with your protocols, if you will. And whether that's carving out the time for 30, whether if you're going to work out or we're big believers in micro moments, whether that means, you know, people talk about Zone two training a lot. And essentially zone two is being slightly out of breath where you can have a conversation but it's somewhat difficult. You don't need to wear a tracker like I do to do it. That's like what that looks like. How do you get there? Take the stairs. I don't have time. You Know how long it takes me to take the stairs five flights? About 30 seconds. Granted I'm in pretty good shape, but if you're not, it probably takes you a minute. If you're able bodied, everyone can do that. Do it a couple times. It's just one example and I think, you know, it's setting up your day. It's this idea, I think a lot of people in our space, I think approach it from. I need to do all these extra things and our approach is how do I make all of these things fit into my life?

And I would assume one by like I really love the approach that you're sharing too is, is you know, it's the January 1st. I'm going to do all of these things and then you do none of the things because you're overwhelmed. But if you just started with, you know what, I'm just going to make sure that I'm actually breathing correctly and get that dialed, then I can go to the next thing. And again, what was it you said? Because they all, they all do like you do one a wellness wave. Like you have so many great terms. Would you call it the Kardashian Wellness? These things are so funny. They're just fantastic. You guys kill me.

Yeah, no, it's a good one. I think the wellness wave, it's this idea of building momentum because very to your point, January 1st comes, I've got all these, these big goals, all the that I want to accompl and then you run out of steam very quickly. I think it's like January 17th, the majority of residents, quitters day.

It's always great in the gym in February. January sucks. You know, I'm like, get out of here. You're not going to be here long. Just leave. You know, you're in the way.

So you got to build it into your life and you got to have fun, you got to have joy. And it's our feeling that a lot of joy is being, being sucked out of, well being and if it's not joyful, don't do it.

So one thing I would love to just hear about is because again you've now been, you know, heading up Mindbody Green for 14 years. You've seen a lot of shifts over the years. What are some of the shifts that you've seen that you know, you now might have thought one way but now you're definitely shifted into a new way of thinking.

The biggest shift, and I feel like we probably talked about this together at one point in time has really been around our approach to protein and resistance training and the two going hand in hand and how we view building muscle, I think we, you've probably heard the stat, if you're over 65, there's a 25% chance that you fall. And if you do fall, studies show that your chances of falling again double. And if you fall and break your hip, then there's a 30 to 40% chance that you will die within a year. And of course, it's not the fall that is the only issue. It's everything happens after that. Wellness pile up. Another, another term from the book where once one thing goes wrong, it just sets off this domino effect and it makes it harder to get back to your baseline. And I think a lot of folks in the holistic world, you know, when I think of like the 2010s, there was a lot of yoga conversation, there was a lot of vegetarian conversation. Because I've, I've really asked myself, how did this become such a dominant kind of way of thinking? When I look at the 2020 decade that we're now in, there's been such a wonderful shift in terms of exercise modalities. For the first time on class pass, one of the most popular classes is women's weightlifting.

Yay.

I know, big yay, right? And as these exercise modalities change, they're now changing how we think about nutrition. And I'll let you speak too.

Resistance training and protein is nothing new. This is been around for a while, but I think the shift has been the context around longevity. And so like, let's go to that, like theoretical fall. So what do you want to happen? One, you want to be mobile and agile enough. So if you are about to fall and strong enough, maybe you can like grab something or regain your balance, or you want enough muscle so that muscle becomes your armor and you break that fall. And that's a really important issue because sarcopenia is very real. It is more common than you think, with up to 13% of people in their 60s suffering from it and half of people in their 80s. So let's just say we make it to 80s, but half people are living with sarcopenia. And we lose bone density as we age, up to 1% a year after 40. And for me, this hit home personally in that, as I said, yoga saved me from back surgery. And I became obsessed with yoga. It became my why. And there are so many people in our space where whether it's a food choice or a practice saves them and it becomes almost like religion. They put everything else becomes their identity and that happened to me, and I really stopped doing resistance training. I started to do a little bit, but I stopped doing legs. I hated doing legs in college. The last time I did legs was the day before my last basketball game in 1998. I'm like, I'm never doing legs again. And a year and a half ago, I didn't really get in the scale often, but I got in the scale. I noticed I had lost about almost close to £10. I'm like, what's going on? Like, and then I look, because my waist felt the same, and then I look in the mirror, and I said, oh, my God, you're fluffy. I've got. No, I've got old white man's ass.

That's what I call it. It's the fluffy.

Yeah. My basketball is, like, disappeared. I'm like, oh, my God, it's catching. It's me.

Was Colleen just being nice and not mentioning this to you?

Pretty much. And then that was my aha moment where I, I've gotten back in the gym, and, you know, since then, I, I, I've gained, I'm proud to say I've gained five pounds of lean muscle mass.

I saw. I mean, like, just recently, we were comparing biceps. You're getting close to me.

Well, I'm kidding.

Well, no, as you said, a high bar.

Jj, you set a high bar. It really hit home. And as you get older, it becomes more challenging to. To put on lean muscle mass. You know, the, the science is unequivocal. To put on lean muscle mass one, you have to do resistance training, period. Like, you have to, you have to lift things. You have to. You have or. Or use your body weight in a way that's, like, very effective. I think it's harder to do, but to do so, you need to ingest protein. And this is an emotional topic because protein off often leads to animal versus plant protein. In the context of this conversation, you know, without a doubt, animal protein is superior, and you need to ingest enough. The RDA of 0.36 grams per pound is really the bare minimum.

It's ridiculous.

It is.

It's to survive. Everyone needs to hear that. This is to survive. This is not going to protect you from sarcopenia. It's not going to protect your bones.

And you probably need at least double, maybe triple if you want to be aggressive about putting on weight. And you need enough the right amino acids, specifically leucine. You need that two and a half grams for every, you know, it's probably be 25 to 30 grams depending on the percentage of leucine in order to promote muscle protein synthesis. And, you know, and. And to summarize, when you're young, it really doesn't matter as much, but when you're older, essentially, if you don't get the two and a half grams of leucine, that protein just like, goes to waste. It doesn't build muscle to get the amount of protein and leucine you need and plant protein. It is just the amount you have to consume is really a lot.

Have you heard of the protein leverage hypothesis?

No, please.

Oh, this is so cool. These insect researchers discovered this and then kind of followed through on, like insects to reptiles to humans. And the theory was we will. And just think about this, because it makes complete sense, is that we will continue to eat if we are not getting the protein we need in our food. We just continue to eat. To be able to get to that threshold, we need a protein. So eating low protein causes you to overeat because you'll continue to eat to try to get to the level of protein that you need. And it makes a ton of sense. I think of, like, when I would go to a vegan restaurant and I'm like, I just could never get to the point where I felt satiated. I was like, I need to go out and get a chicken or something. Like, you know, can I bring a roast in my purse? That's probably not okay. But, you know, I think it's. What are the stats that Gabrielle line says that, you know, it's six cups of quinoa to open to one chicken breast. Like, there's no way without extreme supplementation. And I always question a diet where you have to supplement in order to survive.

Yes.

Like, there's something wrong. Like, the reality is, because I know it's a very. It's like this religious topic where it's science, it's not religion. And any diet where if you were out in the wild, you would die is a problem. It doesn't make sense, you know, so you wouldn't have the B12 you needed. You would not make it. Could you do it if you had some big religious reason to do it? You have to massively. You have to be so advanced in your nutritional knowledge and your supplementation and your protein supplementation to pull this thing off and to push yourself past the anabolic resistance that starts as we get 40 plus, where we just can't build muscle like we used to. That it is. It's like, why make this so hard? You know, like, if you're doing it for health, you know, And I know there's this huge discussion, this huge battle with these two groups of longevity is keeping mtor low. And it's like, well, if you keep mtor low all the time, like I'm seeing this now in friends that have been on the omad diet and eating one meal a day and all of a sudden I'm looking at them going, what has happened to you? You've lost muscle, you're now you're fluffy. Like you shouldn't be fluffy. You want to be solid like a rock, not fluffy. As we age, we do not want to get fluffier. You know, I had someone brag to me that they weighed the same weight that they'd weighed in high school. I go, you may weigh the same weight, but you definitely don't have the same body composition. You know, it's, it doesn't matter. Weight is, it's not what you weigh, it's what the weight's made up of. We've got to get so past that. So that has been a big wrap up that I know is a big thing or a big shift I know is big for you because you guys were in the hotbed of yoga and veganism there in Brooklyn.

We've experimented with everything and our view has been that we've always tried to be flexible and find something that works until it doesn't. And if you're going to be, I think in our, in our world it's very easy to be rigid and dogmatic. And you know, for us it's been about what, what, what does the science say? What also feels good in our body? You know, we believe you have to be the CEO of your own health and be open to change. Like if you're going to be rigid, be rigid about being flexible because what works for you in your 20s is probably going to change in your 30s and your 40s and so on. You know what, so does the science. And you need to be open to that.

I know, I know what I have believed. I always go, sorry to those of you who are my clients in my 20s, but you know, I was doing the best with the science at the time. Like even all the stuff that I learned in grad school for exercise physiology, like what we know now is, is different.

Come on.

Right? So you have to be constantly looking at the research. But there is a piece to that that's so mission critical. It's like, well, how do you actually feel?

Right, yes.

You know, you've probably tapped into the hardest bit of all of this to unlock is you can look at all the data, you can look at all the research, you can read all the books, but at the end of the day we are all an N of one experiment and only you can, you know, be the CEO of your own, of your own health and well being and you can take all this information, but you also have to tune into the intuitive work of how you feel. Looking at your big T little T trauma body keeps the score of you know what's impacting on the inside and really navigate and advocate for yourself of what is the right next step in your journey.

And be kind to yourself in this journey. You know, something we write in the book is we prefer not to use cheat. We like treat and perspective is every everything. Be kind about having that slice of cake with your friends, enjoying a birthday or just don't do it every day. And if you're going to have the cake, make sure the cake's amazing or having a glass of wine. If you enjoy wine, have a glass of wine, make sure it's an incredible glass of wine, don't have a terrible glass of wine and beat yourself up over it. And I think perspective is everything and I think we can often start to feel guilty around some of the choices we make and then we lose any momentum we may have had. Have joy. Build your practices around the lifestyle you want to live. So you know, there's a great line with exercise. The best exercise is the one you actually do.

So I love this. Designing your life. Start with that. What's the Design? Do the 80% by getting the fundamentals right for you, which is what the book, the joy of well being shares. So that's the starting point. And then be beyond that. You can start to mess around with other things, but start with the fundamentals because you know, you don't frost a cake when there's no cake. You gotta bake the cake to frost the cake, right? So by the way, I just made the best keto gluten free carrot cake ever for Easter, I must say. Anyway, so I was like, we still eat cake and it's actually pretty delicious.

All right.

This has been fantastic. I'm so thrilled that you guys did this book. Like this book. You know, we all needed this book synthesizing all of your life experiences and all of the learning of the last 14 years of running Mind Body Green and being able to put, you know, these best practices into this book. And then also I think this idea of really what will get you to that 80% is it's so fundamental and I've never heard anyone say it. Like, it's like, well, duh. I've never heard anyone say it. And it's like, oh, well, of course. So I love that. I'm going to put all of this in the show notes. I'm going to put it@jjvirgin.com wellbeing we'll also have 15% off your amazing supplement line, too. Yay. Tell us a little bit about why you launched a supplement line and what you've got going on there.

So the big why was my homocysteine story. I had always believed in supplements, but not to this extent where I saw my homocysteine go from 63 to 10. And it was my wow, aha moment and really was the inspiration to what are some of the other problems that we could provide some solutions for people, Common ones like sleep for Colleen, which is a big one and kind of went down the line. And now we've got 20 plus products that we're extraordinarily proud of.

That is a lot of work.

It is my, you know, I do all.

Oh, my gosh.

Even though, look, I think our goal with the book is to get people to 80%. I like to tinker. I'm trying to get to 100. I wear all the wearables and do all the tests. But, but it's, it's, it's our passion as well.

Yeah, fun. Well, it shows because I know what it takes to do that stuff and you've got to be passionate about it to go that extra mile. So that's fantastic. So again, jjvirgin.com forward/wellbeing I will put the links to what we talked about and the link to grab the book. Make sure you get the book, tell your about it, share it and the link to get the supplement deal of 15% off. And thank you both so much for hanging out with me and for also being such great friends. We, Tim and I, love and adore you guys and hopefully we'll be neighbors.

Love that.

Love that.

We just got to work a little more on Tim. That's your job. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques. Techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and more importantly, that you're built to last. And check me out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and my website, jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast so you don't miss a single episode@subscribetojay.com See you next time.

Foreigners 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 check 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.