The Nutrient That Protects Your Muscles, Especially After 40

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If you're on a GLP-1 and you're barely hungry, if you're heading to the gym but you didn't have time to eat, or if you're doing all the right things but you're still losing strength as you get older, there's one mistake I see over and over and over again. Women are underfueling their muscles and their bodies are quietly pulling amino acids from one place, the one place they can't afford to lose them. Their muscle. You see, you have no storage form for your amino acids like you do with fat and carbs. You only have your muscle. Hey, I'm JJ Virgin, celebrity nutritionist, Fitness Hall of Famer, and someone who has spent decades studying what actually protects your muscle, your metabolism, and your brain as we age. And today I'm going to show you why essential amino acids aren't just another supplement, why they become even more important after 40, and how I personally use them as an insurance policy for my muscles, my metabolism, and my long-term strength, especially when life gets messy. Because let's face it, if it's not now, it will be. And muscle doesn't disappear from aging, by the way, it disappears from missing signals. So let's fix that. Hey, I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout— sorry, Mom— turned 4-time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer and globally recognized leader in health, I'm driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health into actionable strategies that help you thrive. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here's the fun part. When you send me your review, I'll reply to you using my on-demand virtual me. That's right. My team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my books, speeches, and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here's how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review, text it to 813-565-2627. That's 813-565-2627. My virtual JJ will reply directly, and trust me, this will make your day. So subscribe now at subscribetojj.com and text me your review. Let's keep thriving together.

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Let's talk about why protein itself isn't enough after 40. And here's the reality: most of us think that eating more protein solves everything, but muscle isn't responding to protein. It's responding to the amino acids in the protein that are creating signals. Now here's the reality: after 40, we start to develop something called anabolic resistance. That means your muscle becomes less sensitive to those signals, and you actually need more protein, not less. And especially you need something— this was the work of Dr. Donald Layman— you need leucine, a special essential amino acid, enough of it to reach a threshold to flip the switch on muscle protein synthesis. Now here's the problem. A lot of us are, let's be honest here, skipping breakfast or eating a carb-focused breakfast. You know, that muffin and the latte you had. By the way, I think of that as a cupcake and a milkshake. Or you're eating a light dinner, or maybe you're undereating because you're on a GLP-1, or you're training fasted and not eating soon enough after. You have a, you know, couple-hour window where you really want to make sure you get protein in, or you're not getting good high-quality protein sources. There is a score for protein because remember, you eat protein for the amino acids and specifically for the 9 essential amino acids that your body can't make. You need to get them every day from food. Remember, we don't have a storage reservoir for protein. It's called muscle. You don't want to steal from muscle, right? So you want to be supplying those essential amino acids in. Well, if you're eating poor protein quality sources, you're going to need to eat even more to get those essential amino acids. There is a score called the DIAAS score. It is for Digestible Indispensable Amino Acids score, and it rates all the different food products. And the reality is dairy, Animal products score high. A lot of the plants, except for soy, score lower. So again, doesn't mean you can't do it with plants. You're just gonna have to do more of it, but you really wanna make sure you are getting the right amount of those essential amino acids. If you're not, if any of those things apply to you, and I'm bet a couple do because they do to every one of us, you probably aren't getting the amino acids you need to signal your muscles to build. And remember, starting around age 30, we start to lose muscle. I believe it's because of this anabolic resistance and not doing resistance training. But the reality is we got to give your muscles what they need because your body isn't counting protein. It's looking and listening for those essential amino acids. They are key. So what should you be doing? I think one of the best supplements that you can be taking, of course, I'm going to say creatine. My shiitake is right there with it. But the other one, are think about essential amino acids. And I love essential amino acids. I think of them as your muscle insurance policy. So when I was looking at what I wanted to take and the product I wanted to design too, I went and dug into all the research. And the research that really stood out to me was the research done by NIH and also the work of Dr. Robert Wolfe, Dr. Blake Rasmussen, and of course, Dr. Donald Layman. And some of the core principles there is that number one, I used to take branched-chain amino acids back in the day. And, uh, you really want to take essential amino acids because branched-chain is isoleucine and valine. It's only 3. Some of those other essential amino acids can be rate-limiting if you don't have them. So you need all of them. While I love collagen, I love collagen for different reasons, not for building muscle, cuz it won't, just so you know. In fact, kind of the— in the protein world, there's this debate as to whether collagen should count as protein or not. It's protein and it is by by the way, the most abundant protein in your body, but it won't work to build muscle. Where I love collagen is to help support my connective tissue, my bone, my skin. In fact, the collagen that I made and take has Verisol in it that has been shown to be really good for your skin and Fortigel for your bones and vitamin C, which is what you need to make collagen. So collagen, think of it more for connective tissue support, not for muscle support. And then while you need leucine and you need a high enough amount, you also all those essential amino acids to build the structure. Think of leucine as turning the key, and amino acids also help to build the house. Then you want to look at like, how much do you need to take? And I'll kind of tell you my thought on it is you want to have a good balance of all those. And I, I looked at taking the balance that was used in the NIH study. So that's what I did. I feel like that's where the brainiacs were. Then I looked at, well, if I'm fasting, like if I'm getting up in the morning, I'm gonna go do a workout fasted, which it happens when I'm traveling sometimes. I I try to not make that my practice. I'd rather work out later, but if it's the only way I'm going to work out, I will work out fasted. I just don't feel as good. Some people do great that way, not me. If you do, either which way, I still would drop in— what I put into my bottle is my Electro Replenish, my chiatine powder, and my Amino Power powder because I want to make sure I have those amino acids on board. I'm not digging into my muscle reservoir for it. Now, that's one way to use them if you're fasting, if you're missing a meal. But another way is, let's say you had a skimpy wimpy breakfast. Let's say that you went and did maybe an egg wrap at Starbucks. Well, that's going to give you probably 10-12 grams of protein. You could do a hit of essential aminos alongside it to get you where you need to do. Or maybe if you had the same thing at breakfast. We were recently in the Amazon. Thankfully, I had my stuff with me because Dinner was like, they gave us rice and beans for, for meals. Well, I wasn't going to get everything I needed from that, and I knew it because even though you're putting those two plant-based proteins together, you'd have to eat a lot of that to get to where you need to go and go carb overload to get there. So think about what you need. And again, I look at this as if you are 40+, more anabolic resistant, you're not eating as much, especially if you're on GLP-1. This can be super duper important. Or if you're more stressed, healing from an injury. When my husband was healing from his hip surgery, we blasted, double-dosed him on aminos. So I always use this to help heal from an injury as well. Super important. So let's talk about how essential amino acids work in the body, because, you know, first they're entering the bloodstream, and then leucine, if you have a high enough level, which Dr. Donald Layman's research was 2.5, but now there's some theories out there that if you are older, it might be more like 3 grams or 4 grams, activates something called mTOR that basically turns on muscle protein synthesis. Then this is important because guess what? You're getting muscle building, muscle repair, metabolic signaling, and you've got all of your essential amino acids on board that need to do what it need to do versus if you just did the branched chains, you don't. Now, Here's what's cool. You eat protein for the essential amino acids. So if you're not eating much protein, but you take essential amino acids, you still do what you need to do because those essential aminos are bypassing digestion, going straight into circulation and doing the heavy lifting. So if you are on caloric restriction, by the way, you need more essential aminos, not less, right? And so this can be a way for you to get in what you need without adding a bunch more calories. They're still going to have calories, but they're not going to come along with any carbs or fat. So here's how I use this in real life. And again, I kind of talked about this. If I'm supplementing a meal to make sure I get to where I need, you know, if I'm eating a meal that has moderate amounts of protein, I would add 5 grams of a good high-quality essential amino acid blend. Again, I created mine to mimic what the NIH did. That's what I would recommend. If you are missing a meal, I would double that. So in the morning, if I'm going to do that gym thing and I haven't been able to eat first, basically what I do is I do my creatine powder, which is creatine HCL plus taurine and magnesium. I add in 2 scoops of my Amino Power powder because that's 10 grams. And then I add in some electrolytes because I know I'm doing my filtered water, so it filtered out the good stuff along with the bad stuff. I also put some collagen in my coffee and I also take a yolked packet. That's fortetropin. And as we age, we start to have a rise in myostatin that blocks fortetropin. Follistatin that can inhibit muscle growth. So I take that too. So that's my little morning stack. Everything that I've put together is really focused on a muscle-first approach to metabolism and metabolic health. That would be a missing a meal, double it up. If you're doing a fasted workout, double it up. If you, if you're really eating wimpy, like you're on a GLP-1, I would say you maybe need to talk to your doctor about lowering your dose so you don't totally shut down your appetite. Just turn the food noise off and improve your insulin sensitivity, reduce your inflammation, but you don't want to go zero on your appetite. But if you're not eating as much, you might even want to double those aminos at your meals. And then where I really like to focus them is morning and evening. Here's why. In the morning, you're waking up, you haven't eaten for hopefully at least 12 hours, maybe 14, right? My goal is that you stop eating 2 to 4 hours before bed, 3 to 4 is better, and that you eat about an hour or two after waking up. So that's probably going to be 12 to 14 hours. You've been catabolic, so you're breaking down, right? And you've got to break down some, you gotta like get rid of the old stuff in the house so you can rebuild with stuff. So you want to be getting rid of the old stuff, that's good, but now we got to stop that and start to rebuild and start to become anabolic. And so in the morning, that's where I want to make sure that I hit it. That's why I eat a protein-rich breakfast. But again, like, I had some— I was coaching a woman on the phone, she goes, oh, I eat a great protein-rich breakfast. I go, what is it? She said oatmeal and an egg. I go, that's 8 grams of protein. So with that wimpy one, we would be doing a double dose of essential aminos. And I would stir some collagen in into our oatmeal as well and maybe throw in some of my new amazing incredible protein fiber granola onto the oatmeal. Oh my gosh, wait till you try this is all I have to say. Okay, so I digress. The other time it's really important is evening. In fact, you know, athletes and bodybuilders tend to do like one of their hacks that they've done for years is a little like milk before bed, high protein before bed, because it can help keep them in an anabolic state longer. And so with dinner, now we want to be cycling between mTOR high, mTOR low. You don't want it high all the time, but that's where it's like eat a good breakfast and get good quality protein in your evening. If those really— those bumper meals are great with the essential amino acids, those are the two times I really want to make sure I'm hitting it. And so at dinner, if for some reason you ate a wimpy dinner, maybe you're in the Amazon and they fed you beans and rice, then bump it with some essential aminos again, right? There you go. That way you don't have these long catabolic windows where you're breaking down more than you're building up. You want the balance between those. And again, I really love to stack it with my creatine HCL, taurine, and magnesium, and my electrolytes. And then of course my collagen. Like, that's just beautiful muscle protection. I'm using every single tool out there, I've got to be honest with you. And I'm really a fan of Myo's Yoked because it works. So that's all of the little tips and tricks I use for this. Now here's the reality. When I started using branched-chain aminos years and years and years and years and years ago, I was at Gold's Gym in Venice. That was kind of my vision of this. This was just for something for bodybuilders. The reality I think the most important use case for essential amino acids is anyone who is sedentary, anyone who is going through surgery and has to immobilize a joint, anyone who is not getting enough protein, anyone who has low muscle mass. So basically, if you're not eating enough, if you're stressed out, if you're calorically restricting, if you're on a GLP-1, if you're eating fasting when you're working out, if you're 40+, if you've got low fat-free mass, this is your supplement. You are the people that need it the most. Like, this is one that I don't leave home without. Literally. Really? So I redid mine because here's the challenge with aminos, just so you know, they taste horrific. Don't think you can go buy an unflavored amino acid supplement. You would be very, very unhappy. Horrible tasting. So it is quite a feat to make these things taste good. And so I'm doing everything in my line in kind of lemon citrus because I think it's just easy, goes with everything. And so I'm happy to say that I made something taste great. And didn't have to like jam up it with a bunch of sugar and garbage, like nothing artificial, no added sugars, tastes fabulous. Remember muscle with our essential amino acids, we're supporting our muscle because it is where we store our sugar. You know, it's our metabolic engine, endocrine organ that releases all these amazing hormone-like messages. It's like we make our own pharmacy to support a great immune system, a great brain, reducing inflammation, burning fat. Like it is everything. And A great way to support that muscle, an essential way to support that muscle, is essential amino acids. I do not think of this as a fitness supplement. In fact, I think that this should be literally in everybody's closet if they're 40 plus, and that we should also be going to our healthcare practitioner's office, doing a body composition test and a muscle quality test and looking and seeing where we're at and probably getting on this a lot sooner. This is one that's really made a big difference in my world, my life, which is probably why selfishly I reformulated it. I woke up in the middle of night one night because I was trying to figure out what would I really want to do. I was digging into all the essential amino acid research. I was fascinated why this has been such a best-kept secret. Like, I always look at foundational supplements first. When you have these things on board, everything else works better. You need less of other things. But let me give you a couple Mythbusters here. Mythbuster number 1 is like, oh, I eat protein, so I don't need to do that. Remember, you eat protein for the essential amino acids. Remember I talked about the DIAAS score? Unless you're getting everything that you need, and you're also digesting and assimilating it well, which of course we know if your gut microbiome is not perfect— whose is?— then that's a problem too. So you'd have to eat optimal amounts of protein, digest and assimilate them well, and then if you're under stress, cutting calories and working out harder, you need more. If you're over 40, if you're anabolic resistant, hello. The other myth is people go, "Oh, I'm fine because I take branched-chain." No, branched-chain is like incomplete. Okay, it's incomplete. So upgrade your branched-chain essential aminos and don't think that these are only for bodybuilders. I think they're the least important of the group. I think the most important of the group are people 40+ and anyone with low fat-free mass. This is for anyone who wants to age powerfully, right? Really focus on building muscle, holding on to muscle, having strength, not being that fragile, weak sarcopenic person, which I hope for you, you at this point are going, that is not where I'm going, right? This is that insurance policy. To see against that. I mean, the reality is this formula exists for one reason, the one I made. I made it to make sure you always have, your body always have, your muscles always have what they need to build muscle instead of breaking it down, especially when real life makes perfect nutrition impossible because that's just reality, right? Muscle doesn't change how you look. I mean, it does, right? But what it really changes is how you burn fat, how you regulate blood sugar, how well you think, how your brain ages, how strong and independent you stay. I I mean, muscle reality changes everything. And you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to get the signals. You gotta tell your body every day, hey, keep this tissue, rebuild this tissue, build it here, burn fat instead. And by the way, that is why you want essential amino acids. I'll see you in the next one. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, Tips and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Also, I'd love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here's how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review. And third, text it to 813-565-2627. That's 813-565-2627. When you do, I'll reply using my brand new Virtual JJ Virgin. It's my on-demand virtual self built from my books, talks, and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You'll make my day and I can't wait to hear from you. 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, 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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