Why It’s Never Too Early to Support Stronger Bones with Kevin Ellis

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Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome and thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. Here I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top people in health and wellness. In each episode I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your.

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All right, we are going to be talking bone health today and guess what bonus as we talk about bone health and first of all, we're going to talk about bone health and why you want to be thinking about this right now, probably 10 years ago. And you'll also want to be looking at this if you've got kids, 20, 30, etc. So we're going to be talking a lot about that. I have the perfect guest for me unpacking all of this. The bonus of course is everything you do for your bones. It's amazing what else it helps, which is pretty much everything. I've got Kevin Ellis, the bone coach with me today. He is a certified integrative nutrition health coach, podcaster, YouTuber, bone health advocate and founder of TheBoneCoach.com and he'll tell you why he a guy got into this. It's a pretty amazing story. He has created a three step process, a unique process and a world class class coaching program to help women with osteopenia and osteoporosis in over 1500 cities around the world. And he is on a mission to help 1 million plus people around the globe build stronger bones and help our children and grandchildren prevent osteoporosis and other diseases. And I'll tell you, you know, having a cousin who ignored all this, who basically like, you know, this has completely changed her life having such bad osteoporosis, this is one that I've, I've been really focused on with people. We're going to talk more about that and why and some of the stories that we've seen and the information you're going to get in this podcast is enormously helpful and immediately helpful. However, we also have an incredible masterclass and some fun recipes that Kevin's created too. So you can grab that for free@jjvirgin.com Bonecoach and I will be right back with the bone coach Kevin Ellis.

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Kevin, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here.

Jj. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Well, it's crazy. We actually, I don't think we've actually talked about this, which is insane because you know I know bone health's not really sexy. Like, you know, it's not probably one of those most sexy things to talk about, and it is so devastating if it happens to you. And I've already had friends who have broken their hips and had hip replacements. So this is a really important issue. And I think it's like, as we're living longer, you want to make sure you're living longer, better. So the weird thing, though, is, like, how you, a young dude, have become the bone coach and so interested in osteoporosis and osteopenia. Why was that?

Yeah. And, like, for me, my personal health journey really started before I was even told I had osteoporosis. It actually started when I was a lot younger, when my mother was five months pregnant with me. My father was told he had cancer, and two months after I was born, he passed away. And he was 35 years old at that time. And I always, as I was growing up, I always had in the back of the head that that was my expiration date. And, you know, that was kind of the finish line for me, was passing away at an early age. And I ended up developing, you know, autoimmune disease, celiac disease, malabsorption, nutrients for many, many years. High stress, poor sleep, low energy, all these other things contributing. And I actually had elevated alkaline phosphatase levels and elevated liver enzymes. And one of the physician's assistants said, hey, let's run a bone density scan, too.

And how old were you at the time?

30.

They never think of doing this for men.

Never, never.

And I will tell you, I found this in one of my male clients 20 years ago because he. I discovered celiac. And then I was like, you better go get a bone density test. And they just. I think this is so key, important. We're talking mainly to women, but, you know, it's not just a female disease.

Absolutely. And I recommend that, you know, especially even. Even the. Most of the women that we work with now, they're women 40 to 65 plus that, that have osteopenia or osteoporosis. But a lot of them, they saw the progression that happened with their mothers or their grandmothers and things like that. Or maybe now they have daughters that are younger that are in their 30s and 40s, and they're worried about their progression as they get older. I always say, get the objective information as early as you possibly can. If you can get a baseline in your 30s or 40s, that's going to set you up so that you don't have this big shock or surprise right around menopause or after menopause.

Yeah, it's just, it's. I. I started doing DEXA scans in my, like, I think late 20s, early 30s. And I just don't understand why this isn't a standard of care thing.

I know.

So, all right, so you, here you are a young guy who's getting checked for osteoporosis. Then what happens?

Yeah. So I was diagnosed with osteoporosis and I realized at that point in time, you know, that the options that were presented to me were you're going to have to be on a medication at some point in your life and fracture is going to be your future. There really wasn't any other dancing around that.

Wow.

There was some directness that was there and it was really unsettling for me being, you know, my background, even before I got into the health field was in the Marine Corps. I was in the infantry, like always. Considered myself a really tough individual that can endure a lot of things. And when you get told you have brittle bones or osteoporosis, that just stripped all of that away from me.

Yeah.

Felt like a part of my identity was taken from me at that point in time.

And then what, did they put you on, like Fosamax?

No, no. So I actually did not go the bone drug route.

Those bone drugs are frightening.

Yeah. There are a lot of side effects, a lot of things that there are short and long term implications to use those drugs. And I wasn't ready to go that route. I knew there was a lot of issues with digestive health, nutrition, stress, sleep, exercise, figuring out root cause issues and addressing them. That had to be done before I would even consider something like that as an option.

So that's such an important thing too, because here you were. What'd you say you were? 30?

Yep, 30.

A male at 30. I mean, the very first question is, what the heck's going on? Like a 30 year old male who's very physically active, doesn't have osteoporosis or osteopenia, so.

That's right. So celiac disease. For me, celiac disease was the primary contributing factor there. So obviously you need bone healthy nutrients every single day. Your body needs those calcium, magnesium, things like that to execute its daily functions, muscle contractions, nerve impulses, all these different things. Super important. If you're not taking that in, and also if you can't absorb it because your absorption centers are damaged from celiac disease, you're going to have a really hard time. And your body's going to look for those nutrients somewhere else and they're going to go to the largest reserve you have of minerals, which is your bones, and it's going to, it's going to pull it and rake it from the bone. So that's what was happening to me and I had no idea.

Yeah.

Wow.

And so did you know you had celiac or when did you find out you'd celiac?

I found that out, but I didn't know. I found it out a couple years prior, but I didn't know to get a bone density scan. I didn't even know that was going to be an issue. Again for me, I was thinking that wasn't even in my realm of thinking because I always thought, you know, that's not something that young males get, especially ones that have a background in weightlifting and all that. So I was really shocked at that point in time.

Yeah. So before we go any further, I think probably it's important for people to understand what osteoporosis and osteopenia really are. And then I'd love to dig into because I'm sure that this is new information for people listening that celiac could be one of the causes. When you just think about it, it makes total sense. But before we get into that, just give people a definition of it because I think most people only think of someone breaking their hip when they're 70.

Yeah.

Of course.

Osteoporosis literally means porous bone. And it's a condition that's characterized by either not enough bone formation, excessive bone loss, or it's a combination of the two. What happens in osteoporosis is both your bone density and your bone quality are reduced and that's going to increase your risk of fracture. The way you find out you have osteoporosis is through a DEXA scan. That's dual energy X ray absorptiometry. It's a painless test like an X ray, but very low levels of radiation. You lay down on this machine, the machine does a scan and it tells you your bone mineral density, so the actual mineral content of your bone and then it generates the score. And the score is called the T score. And the T score is telling you how much your bone mass differs from the bone mass of an average healthy 30 year old adult. So if you got a score of plus 1 or minus 1 or 0, that's considered normal and healthy. If it's minus 1 to minus 2.5, that's oftentimes considered osteopenia or low bone mass. And if it's lower than negative 2.5, so negative 2.6, negative 2.7, so on and so forth, that's considered osteoporosis. And the lower that negative number becomes, the more severe the osteoporosis is. And most women are getting these scans done when they're in their 50s or 60s, as a check in the box, their doctors are going to order them, but that's. Honestly, that's too late. So if you haven't had one yet and you're listening to this, go get a DEXA scan. And also, you don't want to avoid getting one just because you don't want to know what the outcome of that test result might be. That wouldn't be a good approach there either.

Yeah, so I was just thinking about it because I've actually been doing them over the years, but I just realized I have not heard from one doctor, even my functional medicine doctors, to go get this done. None of them. That's kind of wild. So I think. And I think the important underlying point there is it's just not something people think about. And it's definitely one you want to check early.

Yeah. Yeah. You want to check it because, I mean, We've got approximately 10 million Americans have osteoporosis. Another 44 million have low bone density. That number is going to increase over time. That's. There's no doubt about that. We've got one in two women, and up to one in four men will break a bone in their lifetime due to osteoporosis. For women, you've got the incidences. It's greater than that of heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer combined.

Wow. So what causes it?

So there are a lot of. There are different types of osteoporosis. So we've got primary osteoporosis, which is typically related to the decrease in estrogen. And postmenopausal women, estrogen has that protective effect on bone. When estrogen levels decrease, as they do during menopause, that causes an increase in the activity level of cells that break down bone. Okay. But then we have a whole nother cause of osteoporosis, and that's secondary osteoporosis. And that's. That's a category I fell into. And that's where osteoporosis occurs as a result of behaviors, conditions, diseases, disorders, and medications. Most people that are diagnosed, we can't just make the assumption that it's just hormones, and that's the Only cause, which is oftentimes what's going to happen when you're at the point of diagnosis is we're going to chalk it up to hormones and say, oh, you know, it's just a natural part of your life. But we need to, as our own educated and informed patient and advocate, we need to be the one saying, I think we should do a little more testing. Let's figure out if there's anything else contributing so that one or two years doesn't pass by and you've had more bone loss. So there are many different causes and contributors, but that's. Those are the two major buckets that they fall into.

Yeah, I know. I have a cousin. You know, there are no profits in your hometown. She's like, I could never. Like, gee, maybe you should get a checkup. Like, no. Apparently had never gone to a doctor, like, from the time she was like 18 on. And when they, by the time they discovered this severe hypothyroidism, like, her bones were so brittle that. So, I mean, there's. This is just something. Again, go to your doctor and start this one early. And if you're now in your 50s and you've got kids, start it early for them, too.

And I think what's important too, jj, is so if we go and we get a bone density scan, right, and we're looking at that single test result, what that test does not tell you is it doesn't tell you if you're still actively losing bone right now. So if you imagine your body's like a bucket, the water within your bucket represents your bone mineral density. Over time, over years and years, that water level gets lower and lower and lower. And what you need to do is when you go get diagnosed, you need to figure out, are there still holes in your bucket right now? Are you still losing bone density? Because a lot of times what's going to be proposed is take some calcium, take some vitamin D, do some walking, and here's your bone drug. But that's not enough. So in order to figure out if you're still actively losing bone right now, if there's still a hole in your bucket, there's a test called the serum CTX test, CT lopeptide test. And what this test does is it looks at the activity level of cells that are breaking down bone. And if that activity level is elevated, that can be an indicator of active bone loss and root cause issues that need to be addressed. That's an easy test. If you go to your general practitioner, they may or may not Be familiar with it. If you go to an endocrinologist or functional medicine practitioner, they're probably going to be familiar with that test. But that's a really important one to.

Ask for someone coming in. Because I know what I've always heard is the standard of care. You know, quite often you hear it's to take one of these drugs that have so many side effects. Does that change or is that still the way it is?

That's still what happens with a lot of people. I would say, you know, 85% of the people I speak with, that's the general recommendation. Calcium, vitamin D, walking, take a bone medication. And there are different types of medications that are proposed. And, you know, it reminds me almost of this old economic adage, there's no such thing as a free lunch, right? Yeah, you can take the medication, but it's not going to come without short and long term implications to use side effects and things like that. So most people are familiar with the class or the category of drugs called antiresorptives. And Fosamax is a bisphosphonate, which falls into that category. What those drugs are designed to do is slow down the activity level of cells that break down bone. But as you're going about, as we're all going about our daily lives and doing activities, exercising and things like that, a normal part of bone remodeling is you're going to get these tiny little micro cracks and fractures and your bones or cells within your bones are communicating and saying, okay, we need to repair these, these little micro cracks and fractures. So we have the osteoclasts that come in and scoop out the damaged, worn bone. And then you've got osteoblasts that come in and build stronger, new, healthier bone. That's a natural process that happens every day for everybody. But when you take a medication that slows down the activity level of cells that scoop out that damaged bone, what happens over time is you can start to accumulate those tiny little micro cracks and fractures. And that's why taking some of these drugs longer term, especially the bisphosphonates, the safety and efficacy is not really known beyond five years of use. So, um, really important to understand some of these things upfront before you start going that route.

So what can you do instead of going that route?

Well, so the first thing is get objective data, get objective information. You gotta start doing some testing. Um, the first one, I think, understanding if you're actively losing bone, that's a really important one to do up front. Then if you do have active bone loss. Start exploring the root cause issues. Some of the really important ones that we need to look at up front, obviously, you want to get your vitamin D tested. That's 25 hydroxy vitamin D. You want to get your PTH, that's parathyroid hormone. That'll be super important. Comprehensive metabolic panel to look at your calcium levels and some of the other important markers there. And then celiac disease is another important marker we need to look at. And you can do a TTG, IgA test, tissue transglutaminase test. And what that test does is it looks at antibodies, and if you have an elevated level of those, that can be an indicator that you potentially have celiac disease. And what they'll do is if those antibodies are present, they're then going to try to confirm with an upper endoscopy. And what that does, they put you under, they go, they do a sampling of your small intestine. They. They see if your little nutrient absorption centers are blunted and damaged. And if they are, then they're going to confirm a celiac diagnosis.

There now, could just gluten intolerance, but not outright celiac do it too. Or does it have to just be outright celiac?

If you have issues, like if there's an underlying issue of anything contributing to inflammation is not going to be helpful for your bones, that's actually going to pour fire on the activity level of cells that break down bone. So even if you do not have celiac disease and you don't have that intestinal damage, it would still probably be a good idea in many cases to be gluten free. Right. To follow that route to make sure you don't have at least something else contributing to underlying inflammation.

Makes total sense. All right, so you're checking first to see if you're how much you're breaking down, what that rate is checking for celiac or gluten intolerance. And then, you know, with that information, what, what else should you. Is there anything else you should look at before you make up a plan?

Yeah. So the next thing you really want to look at is gut health, too. We need to focus on making sure that you're, you know, I always say you should imagine you're. I know I said I used the metaphor of a bucket a second ago, but if you imagine that your body and your bones are like plants, in order to grow, they need the right nutrients in the right conditions. Right. But so many people focus so much on the salads, the smoothies, the supplements that they're not considering the soil. And your gut is like the soil. We're absorbing almost everything there. So when you are chewing food and breaking it down and it's making its way to the small intestine, that's your soil. But you need roots in your soil to absorb anything. Those are your villi, those tiny little hair like projections. So a lot of times, even if people are eating healthy, they might not be properly breaking down their food. And that food might not actually be absorbed by the villi. And you could have a situation where the villi are potentially damaged. So what are some contributors to that? Low stomach acid can be an issue for a lot of people. And a lot of times when somebody has low stomach acid, they take PPIs, proton pump inhibitors for that. And I took those for a number of years. Tums are proton pump inhibitors.

And was that prior to you getting diagnosed?

Yeah, prior to me getting diagnosed, Yep, prior to me getting diagnosed.

Interesting.

And like, reflux is one of the reasons why people take proton pump inhibitors. But a lot of times when somebody has reflux, they actually have low stomach acid. It's not that they have too much stomach acid. And the reason it's a problem to suppress what little stomach acid you have is you need stomach acid to properly break down and extract nutrients from your food. Amino acids, like they're the building blocks of protein. Your bones are 50% protein by volume, so they need amino acids. Calcium is the primary mineral constituent of your bones. Low stomach acid is going to reduce its absorption. Same thing with magnesium, iron, B12. If you have low stomach acid, your soil is going to be starved of those nutrients. So that's a really important one. And then you need to be looking at, do you have the wrong balance of bugs in your soil? So dysbiosis, the presence of bad bugs, maybe like gut infections or even good bugs in the wrong place. Sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. If you've got issues there too, we have to address those things because that's going to prevent your body from absorbing nutrients. And it could be a source of leaky gut and systemic inflammation, which are not going to be good for your body or bones. Ray Ban Meta glasses come with open ear audio so you can listen to your favorite music without blocking out the world around you.

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With all of this, then how would you then take. Take someone who sees that they've got, you know, they're probably under stress, which we haven't even talked about stress and what it can do. Maybe we should hit stress real quick, too, because that can really impact this. So how does stress play into this?

Yeah, stress plays a major role in, in bone health. So, I mean, if it's pretty well documented that if you have high levels of stress, that that's going to be something that's contributing to bone loss. And if that, especially if it becomes chronic, that's something that has to be addressed. Not only that, it's going to affect all your other. All your other body systems, too. And sleep is another important factor, too. That's pretty well documented. Also, if you're not sleeping well, poor sleep is going to reduce your bone quality. So those are two really big ones that we need to address. And you need to have more than just a plan of maybe a few deep sighs in and exhales out once or twice every day. That's not going to cut it. We need to incorporate some other important practices. Maybe meditation is important. Even if you just take a couple, maybe a couple minutes every day to have some conscious breathing, where you're really focusing on that, that can be helpful, too. But developing a plan around that is going to be. Going to be important.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's very cool about all this, I think. I think the big key takeaway is that this is something that tends to be forgotten until a point where it's too late. So many of the things that help your bones help everything else, too. So that's, that's the good news. But it's. I want to get people away from thinking, oh, this is something you have to worry about, you know, when you. After menopause. No, this is like, that's not. When you start to look at this, you address it way earlier. So. All right, someone, someone. Because everything you're going to say is whether someone's got active osteoporosis or wants to avoid it. I'm sure. But someone's got osteoporosis. What's the diet they should be on? What should they eat?

I will start by saying there's not a perfect diet for every single person. That's what everybody asked me. You know, what's the perfect diet for osteoporosis? They hate my response because they hate when I tell them, you know, we're all biochemically and Genetically unique individuals. We're going to respond to different foods and supplements and dietary approaches differently. With that being said, in general, obviously anti inflammatory diet is going to be super important. I would say there are some foods that work, generally speaking, for most people right now. I don't like saying every single food is good for every single person, but if you're incorporating fish, salmon, mackerel, sardines, fish with bones in, those are great. They'd be canned. Vital Choice is a great, a great company that has canned fish that you can use. And the bones in these fish, they're not actually hard bones that are going to poke you in the mouth. They, they almost kind of melt in your mouth. And what these bones have is they have all the, all the minerals that you need to support your own stronger, healthier bones. So if you're looking for a great source of calcium, that's non dairy, that's going to be a great choice. Okay. And you've also got the benefit of protein that's going to come there. Obviously we need protein and amino acids to rebuild our bones and then omega 3s. Omega 3s are the dampeners of inflammation. Inflammation contributes to bone loss. So if you can incorporate those even a couple times a week, that's going to be a fantastic addition. Coconut oil, that's a great addition to or can be a great addition. It's considered one of the healthiest foods on the planet. Over 1500 studies showing its benefits. And for bones specifically, it can be helpful not just in the protection against bone loss, but also in the actual improvement of bone structure. Okay. And then we've also got coconut oil has this type of fatty acids called medium chain triglycerides. We'll call them mcts. And mcts, they're metabolized differently than other fats. They go straight to the liver where they're converted instantly into energy and ketones. And ketones obviously are an efficient, clean burning fuel source for the body. And the last part that I really like about coconut oil is we were talking earlier about digestive issues and how that can cause problems for people absorbing their nutrients. Well, coconut oil actually has antimicrobial and antifungal effects. And close to 50% of the fatty acids in coconut oil are lauric acid. When the body digests lauric acid, it forms a substance called monolaurin. And both lauric acid and monolaurin help fight bad bugs, pathogens, and even the same bacteria that cause staph infection, C Diff and the same candida yeast that causes oral thrush so coconut oil is an amazing, amazing addition if you, if you can get that into your plan. Another one that I really like is arugula. Arugula is a leafy green, same cruciferous family of vegetables as broccoli and kale, rich in potassium, folate, vitamin C, vitamin K and bioavailable calcium. Okay, so if you, if you look at a clamshell of arugula at the store, 85 grams, about 3 ounces, that has about 200 milligrams of calcium. And unlike spinach, a lot of people eat a lot of spinach. And I don't ever like saying completely avoid foods because some people can tolerate them and handle them. But spinach has, it's a common green a lot of people use, but it has a lot of oxalates in them. And oxalates are considered an anti nutrient that can bind up bone, healthy minerals like calcium and prevent their absorption. So if you've got kidney stones, digestive issues, arthritis, joint pain, those may be some indicators that you have a hard time breaking down and degrading oxalate. So you can actually make that swap if you've got a lot of spinach for some arugula too.

And how important is having more of an acid alkaline balanced diet?

I would say definitely incorporating more leafy greens and fruits and vegetables and things like that. That's, that's a really important part of this plan, right?

Yeah. It's funny, I've read like there's whole books written on this. I'm like, it's pretty simple. Don't you just eat more plants with your protein?

You know, yes, but here's what, here's what happens a lot is because protein acid forming, you know, this is, a lot of people try to shy away from that because they want to stay in this alkaline state. But you need protein. So we don't want to sacrifice our protein intake and just eat vegetables. That's not going to be the best thing to support your bones long term. So coming up with a balance is going to be really important. And hitting those protein targets and calcium targets too is going to be important also.

What about supplements?

Supplements? You know, I always try to get people first to start by getting as much of their nutrients from food if possible. But if you're going to be supplementing, we want to make sure we're getting enough vitamin D and a, vitamin K, two, vitamin C. If you're, if you're not getting enough from your food, that can be an important one to supplement calcium Magnesium, B vitamins, omega 3s, probiotics, and I actually really like, especially from a protein perspective, essential amino acids. Essential amino acids are, you know, easily digested form to make sure you're meeting your daily protein total. So those are all great additions. I would say. A lot of people aren't too familiar with vitamin K2. And what vitamin K2 does is it aids in bone mineralization and formation by activating something called osteocalcin. And you can actually look at these levels in your blood of osteocalcin. But what K2 does is it is ensuring your calcium is deposited in our bone and not our soft tissues like our arteries and our kidneys. So where are you going to find K1 and K2? So K2, you're going to find that in things like beef liver or grass fed ghee or butter, dark meat, chicken or pastured egg yolks. That's where you'll find a version called MK4. And then K2, MK7 you're going to find in hard cheeses, fermented foods, sauerkraut, kimchi, natto and bacterial fermentation in our guts, which is pretty interesting. Your gut microbes in your gut can actually produce nutrients and beneficial compounds for your body to support better health. That's pretty amazing.

Now what about things that you should, you know, we've been talking about all the things that are great for your bones, food wise. Are there some things that are just like, got to stay away from? I remember reading about, you know, gymnasts having a lot of issues that were drinking a lot of diet sodas and all the acidic, I'm thinking from the cans, leaching of the phosphorus or something.

So what about phosphoric acid? So if anybody's consuming soda, that's a no no, right? Just scrap that one out of your diet today. Swap those out for some mineral waters or something like that. That's. And then you can actually get some minerals and nutrients and beneficial things for your body instead of taking away and depleting sugar. If you didn't already know. If you're listening to jj, another nail in the coffin. I was just going to say, let me take this nail right to the coffin too. So sugar, reduce your, your sugar intake for bone health too, because sugar damages bone by triggering, triggering an inflammatory response and it's going to deplete your bone healthy minerals, calcium, magnesium, chromium, copper. It's going to inhibit intestinal absorption of calcium and it's going to block the absorption of vitamin C. Vitamin C is key for maintaining a healthy skeleton. And you know, sugar obviously comes in a lot of different forms. It's not just, you know, the white sugar in the package. It's your breads, your chips, your cookies, cupcake, crackers, pastas, pizzas, all that stuff. So that's, that's another reason why we want to avoid sugar chemicals. I would say glyphosate again, I'm sure organic if you can get it and it makes sense for your budget. Go for, go for organic foods. That's super important because glyphosate is obviously associated with cancer. It's a key later of minerals and it's, it's not going to be a good thing to be ingesting and putting in your body. So the environmental working group has a list of the dirty dozen, the clean 15. You can use that as a guide to figure out what are the best foods to maybe go organic on.

Perfect. And finally we have to talk exercise for sure.

So exercise is a super, super important part of your bone health. And a lot of times, like I was talking about earlier, the doctor is usually just going to say, hey, go do some walking and you're going to be fine. But that's not going to be enough. And I think we all, a lot of us know that exercise plays a super important part in bone health. So we need two different types of stimuli for our bones. You need muscle pulling on bone and you need impact. And the most effective interventions are going to use one or both in combination. So when muscle pulls on bone, it's going to make them stronger. You've got this mechanical signal that's sending a chemical signal to induce that structural adaptation. So we've got that going for us. And then impact exercises are another addition that we have to have in terms of intensity of exercise. The studies that show the greatest effect are when we're doing in the 5 to 10 rep range, about. So that's going to be, that's going to be important. And then when we're talking about the different types of exercise, we've got weight bearing exercise, which is anything where your bones and your muscles are working against gravity to keep you upright. These are the things that you're doing on your feet that's placing stress on your bones. So you've got your running, you're walking, you're hiking, you're dancing, you're gardening, all that kind of stuff. That's all going to be weight bearing type exercise. If you're doing non weight bearing exercise, you're not putting that stress on your bones. So that's going to be cycling, paddling in a canoe or a kayak, swimming or water therapy. You don't have that force of gravity that we need helping place that stress on the bones. It's not saying you should never swim if you enjoy swimming and it makes you happy and it reduces your stress. And it's not saying, don't ever do that. It's just saying don't do that as your only exercise and count that and say, okay, I'm good to go. I'm doing everything for my bones. Because that's not going to be enough. Same thing with, if we're running seven miles every day or eight miles every day, or we're doing those marathon activities, we need to do additional exercise in there. We need to be lifting, doing some resistance training. And you need to vary the impact that you have. If you're running in the same direction all the time, one foot in front of the other, we need to switch that up because the bones are going to respond to being surprised.

Yep. It's interesting. The biggest things I've been pushing lately is I think we all know to cross train our exercise doesn't mean everybody does it. I've kind of now realized there's a yoga body, just like there's the gym body and there's the runner body, there's a yoga body body. And I'm like, I go to each of the different things and look at them. We got to cross train our exercise, but we also have to cross train our diet. Both of these, both are important, both are key, critical. So when someone comes to you, and I know you've got a master class because there's so much more we could get into. But like a basic plan I would assume is probably diet, supplement, exercise, stress, like kind of going, there's a lot to this.

Yeah, there's. So if somebody. A lot of times when people come to us, they're usually, they usually have like a supplement in hand or they have a device in hand, like, hey, I got this vibration plate, or, hey, I got this new supplement. That's great. But we're in the tactics. We need to zoom out and focus on the strategy. So when we zoom out and focus on the strategy, we're looking at a couple different buckets. We're looking at figuring out root cause issues. Are you still actively losing bone and what's contributing to that loss, and then how do we address it? The nourishing your body and making sure you're getting the right nutrients in the right amounts that you're actually absorbing those nutrients. Super important because a lot of times, even if someone is eating healthy, you might not be getting the nutrients you need to support stronger, healthier bones. Because it happens on three layers. First layer, are you taking in the right nutrients in the right amounts. Second layer, are you actually absorbing those nutrients? Third layer, are those nutrients making it to the cell level. A lot of times, even if somebody's eating healthy, those three things don't line up. So that's what we focus on in that middle portion. And the last portion is build. You got to build strength of body, mind and bone in a way that prevents fracture and injury. Not just now, but in the future, too. So you focus on your stress reduction, sleep improvement, getting the right exercise plan in place, and then also optimizing your hormones and things like that.

Well, the good news is what works for building better bones has a whole lot of other side benefits as well, as opposed to the medication that has so many bad side effects. So. All right, awesome. And now I know you're going to give everyone a masterclass and some amazing recipes. So we are going to put all of that@jjvirgin.com Bone Coach, since you are the bone coach and you want to just let everybody know what they're going to be getting.

Absolutely. So I'm going to give free access to our stronger bones masterclass for JJ's community. This is going to be an awesome. It's a. It's a 50 minute overview. It's a masterclass. It's going to walk you through, step by step, the process that you need to take to get started. So if you're in a position where maybe you haven't had a DEXA scan yet or maybe you have you just been diagnosed or you just want to learn more about it, watch the masterclass, sign up for it, Find it in the show notes, Find it on, you know, the website that JJ just mentioned. Sign up for it and just get the information right now. Because we don't want to not. We don't want to avoid getting the information because we don't want to know how to address it. I will tell you that usually the people that come to us that are later in life that have maybe already had multiple fractures and things like that, the thing I hear more than anything is I wish I would have done something five or 10 years ago or I wish I would have. I wish I would have met you 20 years ago. Like, I hear that all the time. Let's not, let's be on the side of prevention. And not reaction.

Yes, this is definitely one that you don't want to be reactive with. Holy smokes. So. And again, everything that you're talking about doing is going to benefit everything else as well. So it's a win win. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I so appreciate your time today and I'm going to remind everybody it's jjvirgin.com bonecoach to grab the masterclass and the recipes. Thank you.

Awesome.

All right, so a lot of information in that podcast Holy smokes. You definitely want to gonna want because I feel like we just touched the tip of the iceberg too, that there's so much more information that he has to share. So again, you can get the free master class and his recipe guidebook at jjvirgin.com forward/bonecoach and I will see you in the next session. By the way way if you have not subscribed yet, come on, subscribe to JJ.com so you never miss a juicy episode. See you next time.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.