Rebuild Your Body in 8 Minutes

In this 2025 podcast episode, celebrity trainer Jorge Cruise explains how age‑related muscle loss (sarcopenia) is actually driven by inactivity and can begin as early as the 20s. He builds on his recent series about "physical hunger" (mineral deficiencies, salt shaming, and the limits of GLP‑1 drugs) and "emotional hunger" (low dopamine, sugar cravings, and the mood‑boosting power of exercise). The core of the episode is a two‑step prescription for rebuilding lean muscle: (1) consume roughly 1 gram of high‑quality protein per pound of lean body mass, ideally within an 8‑hour time‑restricted eating window, and (2) perform short, daily resistance workouts—most notably an 8‑minute routine he popularized in his 2001 book "8 Minutes in the Morning" and featured in an Oprah magazine spread. He outlines practical protein sources, mentions creatine, hydration (Zero Hunger Water), and hormone considerations, and stresses that the goal is functional strength, not bulk. The episode ends with a call‑to‑action for a live Zoom masterclass on December 8 at 5 PM PT, limited to 100 participants, where he will dive deeper into nutrition, training, and a limited‑time 4‑week coaching program aimed at midlife adults (40‑80 years). Throughout, Cruise blends motivational language with concrete, actionable advice, positioning lean muscle as the "organ of longevity" and promising that restoring 4‑12 lb of muscle can revitalize metabolism, posture, and overall health.
Chapters
I have amazing trainer for you that I want to set you up with. I'm Jorge Cruise. I'm a celebrity fitness trainer and New York Times bestselling author. In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. All right, it's Sunday. Welcome guys. I'm Jorge and welcome back to the podcast. Now on today's episode, if you've been following along for the, uh, Last 2 days, we're gonna be talking about how to restore lean muscle mass from sarcopenia. Now, that's a fancy way to say age-brought-on or age-related muscle loss. Now, I'm gonna tell you the truth. Age-related muscle loss doesn't come from being old. It comes from being inactive. And it can happen as early as your 20s or 30s. So listen up, anyone who's under 40. And if you're like me in your 50s or beyond 60s, 70s, or 80s, this is the ideal podcast. It's really the third piece to this puzzle that I call Jorge Cruise Coaching. And, you know, I've been doing these series of videos this weekend, and we did one on Friday which talked about how to turn off physical hunger and this whole idea that right now we live in this bubble about hunger control, which is really great because, you know, my entire career as an author has been writing books to help people, uh, get well, you know, and mainly by losing belly fat and losing weight. And in today's world, you can take a GLP-1 medication if and only your doctor suggests it. Obviously, you have to be at a certain weight and a weight that's set for you maybe, and it's been many years where you've been unable to break free from that. And that's why medications like Ozempic are so great these days, 'cause they can jumpstart that. Now, the problem with that and what we talked about on Friday, and if you haven't seen the video, It'll be here in the show notes so you can link back to it. It was just 2 days ago. But the problem with that, it doesn't address the root cause of why we're physically hungry all the time. Now that for me was something, and I'll just give it to you in a nutshell that if you've heard this before, I'll only be a second, but this idea that physical hunger is really at the root cause of mineral deficiency. And I can tell you in today's world, so many of us have been salt shamed, and also we've been eating foods that don't have potassium and magnesium because the salt soil, the crop rotations have been so significant in the last 50 years where foods that are grown even in really fertile organic foods, you know, in soils I should say, are not having the levels of magnesium, potassium they used to have say 100, 200 years ago, let alone 1,000 years ago, right? Where the soil was much more fertile. So when you have a low amount of magnesium and potassium in the foods you're eating, whether it's plant-based or animal-based, and then you've been shamed to, to use salt by the government, you know, because there are federal regulations on salt, uh, maximum limits, right, ranges that are wrong and inaccurate, uh, primarily because what we know is that you can't really raise blood sugar or blood pressure without the combination of high insulin loads and salt. And the only way you'll ever have like high blood pressure with salt is if you eat a high sugar diet. That's the bottom line. And if you know me, you know me, I'm not a big advocate of that because the number one thing that causes inflammation in your body and causes a high waist circumference, otherwise known as belly fat, is a high sugar, high carb diet. If you've been following me for last 20 years or more, you know that that's something for me, I like to swap out bad carbs for good carbs, and those are ones that are low in insulin, and that's what we want to focus in on. So if you're eating a really healthy diet, high protein, healthy fats, and the right carbs, you can add salt to your food and not worry at all, or add it to your water, and we've talked about Zero Hunger Water and how to make that at home for pennies. So we've talked about physical hunger in a nutshell, and, and really it's understanding that minerals are everything to turn off that physical hunger and that mechanism that makes us want to eat and eat. Then yesterday we talked about the other side of the coin, which is not about physical hunger, but it's about emotional hunger and understanding that when we're feeling down, we're low dopamine. And that through the work of Dr. Anna from Stanford, who runs the addiction clinic, we know that a lot of us that are low dopamine, whether it's from an adverse childhood experience, trauma of some sort, both physical or emotional, that hasn't been resolved, our minds, our frontal lobes are very low in dopamine. And so what we seek out is things that will bolster dopamine quickly. Number one thing out there is sugar and carbs, you know? And if it's not that, it's alcohol or other substances that raise dopamine. But guess what? I told you what my big passion is, and it's gonna be related to today, and that is exercise. Because one of the wins that are win-win in the sense of positive, raises dopamine, and also good for you— no inflammation, no belly fat— and if anything keeps us strong is exercise. And so on today's podcast, what we're going to talk about is the missing puzzle to really becoming well. A lot of times we talk about how to turn off hunger, right? GLP-1 drugs do that beautifully, but they don't talk about what you have to do to build or restore lost lean muscle. And whether you're my age, older, or younger, and if you don't have enough strength in your body where when you flex your arms or flex chest or flex your lower body and you don't feel that, that strength where your body has that shape and it's more flabby and soft. You know, a lot of my clients that are female call it the bat wings, right? When we, when we like flex like this and then this part moves and nothing else moves, you know, those are the bat wings. We don't want that. We want lean muscle that isn't necessarily bulky at all, but we just want strength. So when we get something from the ground and we pick it up, whether it's groceries, a grandkid, our kids or whatever, you don't injure your back. And, and the good thing is lean muscle increases your metabolism, and lean muscle gives you that structural support that keeps us looking young. And lean muscle, as what many doctors say in today's world, uh, is the organ of longevity. And so how do we restore lean muscle? There's really two things. Write this down. We're going to talk about this in detail tomorrow night, and I want to make sure you're invited to my event tomorrow night on December 8th at 5 PM Pacific time. There's a Zoom link in the show notes. Just come by tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of people. We're up to 100, and that'll be at our max capacity. So first come, first serve. The doors will open probably like 10 minutes early, so you can go on Zoom, join us. It's going to be a great class, 90 minutes of going deep on physical hunger, emotional hunger, and then restoring lean muscle mass. And I really hope it gives you the essence of what I've been working on for the last 6 years, because my last book, The Cruise Control Diet, was all about intermittent fasting We talked about this on Friday, and I can tell you that time-restricted eating is so important for longevity, but the one thing time-restricted eating doesn't do is restore lean muscle. You know, none of that's gonna do that. And what the keys are are simple, and I want you to jot down the 2 key principles to restoring a lean muscle mass, especially if you're in midlife. Number 1, it's getting enough protein in your diet. You need approximately 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean muscle mass you weigh. Now, I weigh like 200. 106 pounds. So my goal is always to probably get at least somewhere between 180 and 190 grams of protein, which is a lot of protein. So I eat in a time-restricted window like most of my clients, which is an 8-hour window to eat, whether you eat 1 or 2 meals. I usually eat 2 to get that much protein in, and I'm always eating things like eggs and steaks. And I have a little something I'll be showing you in the class tomorrow. These aren't real, but look, one of my favorite things are soft-boiled eggs, or, uh, or these are like eggs over easy, these aren't real, or steak or any kind of animal protein. This is the most bioavailable kind of protein out there, whether you like chicken, fish, steak, beef. We're going to talk about protein, the best sources, and how much you're going to need for your own well-being. And remember, most of us don't eat protein enough. What we crave when we are emotional, we crave when we aren't, you know, our best selves, it's always carbs and sugar because it raises dopamine. But we don't want to do that because we need to restore lean muscle mass. You know, we want to get dopamine from other sources of things that aren't food, and we talked about that yesterday. So protein, 1 gram per body weight, lean muscle mass. We'll talk more about this tomorrow, but jot this down, it's important. So you got to get that protein in there. All of us need at least 100 grams because most of my clients aren't under 100 pounds and trying to lose weight. I hope not. And so think of that as a simple first goal for yourself. How can you get in 2 meals about 50 grams of protein. That's the simplest way to look at it. And there's so many great hacks out there now that allow us to get good bioavailable protein without having to eat too much food and, and really get it in a more concentrated form. And I'll be sharing all my tricks and hacks and brands of products I recommend tomorrow, so you'll love that. Now the second key— pardon me— the second key is strength training, resistance training, building lean muscle mass. Now for me, I love to go to the gym. I go every day for 2 hours, you know, and I'm always wearing tank tops, it seems, or no shirts at all, right? Because I like working out outside. If you follow my Instagram, uh, I've been known to make a couple videos with my shirt off because I like getting the sunshine, the vitamin D, and I just like working out outside. And because I live in San Diego, it's always good temperature, so I'm very blessed. Um, and I think my Latin blood just likes that sunshine on the skin, and it's good for vitamin D production. So I do that a lot. But not everyone, bottom line, likes to go to a gym. I think some people, when they think of a gym, that go low dopamine, right? They're like, ah, it's like going on a roller coaster, I'd rather not. And so what does that mean? Well, let me show you something. I wrote a book in 2001. This is it right here. This is a younger version of me with Tony Robbins. He wrote the introduction. You can kind of see his name there, you know, forward by Anthony Robbins. It's called 8 Minutes in the Morning. And I'll tell you, this book is available. I'll put the show link, uh, the, the links in the show notes on Amazon to this day. It's 20 4 years ago. This book was written with Tony here. It's my first book, and I can tell you strength training— you can see some of the results some of my clients had back in 2001, uh, is powerful because it does bolster your metabolism. But more importantly, it builds that lean muscle that keeps us young. Now, how powerful was this program? Well, what I'm going to give you in the show notes and what I want you to use is something that my dearest friend of all, Miss Oprah Winfrey— this is her back in the day, and this was after my book was out— she made me the centerfold in her magazine. Check this out here, guys, right there. Do you see that? Lose weight fast. Do you see those moves? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You have a whole week's worth of workouts, and it was like a, a cutout. This was a tear-out in the magazine. So we basically have these exercises. I'm going to give them to you because they're on our website. If you go to the show notes, you'll have a link to oprah.com, and you can just steal the workout that's literally in the magazine. It's been there for many years, obviously, because that article was written in 200 5, uh, and it was in the January issue. So I want you to have that. You can use that today. You'll, you'll get a ton more exercises if you become a member of my club. Every week we have new, new moves, but they're all 8 minutes. That's the bottom line. Those exercises are 8 minutes. The ones in my book are 8 minutes. You can get the book. And what I can guarantee you is that if you make this a priority first thing in the morning, so you drink your Zero Hunger Water to kind of set your body straight so you're not physically hungry, you get those minerals in there. And then you do your strength training for 8 minutes, whether it's with dumbbells, your own body weight. So many ways at home that you can build lean muscle. And this is not muscle that's gonna make you big and bulky. I've never been that. You know, this is me lifting at 54 and lifting 2 hours every day. You know, I have a routine that I switch through. And we'll talk about everything we need in midlife on how to build lean muscle, whether you're a man or a woman. We'll talk about hormones, we'll talk about creatine, we'll talk about water, we'll talk about protein, we'll talk about when to eat versus when not to eat, But imagine being able to restore 10 to 12 pounds of lean muscle mass at the most, maybe just 4 or 5 if you don't need that much. But that lean muscle is going to give you that strength to restore your appearance, restore how good you feel, and more importantly, increase your resting metabolism. And it's just one of the key, key elements to longevity, and I think you're going to love it. And it's something you can do at home. Again, No gyms required. Now, if you want to go to the gym, I'll always work with you because I go to the gym. You know, I don't want to make that a bad thing, but I want to be practical and I want you to have options. And obviously tomorrow night we'll talk about the protein, we'll talk about the resistance training and how you can start creating that plan immediately in your life this month so you can do it at home and it's not a big deal. You get it done, you get it out of the way, and then you start your day. It's such a simple lifestyle hack that you're going to love it. And it's something you can do with your loved ones too, whether you're married, single, you can do it with family, friends, however you want to do it. So those are my two non-negotiables for building lean muscle mass and reversing what the technical word is, is sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle loss that comes from, again, not from being old, it comes from not using your muscles. And your mantra is, is that if you don't use it, you lose it, guys. You know what I mean? It's been said before, I'm not the first. Super, super simple stuff, guys. So let me say this before I end up wrapping up today's short session here is obviously, look, check out the show notes for all those resources I talked about. But tomorrow night, Monday, is our big night. So I want you right now to get your calendar out, get your phone out, and jot down tomorrow night, 5 PM Pacific time with Jorge Cruise. I'm going to invite you via the link that's in the show notes. So just use that link tomorrow. You can get there 10 minutes early if you want, about 4:50. If you're in California, wherever you're at, it's global, you can be anywhere in the world. It's limited to 100 people, that's all the Zoom room will hold. And then out of that group, I want you guys to know that I have a very, very crazy offer I'm going to give you guys. I'm going to give you the full 90 minutes, you're going to learn everything I've learned in the last 6 years in 90 minutes. But then I want you to have an opportunity to work with me for a minimum of 4 weeks through the holidays, through the new year, all the way to the— I think it's going to take us to the second week in January where you can transform your entire body and reset reset midlife so it becomes the best part of your life. It should be the upgrade, not a downgrade, or this thing where you're, you're breaking down. It should be where you're going up. And that's my goal for anyone in midlife, whether in your 40s, 50s like me, 60s, 70s, or even your 80s. Midlife should be a time where you have the knowledge, you have the motivation, you have the experience. And with me, you have the accountability on a weekly basis to have that support. And if you choose to follow me moving past tomorrow's event, I would be honored to do that. You have a crazy cool offer that I'm not making ever again. It's a one-time only. You have to be attending the event to get it, but I'll tell you tomorrow what the big surprise is for kind of the new year, and you're going to love it, I hope. But please join me tomorrow night at 5 PM Pacific time on Zoom. The link's in the show notes. You can use that. I'll see you tomorrow night. Super simple. You don't need an email, you don't need anything. Just the link is there below. It's on Zoom. But, um, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow night at 5 PM. Let's just leave it at that, guys. Please bring some loved ones, share the link with as many people as you want. I'm not going to be able to control who comes first, who comes second, but it's limited to 100 people. And I hope you'll bring a friend, a loved one. They could be anywhere in the world and we'll be live at 5 PM Pacific time, um, throughout the world. So I hope you join me tomorrow, guys. I'm excited. I'm pumped to make 2025 the year that you started this transformation. And more importantly, you start next year already strong. You're gonna cure belly fat, you're gonna build and restore lean muscle mass, and you're gonna add decades to midlife, guys, I promise. And it's gonna be the best time of your life. It's truly gonna be an upgrade. So I look forward to seeing you guys then tomorrow. Peace and purpose, and I'll see you on Monday. Take care.










