Revolutionizing Fitness for Women Over 40 with Tony Horton

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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, so today we're going to talk about the fact that women are not small men. You probably heard Dr. Stacey Sims talk about this. This is really fun. What happened here? So Tony Horton, and I'm sure you know who Tony Horton is. He is the creator of the, like, you know, biggest exercise program in America. P90X. So Tony Horton connected up with Dr. Mindy Pelz, who wrote Fast Like a Girl. Turns out Mindy Pelz had completely rearranged his workout to work for women. And they got together and it was kind of like almond butter and dark chocolate. They put together a program for women. So we are going to be unpacking that today. We're going to be unpacking, like, what's the difference between how women should work out, how men should work out? You know, how can you take those ideas and put it into what you're doing right now? Why variety matters, why challenging yourself matters. We're going to unpack all of that with Tony. I've got him in the house and it's really funny. I'm not going to tell you, but his name had just come up in conversation. So you'll hear why his name came up in conversation when I intro him and tell him about that. But let me tell you A little bit about Tony. He is a world class motivational speaker and the author of top selling books, Bring It, Crush it and the Big Picture. He's been on loads of TV programs as a fitness and lifestyle expert and he has a huge celebrity clientele that he's worked with over the years. Tom Petty, Usher, Bruce Sprinsing, Allison, Janey, Octavia, Tovia Spencer, on and on and on, Stevie Nicks, Billy Idol, you know, the list goes on. And of course the creator of P90X. And so it's been very fun to have this conversation to hear kind of the unpacking, the, you know, what P90X is, what he's learned over the years, what, how he's changed his mind over the years, you know, being in full fitness 35 years plus. So I will be right back with Tony Horton to talk about what we need to think about as women perimenopause, postmenopausal, how we need to work out differently and how to apply this to your program so that you can get the best results without getting injured. I'll be right back with Toni Horton. 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. And 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@monimal.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin. This episode is brought to you by McAfee.

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Tony Horton. Welcome to well Beyond 40.

JJ. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's super fun to have you here because literally, I was out to dinner a couple weeks ago and your name came up and I was with all your pals. So I was out to dinner with Mark Sisson and his wife and Chalene Johnson and her hubby. Yes. And we were like, the only person missing here is Tony Horton.

God, if you're. If you were only in Malibu, I could have just driven up the street and hung out. But you guys were all the way in Florida, so.

I know. Well, you got to move to Florida with the rest for that crew, for.

You three and family. I would have flown out for that.

I know. And then periodically we get together with our buddies over at mindbody Green, too. So we've got quite a wellness contingency now in. In Florida. There you go.

Thanks for. Yeah, thanks for helping the folks of Florida. That's a beautiful.

All right. Well, we are. This is going to be an interesting conversation today for the guy that created P90X, like, hardest workout out there. We're going to talk about women and fitness hormones and cycling. I. I love having guys talk about periods. It's super fun.

Yeah, I like to talk about your first bleed of the month. That's my number one.

Not awkward at all, by the way.

This whole process, everything we're going to be talking about was an education for me. I mean, I was in the dark until I met Dr. Mindy Pels. And then I. Then I woke up to a lot of things, so.

Well, we've had Dr. Mindy on the show. We love Dr. Mindy. We're big fans there. So, you know, I think that's a dynamic partnership you've got there. But I also love the fact that, you know, first of all, we've been in fitness. Like, I've been doing this for 40 years. Do I have you beat or are you in the same.

You have me beat. You have me beat. I think it's 35. I'm on 35 now.

So, I mean, like, when I first got in, there was no talk about hormones and exercise. I mean, like, you look at. Right. So so much stuff there's still so much to learn. And I don't know about you, but I feel like there's, like, I know less now than ever. Like, there's still way more out there to learn. The more we go in, the more research there is. So it's going to be fun. It's fun to unpack it. I love that you're still in there learning, but here you are. You've been in fitness now for a.

Long time, decades and decades.

Why did you decide to tackle this, this crazy subject of women, hormones and exercise?

I mean, pure serendipity, really. Kismet, whatever you want to call it. You know, I do these Masterminds much. Not really podcasts, but I had these Mastermind sessions and somebody said, hey, I've just finished reading Fast like a girl Dr. Mindy's book and I'm going to try to get her. Somebody in my team said, I'd love to get her on a call with you because she's got an interesting story about when she went through P90. And so, you know, we were just sort of chatting, chatting about the book and a lot of the research that she's been doing, and maybe she's spoken about this on your show as well, is that when she did P90X, she realized the schedule was not well made for gals, you know what I mean? And so we used to, when I, back in the day, I was always saying, hey, if you're a gal, whether you're premenopausal, perimenopausal, postmenopausal, you know what I mean, go by how you feel back off on chest and back and do lighter reps or stop halfway through or maybe substitute that with maybe a yoga or a stretch routine. We didn't really have any kind of a mindfulness component back in those days. And a lot of women would meander the way through it and try to recover the best that they could and their P90X became P120X, you know what I mean? That was just sort of the way that a lot of them got through it. And, you know, look, one size does not fit all. You got a lot of type A former athletes who maybe had 10, 15 pounds to lose. It used to be former softball players or gymnasts and they would, you know, they would figure it out. But the average gal that was like in her 40s with three kids in a busy schedule, it was more of a harder journey for them. So what Mindy did was she saw the schedule the way it was based on her research, she just said, I'm not going to do chest and back here. I'm going to put yoga there because it's day between day 10 and day 15, then I'm going to pump it up. I'm going to put on my chest and back and shoulders and arms and plyo sessions in this five day period of time. And then as I come out of, out of heavy testosterone hormonal flow and then I would, you know, calm things down. Not where I had it in the schedule, but where she felt worked best for her. And you know, she came away feeling good, lost the weight, got strong unscathed, and then started sharing that with kind of her friends and fans. Like, hey, if you're doing P90X, don't follow Tony schedule.

For those that don't know, I just realized we're talking about P90X and there may be some, I, I doubt it. But you never know. There might be some, some people listening who are like, what is P90X?

Yeah, there's about five of them out there.

Yeah. So let's share those, those origins of what is P90X?

P90X. Well, you know, P90X took me out of my apartment after 21 and a half years so that I could have a life. But you know, I mean, you know, I was training Billy Idol, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Annie Lennox, Octavia Spencer, you know, half a Fleetwood Mac, Steven Stills. I mean, you know, I was keeping rock and roll alive and going pretty good for there for a while and that was a pretty good gig. Plus I was doing a lot of on camera. I was a young actor and I had little parts in TV shows and movies and commercials and whatnot. And you know, these two things were happening separately. But what was unbeknownst to me that at one point I was going to meet a guy by the name of Carl Daikeler who would work out with me and he liked my sense of humor and I was silly and I, you know, I had tons of variety. We're martial arts one day and yoga the next and weightlifting and then just, you know, hit training and da, da, da. He goes, dude, you're not just stuck in the yoga mode, you're not just stuck in the weightlifting mode, you're not stuck in the cardio mode. And this kept, kept him and a lot of my clients because, you know, you're training celebrity types and their management has got, you know, eyeballing you. So I was just trying to keep everybody interested. I'm trying to keep people from getting bored, injured and plateau. And it seemed to work based on that basic thing. And so, you know, one day, you know, Carl and I shot a couple programs that did okay. And then he said, hey, what's the next thing? And I said, you know, let's, I said let's, let's chill out a little bit. And he said, no, let's crank it up. Okay. So he gave me about six months and I did a lot more research. I added some Kenpo martial arts to it, which wasn't in the original Power 90. And so we created this thing with the hope that we'd sell a couple hundred thousand and break even. And we sold several million of it. And it's just, it's 12 workouts, each one different from the next with modifications and power. We call it Powering down Now on Power Sync60. But we just gave the hard version, we gave the in between version and we gave the simple version so as the viewer, they could see the three different versions. And you know, it was up to them at that point to interpret what, what it is that they felt like they needed based on what they were watching. And you know, and still today, I mean, I met a secret service agent, this guy Jim, who said, extended his career by 12 years, you know, and he was, he was the guy right next to, you know, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Joe Biden. I mean, he was the guy. And he had these, all these presidents doing bits of P90X, which is crazy. And I still to this day, oh, Tony, I've done it 50 times, I've done it 30 times. I mean, it's nuts that people just keep on doing this program, created new ones. So if you don't know what P90X is, it's, it was, you know, some people say it's the number one fitness program ever.

Well, let's go with that. And what does P90X stand for?

Power 90 Extreme. So there was a program before called Power 90 and so it was a three month program and there was different schedules based on the weekend or the month. And then we just took that and we turned it up to 11 and, and we called it P90X instead of calling it Power 90 Extreme. P90X rolled off the tongue a little bit easier and we created this fake thing. Arnold always gives gives like, hey, Arnold, what do you think about muscle confusion? It's stupid. There's no such thing as muscle. That's my Arnold. Thank you, Miro week. And what muscle confusion was, was a made up term to explain the fact that you're going to Be doing something different every day. So Monday through Saturday, most people took Sunday off. You were doing a different workout. Some of them were resistan of them were hypertrophy, some of them were yoga, some of them were stretching. And then you would do that for three weeks. And then you had a recovery week in week four, which was just some of those routines more mellow. And then the second month would kick in and then we turn up the volume and then the third month would kick in, we'd turn up the volume. And you know, I mean Kathy McDonald, just a random woman that I met along the way, I lost 125 pounds doing a program that she customized for herself, much like Mindy did. And she's kept it off ever since. And you know, this is whatever. Fifteen years later, Jeremy Yost used to go on QVC with me because his story was 180 pound weight loss. You know, he lost what I weigh now. Plus, you know, and I, I've been to 63 military bases around the world. You see all these here, these there, these represent all the military bases from Kosovo to South Korea to Japan. Up, up and down the California coast, east coast of the entire military. You know, I met Colonel Steven shepherd who actually retired as a two star general. And when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq, he, he made a huge tent, put up a giant screen and made everybody. People were doing p90x24 7 people from Turkey were doing people everywhere. You know, it was a joint base. And then he went to camp, not Pendleton, but camp. What's the base outside of D.C. where they fly in Marine One and everything else. There were four tennis courts. So he tore them all down and he made 400 people at once do, do P90X there. So it's just one of these things that became part of the lexicon. I'm apparently the only person civilian that's taught workouts at the Pentagon.

So you know what's very cool is I remember hearing about this piece of it and then we're going to actually talk about some things that can apply to you. But we're going through a little history, right?

We're going into Tony's history.

We're going, yeah, there will be some applicable things coming next. What you did interesting here is during that time when P90X launched, everything else out there was like, oh, you can get this in six minutes. Oh, this will be easy. And what you did instead was you said no, actually. Right. It's going to be hard. You're going to work hard. And I remember hearing oh, that's not going to work. Well, I think it worked. And it was also, it wasn't going to sell.

They knew it was going to work. But why would the average American bust their butt six days a week and eat vegetables and stuff all the time? And the thing was, a lot of people who had, you know, who had a general sense of common sense, they would flip channels and go, well, that's B.S. and that's B.S. and that's B.S. and then stop and look at this thing and go, damn, that has got to work. I mean, do I have the cojones to do it? You know, and we sold as many or more to women than we did men. And, and it was, it was, you know, like, you, you train hard, I train hard. Mark Sisson trains hard, Chalene trains hard. All the people that I trained, all those rockers, you know, these were not people who liked. Except for Bruce was the one that liked to train hard. But I turned Tom Petty into, from a human noodle to one of the most striated vascular cats you ever saw. And he had the best tour of his life. I mean, he went out there and 60 city tour and crushed it because he had the lung capacity, because he had the strength, because his, you know, when you exercise, it's, it's norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, brain derived neurotropic factor, you know, cannabinoids, these things that are waiting inside of your skull for you to move. And Tom moved. Less cigarettes, more movement. And his voice was great and his stamina was great. And so then the phone rang off the hook. Then Billy Idol called, and then everybody called.

Well, and here's the thing, you know, we are never better than when we're challenged. And when you learn that you can work out and do hard things, you learn that you can do hard things in life, right?

Well, one leads to the other. I mean, fitness and eating right is the foundation to become the badass that you can be if you want to be that person.

There you go, that's quotable. So the other thing, besides bringing out this thing of like, don't be afraid of hard work, the other thing that you brought into this, because since we've been in fitness a long time, there was always the warring factions. There were the gym people, there was the aerobic class people, there were the yoga people who are really war. It's almost like the vegans and the carnivores now were the yoga people and the weight room people and all the warring. And instead you brought it all in. Now let's talk about variety, because I think it is underrated in the world of fitness. And it's like you look at exercise and go, here's an exercise prescription. But exercise could be yoga, it could be Tai chi, it could be walking, it could be HIIT training, could be.

Any of these, could be peloton, could be know, right? It could be, you know, martial arts, it could be boxing training, you know, and the thing is, a lot of. A lot of trainers sort of specialize. I think that's sort of the case still today. You know, there are yoga instructors and there are martial arts instructors and boxing instructors and bodybuilders and. And then segments of society will be kind of drawn to one of those and hopefully they'll stick with it because they enjoy just the yoga, they enjoy going to the peloton class. And. And I just said, you know, but there's always going to be. Not always, but there's always burnout and there's always injury and there's always the plateau effect, which is. Which is what we're trying to avoid. And, and if you're working on your weaknesses, which is why P90X was created, which is the reason why I created Power 4 and Power Sync 60, is you're going to do some things that you're familiar with and things that you like and things that you're pretty good at, and we're going to allow you to do that the best you can do it. We're also going to add this other stuff where you're going to stink, you know what I mean? And what that, what that does is it gives you this learning curve that doesn't exist with the stuff that you already know how to do. The learning curve, which is activating more muscles, ligaments, tendons, right? A little bit of brain power. You're working on balance, you're working on speed, you're working on range of motion, you're working on things that you don't work on. If you're just doing the stuff that you're doing, and so your body's just going to respond to that and there's less likelihood that you're not going to get hurt because you're not repeating the same stuff over and over again expecting to see some kind of fabulous result. And some people want to get bigger, and some people want to get smaller, Some people want to gain weight, some people want to lose weight, some people want to be more flexible, and some don't want to be less flexible. But, you know, so that, that was the point. And. And. And all those rockers and movie stars and TV stars were guinea pigs. And it was mostly. I mean, back in those days, I just added the variety because I could tell because I was just doing cardio and weights and cardio and weights like most people still do cardio and weights. And you could see that they weren't getting the results that they wanted. You could see them start to get bored, and then there'd be those shoulder injuries that I would like, okay, let's take a couple days off or put ice on it or here's some balm or. So. So I just realized if I just added more stuff, you know, I mean, everybody I trained had a heavy bag. Everybody I trained had to learn yoga. Everybody I trained, you know, was. Was doing certain body parts on certain days, and we were mixing it up and changing it up after three weeks all the time. And so they got out of their rut, you know what I mean? And. And almost all of them, except for a couple. Oh, I couldn't help, because they just, you know, they would show up in their boxers with a lamb shank in their hand.

I go, I know. There's only so much you can do. I remember doing a diet recall with a gal, and she goes, well, I'll just show you my refrigerator. All she had in a refriger. Champagne.

I'm like, huh, that's very festive. She's a very festive.

I was like, that's not fruit. That's not counting. Yeah. So, I mean, you can't help everybody. They have to. The thing with fitness is they actually have to do.

They kind of want. Gotta want it. And they got. And my. The other thing, too, that I did, jj, was be the tortoise, not the hare. All right? Keep your expectations down. Keep them down. Show up. 80% of life is showing up. I think Woody Allen said that, but we don't want to give him too much credit for anything. But the other 20%. My opinion is, how do you feel while you're doing what you're doing? Can you push a little bit harder? Do you need to back off? I was never a drill sergeant. I was never yelling, two more, three more. You can do it. You know, I was. I was always asking everybody questions about what was their state of mind, what was their form like? If I saw form go bad, we're done with this. We're moving on to the next thing, you know, or your workout's over. Even though there's more stuff to do, just paying attention, you know, Just being observant to what they were doing so that they. So in the long term, and I was always given three and four months when I had a. When I had a rocker getting ready for a tour, if I had a. I mean, I had Sean Connery got. Getting him ready for Medicine man way back in the day, you know, and he's like, I'm not used to take. I feel like I'm kind of taking it easy. I go, dude, I got you for four months. Trust me, it's going to get harder.

Don't worry.

Right now your range of motion sucks. You don't have any stamina. So what? I'm not going to beat you up because you're not really ready, you know.

So here you are doing all of that. And now I was like, looking at this, going, okay, Tony, so now you've decided to tackle women's cycles and exercising around their cycles. Are you a crazy man?

I know. Why did I. Why did I think of such a. You know, I just, I. I had that experience of a lot of gals who never got. Never finished P90X and a lot of women that. It just seemed like they. They were getting, you know, they were getting too sore in all the wrong places. You know, too much in the joints and not enough in the muscles. And. And, you know, the thing is, I can tell you to back off. I can tell you to take a break here. I mean, our big thing was, hey, if you can't do this, hit the pause button and just get, you know, get some water, towel off, come back in if you can. If you feel like after that you can't. But again, you know, I'm not in the room with people. I feel like hell with you, Tony. I'm going to keep going to the end. And so a lot of people got burnt out because they weren't really listening to what I was doing. Their ego, right, Their ego got in the way and their ego destroyed the journey. And that's just too bad. And that still happens today. And so, you know, lucky me, I had this. This conversation with Dr. Mindy Pell. She was on my. On my mastermind. On my. In my mastermind session. And I don't know who she was. She wrote a couple of books and she seems pretty smart. And some of my team said, you should talk to this girl. And then by the end of our conversation, our masterminds are about an hour, you know, she said. And we were talking about hormones and how she did P90X and why she did it differently. And how she got the results she got and she didn't get burnt out and she felt like she lost more weight and gain more muscle because she rearranged the schedule that I designed. I mean, we had a get lean schedule, we had to get buff schedule. We had the standard schedule. We gave some a little bit of variation, but she completely changed everything around and she said, I don't know, my wish would be to do a program with you based on my research for all these women that have been frustrated for so long and not getting the results that they want. Nine months later we were shooting it. I mean, it was just like, oh my God. I mean, I got such a wake up call for me now getting into the weeds about pre post parent.

Oh, I'm going to ask you every cycle question right now. Let's talk luteal.

I just said, okay, Mindy, here are the routines. Here's how I'm going to power down, power up. So we added this power down, power up thing like this. Very distinguished. This is going to be harder. This is going to be easier. What stage of your cycle are you in? Is it day 10 to 15? You need to be over here. If it's day 20 to 30, you need to be doing that. And she was on the set for me. Explain to me, you know, with cue cards. Here's what you want to say now. You know what I mean? And so we worked together and we created this 11:11 workout routine. We had two test groups. We had 90 in one and 100 plus in the other. I'm talking women in their 70s whose husbands are like, why do you keep doing this stuff? You're 70 years old. You're going to age the way you age. You haven't had a period in decades. And why do you bother? A. Because a lot of these women were Dr. Mindy Pell's fans, probably a lot of the same fans that you have. And I spoke to a woman with tears in her eye on a zoom call who was hoping to lose five, lost 17 pounds, never felt better. She just had tons of energy. She wasn't. Didn't feel broken anywhere in the process. And you know, and then I said, what does your husband say? Well, he's still. Still a curmudgeon. I couldn't change his personality, but he was proud of her, you know, and so. And a lot of stories like that, you know, a lot of stories like that based on, you know what to do on certain days based on your hormonal fluctuations. And a lot of women are completely clueless still. I mean, men are especially clueless. And on top of that, I can't tell you how much of an education it was for these women's partners. Hey, buddy, I'm struggling here because of the science behind what Dr. Mindy Pelz in the program that Tony created. So a lot of husbands are like, oh, I just thought you were being cranky. No, dude, careful. Wake. Wake the f up. Because this is important to understand this stuff, to understand what your. Your gal's going through and the fact that she's putting in the time and energy and effort into something maybe for the first time that's working, then, you know, you should be. It should be full support system.

I love this. So I'm gonna. You know, when I was in graduate school, literally, there was zero about hormones. The very first book I found on it was exercise endocrinology was like, you know, a decade after I graduated, I was like, wow, finally. But I will say two people have helped me a lot here. Elisa Vitti, who actually was one, who coined the term cycle syncing. And then Stacey Sims, Dr. Stacy Sims, who's been doing amazing work around women hormones. And I'm just so thrilled to see you two team up. Like, what a dream team. And bring this out, to have women understand that, you know, you are not like, as Stacey Sims says, you're not small men, and that we have to do things differently now. We are not in that period of periods where we're cycle syncing. Now you've got women, and I think the most challenging time of all. And I'm sure you're like, going, oh, gosh, is that time from when you get into perimenopause, where now things are all over the board?

Yeah. You're not one, you're not the other.

Yeah, it's way, way easier. You get into postmenopausal. It's so much easier because now is stable. It's like. It's like the sea is calm. But when you're going through perimenopause, I now live here, you know, as you know, in Florida, and I'll go out to paddle board and I'll look at my canal. Looks like the sea's calm. And I go out and paddle board and I get out in the bay, and it's like, what happened? That's perimenopause out there. It's like crazy waves. And then all of a sudden it will go calm. You're like, oh, okay. And then the waves hit again. So what. How do you. How do you have A woman navigate that specific time period where there's not the. Oh, it's day 10. It's like that. Thrown out the window.

Well, you know, like, I even have it in front of me. This is a. This is a printed copy of all the instructions that women get pre. Post Perry. Right. You know, there. There's four different phases. There's the power phase, there's the manifestation phase, there's the nurture phase. And so if you're. If you're perimenopausal, then you have a very specific start and finish days based on, you know, I wish Dr. Mindy was sitting here next to me.

Mindy, Mindy.

Where are you calling Dr. Mindy. But so, you know, three different phases, three different calendars. And, and the other thing too, that we, That I created, which was part of it, is. And look, you know, even if. Whether you're preparing or post, you know, there's a lot going on in our lives. There's a lot of stress in our life. There's poor sleep, lack of hydration. You know, maybe you're not getting the new. The vitamins and minerals and nutrients that you need to be able to fuel your body. So my job was to create. I mean, on some of these workouts, there are four different people behind me, minimum three, sometimes four. And, you know, between Dr. Minnie and I, we would say, hey, you're perimenopausal. You're gonna. You're gonna follow Ashley here. Ashley's your girl. She's in your shoes. She knows what to do. She's the one to look at. And by the way, we're gonna Ashley, because she's hired for the gig, she's gonna get to. She's gonna do this whole workout, but maybe you're not. So if what she's doing isn't quite right, check out Sarah, because Sarah is doing a super modified version based on how much you know, how you feel, you know, how much energy you have, you know, whether you're. Because you are all over the place in general. So you might do. On a Tuesday one week, you might be finding Ashley, on the next week, you might be following Sarah. And maybe if, you know, based on all the other things that are happening on your life, you know, whatever, you just, you know, you flew from the east coast to the West Coast. I don't know, there's all kinds of different issues that are creating a certain amount of stress. Then you're going to use one of these stop options. And so a stop option was what I tried to tell people to do in P90X, but half the time they wouldn't because their egos are in the way. Like I said earlier. So listen to these, listen to these variables right now. Based on what I'm saying to you, do you need to stop here or can you keep going based on A, B and C? And people would have to make a decision. And so a lot of the two test groups, a lot of the women, especially the perimenopausal women, are like, like, yeah, sometimes all the way through. I got through both stop options. I felt great. But the fact that you gave me this, this option to stop and of course I would say, hey, fast forward to the cooldown. I don't want you to, I don't want you to miss out on that. I want you to bring your heart rate down properly. Not just, you know, walk off and take, take a break or just, you know, skip it. And then sometimes they would stop at the first stop option, sometimes they would stop at the second stop option. And, and with all those different choices, they were able to, you know, to, to get kind of where they wanted to go. Because the idea here is you're doing this routine and how do you feel afterward, the hour afterward, how do you feel the rest of the day? What was your sleep like? And how do you feel the following day? And those are simple questions that you need to ask yourself every time you work out, no matter where you are, no matter what, where your hormones are. And you can ask those simple questions of yourself and say, but in the P90X days, people would naturally go, oh my God, I'm exhausted. I'm wasted. I can't even walk. I can't even sit on the toilet. Like, and then here's this chest and back routine I gotta do the next day. And with this, with the powering down, with the powering up and with the stop options, women are like, I'm ready.

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You go, and it kept happening day after day. I mean, this is a five day a week program. It's not three, it's not four, it's not six either. It gives you a couple days off. But we also talk about active recovery. Hey, you know what, if you want to do the mindfulness practice today, great day to do it. Even though it's a day off, if you want to go for a walk, we suggest that if you want to do my 10 minute morning yoga routine, which is to kind of get the kinks out instead of, you know, three cups of coffee, maybe a better option. And there's also a diet component. I mean, we get very clear about, you know, what causes inflammation and what doesn't. So if you're taking, you know, you could be following this thing to a tee and if you're eating inflammatory foods, you know, then you're kind of fighting, fighting the process. So, you know, again, I'm not sitting down with people, breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in between and seeing what they're eating. But, but hopefully they're making better food choices. And the ones that did, who followed stop options and the powering down when they needed it and ate better, got all the way through this program without a glitch, which was fun to see.

I love that you're looking at like high level here. You know, we've got hormones, but we also have stress, of course, stress hormones. We also have things like how hard did you work out the day before and did you adequately recover? And I think the big picture is listen to your body. Just because that workout says to do X, Y, Z, you don't, you know, and, and what I always say is, you know, I've never regretted going to the gym. And usually when you get into it, you get into it, but you kind of listen, you go, okay, well I'm only going to do 30 minutes today because I just don't feel like I quite have the energy. I love the stop options. That's fantastic.

I don't know why no one ever thought of that before.

I don't. You're like, it's so obvious.

Where's that been our whole life? Like you, like, you know, you can't go to a gym and there's a yoga class or there's like, I'm going to walk out at the halfway point. Well, you could, but how many people do when they feel like they're, they're toast, you know, and that's it. And that also gets people in the room. Yes, I'm going to stop. One of the most of the stop options were 15 or 20 minutes in. You know, there's not a single workout that was more than 50 minutes. And they would go, okay, okay, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna. I'm in the room. Tony said, I'll have to put my gear on first. The gear's on. I'm gonna go in there. And at the 15 minute mark, they feel alive, they feel refreshed. The nor, the dopamine, serotonin, all the good stuff is already starting to move through their head after the first five minutes. And then there's just in a better headspace. And so they sometimes go to the next stop option and go all the way to the end quite often.

Well, do you remember, like. So you must remember this because you're like 35 years in. Back when I was in graduate school, the whole thing was, if you couldn't work out for at least 30 minutes, don't bother, because you wouldn't get into the fat burning zone. I was like, all right.

Oh, my God. I mean, it was in the nasm book when you were getting your getting certification.

Can we apologize to everybody for this ridiculousness?

Yes. J.J. and I apologize.

So we are so sorry for our entire field. But, you know, you think about it and go, 15 minutes is better than no minutes.

Yeah.

You know, 30 minutes is going to be. So the great thing is, is get in and get going. And if after 15 minutes, you don't feel refreshed, hey, you gave it your shot. You know, go meditate or something.

Yeah. I mean, 15 always kicks the crap out of zero. I mean, when my wife and I were in Europe, we ate Europe, all of Europe. We ate of all of Italy. We ate all of France. We ate all of London. We ate a bunch of food at Stonehenge. We ate a lot of food. But we were walking everywhere, and we got our workouts in not as consistently. And we both came. I came home eight pounds later. She came home six pounds lighter. And all we did was walk around because we were just, look at that.

Look at that.

Let's go over there.

Should we take a cab? No, let's walk to the next restaurant. Half a mile while that's it. It just wasn't strenuous. I didn't feel all that tired. I mean, I'm walking maybe, you know, maybe a sore toe, but other than that, I mean, it was amazing. But most of the time, we're doing exactly what you and I are doing right now. We're sitting on our butt, and we're at work, and. And we don't. We don't even do the basics. And so and this is, and this is a version of that. Hey look, don't kill yourself. Get your first 15 minutes in, see how you feel. Keep going or don't and know what.

Recommendations you have on the post menopausal side. Is there anything that you shifted differently there?

Well, for postmenopausal gals, there's a, there's a. You would start on the day one calendar. Like if you're, if you're perimenopausal or you're premenopausal. A lot of it has to do with your first bleed and how many seven days after your bleed and when you would start. But since there is no bleed, you just, you know, a lot of people are. Gals are following the moon cycle. You know if I could read it to you here. If you're not having a cycle and you like to sync your cycle to the moon, you will simply calculate how many days today is from your left from the last new moon and that will be your first day. For example, if today is day seven after the last new moon, you will start with the seven day workout today. You'll start with, with day seven of the workout today. And this is all based on, on Mindy's. Mindy Science. A lot of women who, who were postmenopausal and followed the moon cycle, it was perfect for them. You know, they, they just thought that worked well.

So I'm just going to do a big shout out for everybody who is in the hairy stage. Wait till you get over the hump because it's awesome. You know, it's like I think, I think probably for a lot of women when they hit into post menopause, they can probably work out more like a man does. Yeah, things are a lot just, it's just so much smoother sailing. So if you're in Perry, I know you have a guide that we're going to be providing to everybody. The women's guide to syncing fitness to your hormone cycle. So yeah, we're going to give that up. That will be in the show notes. So we have that for everybody here. The program that you two put together is called Power Sync 60. Power Sync 60.

So 60 days synchronize syncing your hormonal fluctuations to a program that is customized based on where you are in your fabulous.

And we'll put. So I'm gonna put everything@jjvirgin.com PowerSync 60 which will have a link to that. I'll link to Dr. Mindy's. I think we might have done two podcasts, but I know we did one podcast around fast like a girl. And then we'll put this to the guide as well. I still have a couple.

That would be. That'd be great.

Then.

Then folks who are. I mean, some people are, you know, they really like to get into the weeds. Like, I want to know the science behind this. And other people, like, just tell me what to do on certain days, and I'll do it because I trust you to. You know. You know what I mean? That's kind of me, like, yeah, you're really good shape, and you seem like you have a lot of energy and you sleep really well and. And you're happy a lot. Yeah, I'm gonna follow you. You know what I mean? And that's. That's how I live a little bit.

It.

Okay, you ready for some questions? Some other couple, a couple plus 40 plus brilliance. How old are you?

65.

65. All right, so here we go.

Going to be 66 soon.

I'm going to be. I'm about to be 60. Wonderful.

Okay, I'm. Can I borrow that for. Yeah, yeah.

Well, when you're 70. Wonderful. You can.

I like to say I was born 13 years after World War II, so just give you a sense of how. But you know what? Here's the crazy thing. I mean, whether male, female. I mean, I have a lot of friends that have, you know, who've joined me almost every day here at the, you know, male and female. And I just said, hey, man, eat this, don't eat that anymore. Train like this. Don't train like that anymore. And you can see they're getting younger. Like, they're in so many ways. There's just. Their skin is improving, their energy is improving, their sleep's improving, their sex drive's improving. And it requires knowing a lot of stuff and doing it all the time. Like people say. Tony, how often do I. All the time. Like, breathing and eating and going to work and paying bills. This is a thing that you have to do. Do all the time, or you're gonna. If you do it sporadically, you're gonna end up with exercise. Bipolar disorder. You're gonna feel good and feel bad and.

Oh, that's funny. That is very funny. Yeah, it's. It's like, if you knew there was something that would make you feel great, that you would basically, you know, de age and think straight, have great energy, why wouldn't you do it all the time? Like, Because.

Because everything else feels really good and it tastes really good. It doesn't require any effort. And that's what everybody else is doing. So I'm going to go jump on that train. But they look down at themselves and they see they. Oh, the escalators out, and I got two suitcases. Climbing up that set of stairs is like Mount Everest, you know. So it depends, you know, you have to. I'm. I'm text training three people right now. Two of them are in entertainment. Another one is a big real estate guy. Every day we just text. I go, did you have the alcohol or not? Did you move or not? And then I get to. I get the report back. One guy's in Mexico. He loves tequila. Day six, no tequila. He goes, everybody else is drunk and having fun, but I feel amazing. So, like, it's all choice, you know, it's all choice.

It is a choice. I, you know, growing up, I have a mom who just passed at 93 and a dad who had a horrific, long, slow death from cancer at 70. And I watched the two of them in the way they live their life. My mom, super active, ate healthy, you know, like, was doing all of her own own housework, living up and down flights of stairs up until 93. Totally independent dad, hypertension, ate garbage, didn't work out. You know, it was like I watched that whole thing and I went, oh, aging well is a choice. I think I'll choose what mom did.

You know, and what you choose takes more effort, more discipline, more willpower, more effort. You got to surround yourself with the right kind of people. You got to make completely different choices. But the cool thing is you are the source. You're not using some temporary fix. That's the source outside of you. Alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, you know, fat, sugar, salt, and chemicals in the food. You know, you're making different choices, different outcome, better life, right?

And once you are used to the choice, you're no longer making the choice. It's just habitual. So it becomes super easy. It's not even a thought process.

Yeah, the transformation is a bit of a right that first month or six weeks, but after a while, you know, if you're consistent. In those early days, it's like, oh, this. This is who I am now. This is easy now.

Just one win at a time.

You know, there's all these things that you can do. That's the great thing about exercise. Exercise is just not about the weight loss. It's about who you can be going forward after you get yourself in a decent amount of shape. And the food is just your medicine or your. Or Your disease causing mistakes, you know, it's really one of those, too. So.

Okay, are you ready for these questions?

Okay, I'm ready now.

Okay, now you're ready. You're really ready. Okay. What is one urban legend out there in the health and wellness space about getting older that you want to bust?

Whoa, boy, I got, like, 10 in my head. Well, the urban urban legend, meaning if you, you know, everybody dies at the same rate, the same have the same issues, the same diseases, the same problems, the same lack of motion, the terrible balance where they fall and hit the curb and go to the ICU and then two weeks later, they're in the ground. I hope I'm answering this right. I. I think people who think that weight training and cardio is enough so that even though they make. They're doing something, they're scheduling something, there's effort involved. Not enough. Not enough. You got to get out of the. Out of the weights and the cardio routine, and you got to start working on your speed, your balance and your range of motion because rom and, like, moving quickly. There was a thing in the New York Times, Most people in this country after the age of 30 will never run fast ever again.

Again. I know. Isn't that crazy? They'll never sprint again.

They'll never sprint again.

Never, like, at 30 plus, never sprint again. So I'm glad you brought up the speed and power, because it's the biggest thing we lose.

Yeah. And the balance as well. I mean, I have two slack lines when I go skiing. I. I, you know, I ski on one leg as. As much as I can. I mean, I work on balance all the time because that's what usually goes south. And then people, you know, people are working out, but they're, as they get older and older, older. They're not working on flexibility. They're not doing yoga. They're not doing Pilates. They're not working on. All this R stuff is that the range of motion gets shorter and shorter and shorter. So they're in the shower, and they turn and reach for the shampoo, and they blow out their neck, you know, just because they don't have that either. So, you know, one of the things is. And that's part of the variety. That's part of the, you know, that's part of all the stuff that we need to do. And a lot of times that feels overwhelming, like I'm doing these two things really well. Why I got to add this, this, and this. Yeah, yeah, you do do. Yeah, you do. I mean, if you want to avoid a lot of the, A lot of the, A lot of the issues that people run into if, if they don't do those things.

And it's easy.

You buy a slack line or you, or you, or you go to a yoga class where you're in tree pose or Warrior 3 or whatever it is. I mean, if you want to preserve your youth, then you have to keep as you get older because the clock's gonna continue to move in that direction. Then you gotta be curious and you gotta be open minded and you gotta be okay with not being good at these new things.

Things.

And that's that to me, when I wasn't good at something, I'm out. And now I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing animal flow now. Not good at it. I'm in Crab, I'm in Beast, I'm in Frogger. I'm a frown like a little kid spinning around. Not good at it yet. But I love that I stink because I can, you know, the more I do, the better I get. And, and, and I don't judge it. I just like, oh, I'm not good at this yet.

Cool.

Let's, let's see how this goes.

I love that I've made a new rule. Like, you know how they always say be this, don't be the smartest person in the room. I'm like, what I want to be is I don't want to be the youngest or the fittest. I want to go into that room. Right? Like I'll go into a yoga class with all the yogis and they're half my age. Or I go into a hit class with. That's what I go after, where I'm like going, okay, I'm going to suck at this. But it pushes me so. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, be enthusiastic about being bad. You know, I mean, failing, Failing is another word for failing is awesome. Like, oh, and you're not really technically failing because if you're paying attention, you're learning and if you're learning, you're growing and transforming. And so it's, it's, it's an, it's a, it's a great. It's part of your story, it's part of your journey. It's like, I love. Oh man, I used to be so terrible at this for so long and I kept working on it and now I'm pretty good and I notice all the changes that are happening to me physically, mentally and emotionally as a result of getting outside of my comfort zone zone.

Good one. Okay, one, one, Final one.

All right.

What is a ritual or a habit that you've incorporated into your life since turning. Well, we're well beyond 40, so. 40 plus.

I. I've made a. I've made a very severe, massive shift in my diet. I'm all, like, inflammation. Inflammation. Well, yeah, inflammation comes from over training and hurting yourself. You're whatever, but inflammation also comes from just what you put in your mouth. So I'm pure vegan. Don't tell Marx this and that, because he'll just hate it. You know what I mean? But I don't have any more knee pain. I don't have any more shoulder pain. I sleep like a baby. I'm strong as I've ever been. No wheat, no soy, no corn, no dairy, no crackers, no chips, no cookies, no popcorn, no pretzels, no alcohol. I haven't had alcohol in 25 years. I mean, I eat as clean as I can, and I noticed that inflammation is not gone. But I used to get Sinvisc and PRP in my knees about every year. Every. Every 15 months, just because I ski hard and I do a lot of plyometrics, and my knees would always ache. I started eating more vegetables and cut out the. The chicken and the fish in this.

And I don't.

I don't need the injections anymore.

Well, to be clear, you. You cut out gluten and dairy like you kind of. It's hard to know with those ones which one did it.

I mean, I. I don't have a celiac, but I. You know, I just.

I'm not a gluten fan, as, you know, like gluten to me. And who knows? Is it the gluten or the glyphosates? Which one is it? We know gluten creates leaky gut, so.

And I. Which I had. Didn't know it. I mean, that's partly why I ended up with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, because I was stressed out, out of my mind, and I was eating whole foods. Just the wrong ones, you know? So for me, you know, there you go.

Well, I feel like as we age, we don't have the margin of error that we had in our 20s.

That is so well said, girlfriend. That's exactly when you're in your 20s.

Whatever. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, sure. Then you go run a half a marathon the next day, and then, you know, you'd party that night. Not.

Not.

Not at 65. You know, I'm just thrilled my hair still grows out this color. It's some kind of a miracle.

The beard is Dyed.

But don't tell anybody.

I won't say a word. Hey, and look at all the hair you've got. You got hair, and it's. It's black. I wish my hair wasn't having to be colored, but.

Well, my parents had had mostly brown hair in. In their 70s and 80s, so, you know, I don't know. Just thanks.

Thank them. I. I don't know. The pandemic. Well, my son's accent kind of took my hair to gray. And then the pandemic, I discovered what color it really was. I was like, well, I didn't need to know that.

Yeah, but what. What. What are you doing? Looks great. So the heck, you know, I mean, do what you got to do so you. You feel good when you're looking in the mirror.

And what when.

You know, it's all about building confidence, you know? Yeah, but it. Start. Look, it's starting, though. Like, there it is. Jj, that's.

But you know what? Here's this. The thing that's so unfair with men versus women is why is a little salt and pepper, like, my husband has salt and pepper hair, and it is so sexy. Salt and pepper on me. Not sexy. So there you go. That's. That's one I can't explain.

But you can still be fit, healthy, and happy regardless.

Yes, exactly. So this has been awesome. It's super fun to catch up with you. I'm going to remind everybody that it is. I'm putting all the show notes, your guide, Mindy's interview, all@jjvirgin.com cyclesync60 and I am looking forward to when you come show up and hang out with all of us.

And knowing that you're all there is an incentive. It'll be fun. I mean, we'll just. Whatever. We'll work out together. We'll go out and eat some vegetables together. Whatever it takes.

Yeah, we'll have the protein and you can have all the vegetables.

But by the way, in Jackson Hole, when there's elk medallions on the menu.

Yeah. Have them. I'm not telling. All right, well, maybe we could all meet there then. That'd be fun.

Yeah. Go skiing and snowboard together. For sure. Thank you, jj.

Thank you. Great connecting.

You're the bomb. So it's always a pleasure to see you and chat with you.

Be sure to join me next time. Time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook, and my website, jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast@subscribetoj.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. You'll Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, well, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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