RESOURCES
- Buy the book “Elements Of Aging Well” By Janet McConnell on Amazon.
- Visit Janet McConnell’s website ignitefitnesswithjanet.com
- Visit Janet McConnell on YouTube
- Visit Janet McConnell on Instagram
- Contact Janet McConnell
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Listen to this episode on iTunes
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro Snip
00:42 Introduce Janet McConnel author of “Elements of Aging well” and owner of IgniteFitnessWithJanet.com
02:36 What happened in your life at 46 years old that brought you to a point of transformation out of shape to body building?
04:50 When is it a good time to take medication?
11:37 How long do you have to work out and how many times per week to get in shape?
13:33 What is the most important lifestyle difference between someone who is in shape and someone who is competing in body building?
17:20 Is body building a healthy lifestyle?
19:12 What is the LBN factor?
20:30 What is the purpose of training and what kind of goals should be set?
22:45 How do you name your exercises?
23:55 What is the benefit of having a personal trainer?
28:00 What is aging vs. longevity?
31:00 How long does it take to get back in shape when you have taken 20 to 30 years off?
33:30 At what point is the runway too short?
35:07 How important is the mental component to physical fitness?
37:22 the concept of reversing aging inspired by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw
43:00 What are some of the tricks to presenting so well on stage in a body building competition?
TRANSCRIPT
I mean, what in the world we have this body that never lies to us. It always tells the truth. And we want to not listen to it sometimes.
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.
Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Dr. Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr. Michael Haley, your show host. And today’s guest is Janet McConnell from Scottsdale, Arizona. Janet is a public speaker, a motivational speaker of types. She’s a health coach. She’s author of the book Elements of Aging Well and also owner of ignitefitnesswithjanet.com. Is that right? Right. That’s my website.
So everyone has that on the front end. So you can go check her out right now. In fact, Janet, I have to ask you about that because I went to your website and I went to a blog tab and there was a blog post. I forget the exact name of the post, but there was like a before and after photo that was really you in the before and after, right?
Yes. Wow. Amazing. Two different people. Two different people. Librarian. Bodybuilder.
And that the bodybuilding photo was absolutely amazing. Who does that with their body? Who holds themselves to that kind of standard to get in that kind of shape? I want to dig a little deeper into that, though. In this discussion. I want to go into some of the tricks and stuff. I want to know a little bit about bodybuilding, and we’ll also talk about real life health and wellness and fitness, because there is a difference, right?
Yes, yes there is. I’m here for this. Let’s go. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. What brought you to that point of needing a transformation and deciding this was the path you were going to go on? Well, the pictures that you saw are an outflow from a major thunderstorm in my life. Struck by lightning and ready for destruction.
Because that’s what happens to some people. You know, when people have a life crisis. Midlife crisis. Call it whatever you want. It happens at different times in our lives. But everybody does something different. Some people buy a Corvette. Some people, you know, travel around the world. I became a bodybuilder. I started, I guess as a child I was always very athletic and really healthy.
Just was raised very healthily and entered into my young adulthood, launched myself into a corporate career that included
lots and lots of travel size flying all over the country, Puerto Rico, and the United States. And so it was multiple times a month. So it was a lot of disruption that was very hard to have a routine where you eat right, exercise.
Right. Plus, I was in my 20s, 30s, early 40s, I was healthy. I mean, you really get a lot of grace during that period of your life where you can be doing really destructive things, and if you don’t go too far, you’re kind of everybody’s kind of the same. You’re okay. You don’t look any different. But then something happens where it all comes crashing down and it came crashing down for me.
And my probably, I think it was my 46th year where I went for a physical, just an annual physical, and my bloodwork came back and it was abysmal. All of my numbers were in the red. And at the same time I felt great. I mean, I had the energy,
I noticed I was exhausted on the weekends.
I was really kind of getting to the point where I was burning the candle at both ends, but that was really the only indicator that I thought maybe I should think about changing something. But when my doctor delivered the news of her early heart disease
and slid the prescriptions across the table at me, here you go. Because that’s the solution, right?
Unfortunately, that is the you know, you know what’s crazy about that? Because the doctors will look at numbers and they’ll say, this is too high, this is too low, and we’re going to give you a chemical to change that. Now
here’s the question I have. And I didn’t write this question. But if you give drugs to a healthy person does it make them more healthy.
Probably if not how can giving drugs to a sick person make them more healthy? I’ve never there has to be a better way. Yeah, there has to be a better way. Yeah.
I’ve never heard the question asked like that, but that’s a good way to ask that question. You know, I’d say it’s not going to get you healthier, but that’s you know, there’s a lot to modern medicine.
We have a lot of great things, like being able to fight disease and do surgery and fix mechanically fix things. And there are some applications that are okay but and helpful. But
here’s
my disclaimer. I’m going to tell my people right now because they know I’m like the non medicine guy. I took a drug today. That’s right.
I when I yeah twice a year I go to the dentist and I have my teeth cleaned and my mouth is a waterfall, which I’m told is a very healthy thing. I take an antihistamine to stop that so I don’t drown while I’m getting my teeth cleaned. Right. And I’m, you know, the benefit is okay, well, I had my teeth taken care of.
I think medicine has a time and place. And it can help someone live and buy time. Yeah. If needed. If your blood pressure is, you know, 300, over 200. Okay, that’s too high. This is dangerous. We got to get something under control while you’re figuring out what’s causing it to be that way. So you can change things and fix it right?
If things are broken, I don’t want to be in such pain that I want to kill myself. Right? There’s a place for medicine there, and I’m glad they can put me out if they have to put me back together. Right? I don’t want to be awake during that process. There’s a place for medicine. So what did you do when the doctor said, take all of these drugs?
Well, that was the thunderstorm, because I felt like there was this voice, silent scream in the back of my head, the little girl in me who could beat the boys at swimming and running and, you know, always had this really healthy body, said Janet. You haven’t even given your body a chance. You’re just going from here to here and not.
What about all that other stuff your body knows? And I’m really glad I listened to that voice, because I just dug my heels in and I knew the drugs were there for me if I really needed it. But what if there’s something I can do in between? And so, fortunately, my doctor, we had a pretty good relationship. I’d known him for a number of years, and he trusted me, and he was shocked too.
And so I just said, listen, give me six months. Let me try to do something. And he’s like, oh, here we go. You know, here’s somebody buying time because they’re scared. And but he said, okay, all right, all right. Nothing’s going to happen in the next six months. It’s going to get worse. So let’s make the appointment right now.
And you’d better show up. I know where you live and go see what you can do. Yeah.
You know this. This is getting good. I’m going to. I want to come back to this in just a second. Yeah. I want to throw something out there. And people, if you’re listening to this on iTunes and you don’t have the visual, this is want to go to YouTube on. And I want you to see who Janet is.
Janet, we’re going to throw something out there and talk more about it as we go. Okay. You were how old when you were at the doctor? 46. And about how many years ago was that? I’m going to be 70 in a year and a half. Okay. So do you know Janet? That’s fine. That’s a good that’s a good way of.
Yeah, yeah, I that I wouldn’t have wanted to do the math on the fly either. So, going to be 70. Yeah. All right. Born and what year? 1956. So my birthday people that are watching this year is down the road. They don’t have to do the math now either. Okay. Yeah. It’s like, you know, when you have to fill out an application and access your birth year and you have to spin it like a roulette wheel, and so you get to your year.
It was I, as I tell my young clients, it’s like it was a century ago. You know,
this is a funny way of looking at it, though. The reality is you said you’re going to be 70 in a year, right? A year and a half. Yeah. Okay.
Because technically,
we’re living our next year.
Right? You know, when you turn one, that your first year is already gone. You’re living your second year. That’s a good point. So, you know, I’m coming up on, 58, so I’ll be, you know, living my 59th year in just a couple of weeks. That’s right. It’s crazy. Yeah. But somehow, you know, we’re making decisions that give us all kind of strength and energy and ability.
So you told the doctor, I need six months and let’s see what I can do. How did you do? I went out to my car and just burst into tears because I had no idea what I was going to do. I made a bargain and I had zero plan, so I was like, like done. But I just knew I couldn’t start with his plan.
So, I was thinking about it and I talked to one of my bosses about it, and she had a good trainer she seemed to like. And she’s once you start there, just hire a trainer and start. And so I did, and I loved it. So this trainer, you know, there’s many different kinds that teach all different modalities.
And this particular trainer just happened to be bodybuilding resistance training. So progressive overload working all the muscles, working on posture and balance and stability and so on and so forth. So I signed up because I was on a short leash here. Six months is not long. I signed up for three days a week, one hour a day at 5 a.m. when nobody was awake.
So there was no barrier. I thought, I cannot let anything get in my way here. I can’t let, you know, a surprise meeting or whatever. I can’t do that. So I that’s what I did. And I started out and I just loved it. So even though it was hard to change my habit to be more of an early bird, I was always a morning person.
But not that early. And so I just slowly changed and just. I knew that if I got up and got there and got in the door, that’s all I had to do. And my trainer would take me by the hand and lead me through the exercises, and I didn’t have to think. I just did what he said. And lo and behold, six months later, not changing my diet at all, I was still buying a pound of yogurt covered pretzels and keeping them in my car console and was horrible.
Was like, yeah, yogurt covered when it’s on a pretzel is another name for white chocolate. Yeah, it’s really not sugar. Anyway, I lost 30 pounds just doing that. And so I went back to my doctor and I had lost the weight. I was still a little fluffy, but I was way better. And all of
my labs came back in the normal, if somewhat on the higher end of normal.
It wasn’t in the red anymore. And so he goes, all right, don’t quit. So I just kept going. So I was fine with that and kind of didn’t really have any other motivations or agendas. And then one day these two women walked in and they were going to start training with this trainer at the same time as me across the room.
And they were just a little bit younger than me by a few years. They looked incredible. They were ripped. I was like, how do you get like, that’s impossible, they must be freaks of nature. So I asked my trainer about it and they go, oh yeah, yeah, they’re going to be training for the next month or two with this trainer on a very concentrated program.
And I said, well, I just watched them and they were lifting. I noticed they were lifting the same weights that I was lifting 20 pounds, 15 pounds, 30 pounds, whatever I was doing. So I was just as strong as them. And I thought, why do they look like that? And I look like this so I asked my trainer. And he goes, oh, well, they’re getting ready for a bodybuilding show.
They’re going to be on stage in five weeks, so they have to eat strategically. And I was like, well, what’s that? You mean three meals a day? I’m doing that, plus some snacks. And he said, oh no. He says it’s very strict and measured and it’s, it’s really hard. Everybody quits. You wouldn’t like it. I think he was afraid that I’d try it, not like it.
And then he’d lose a good client, you know? So, I said, you mean all I have to do to look like that is eat differently? And he said yes, that’s it. You’re doing all that. You’re doing all the bodybuilding stuff. The way you say. It’s not so easy. That’s all I have to do. Oh, yeah. But that’s my mindset, see, because by then I already knew that I.
I always thought that to look like that, you had to lift really heavy and you don’t. You have to lift correctly and consistently, correctly and consistently. Tell me about the consistently because you were doing three hours a week. Did that change? Yeah, that was all I did three hours a week. Even. All right. Even training to be on stage.
Yes. It never changed three hours a week. But that hour was very strategic, very concentrated and had a certain and just I did do a little bit of cardio, but because of my body type, if I do too much cardio and over overdo it, then it works against me because it would cause me to burn muscle a little bit, and I didn’t want to burn off what I had worked so hard to build.
I had the muscle under there, just still had a little bit of a padding on top.
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How do you feel about bodybuilding as far as a healthy lifestyle? It can be very healthy. There is a stigma around it that bodybuilders eat boiled chicken and steamed cabbage and, you know, eat like a little handful of almonds and a protein shake.
And it’s not well rounded and such. But if you want to look conditioned and healthy on stage, which is part of what you’re judged on, you’d better have nice tight, clear skin and and smooth, you know, smooth muscles and very, you have to be shaped a certain way. And if you are abusing your body by what you eat and how you exercise, you won’t look good.
You have to pay attention to that, because that is part of it is it’s a healthy look, not, scrawny or over overtrained, if that makes. I got you guys. Yeah. And I would imagine because of the discipline that’s required, which carries over and spills over into all other areas of your life, you know, from, you know, business to family and relationships and success.
I would imagine that does make, for a healthy lifestyle in those ways as well. I always like to look at it, though, and say, your health. If we were to measure health, we might look at it from a survival of the fittest perspective. I think bodybuilding is awesome. And I used to, you know, play in it.
It was all about, for some people, it’s not about trying to win prizes, right? You don’t have to set those kinds of standards to enjoy the benefits of bodybuilding. I call it the
LBN factor what you and your LBN factor to be high. What’s that? What’s that stand for? Yeah, exactly. Look better naked, you know?
Yeah, it’s, you know, as as we age, things are changing and we’re not happy with it. We don’t have to take it to the extent of being able to win that trophy. No, but you know what? If you’re just happy with your physical ability and health perspective and, you know, we don’t have to starve ourselves to look better naked.
We just have to be healthy, get rid of some of the excess weight. That’s awareness down and raising our blood sugar levels and raising our blood pressure
and wreaking havoc on our health. Well, yes. And bodybuilders don’t starve themselves or they won’t look good. They don’t. They just have to eat a certain way, and they have to get enough calories to keep from losing their muscles.
But yes, you are right. And that is one of the biggest ahas I had as I pivoted to becoming a personal fitness trainer. Next it was was after all the career stuff was over. I did this next and I was my first big lesson that my clients taught me was, Janet, we don’t want to be bodybuilders. And so I had to really think about what I was.
I mean, I was so evangelical about how wonderful, what a big I mean, you saw the pictures. I mean, it was fabulous. But then not everybody wants that. And a trophy was never why I did it. It was I just wanted it was up here. I wanted this reward for what I saw could be possible, and I achieved that.
But people just want to feel good in their skin. They want to feel vibrant, healthy, have the energy to sprint up a staircase and be able to carry their luggage and golf without hurting themselves. And they like biking and hiking and being active. Then we train for that. And so I learned I’m in up to do that. I’m in the pickleball phase of my life.
Yeah. Have you played pickleball? Yes. Shoulders. Watch out. Okay. Well,
there’s also a lot of quick movements though. And at my age, I want to make sure that I’m not going to trip over my own feet trying to do something too quick and wipe out right. You know. Right. So for me, it’s about coordination and balance.
Yes. For someone else, it might be, you know, just being able to button their shirt up. Yes. And regain the balance and ability to be independent and prepare their own foods. Yes. It’s everybody when it comes from. Yes. Yeah. It’s true. I think of one of my patients. I’m a chiropractor and one of my patients, you know, 30 years ago, and I couldn’t relate to him, I didn’t understand, I didn’t realize that this was a challenge for people.
And at the time, I think he if I recall, he was about 45 years old, and he said, doc, when I go number two, I can’t wipe. I can’t reach to what? You can’t even take care of yourself because of the whether it’s the pain or the lack of flexibility. And some people just need to be able to.
The basics in life and training can help you do that. Yes. Yeah, training is for life and I often will. Instead of calling and exercise what bodybuilders would call it, I call it what it is functionally in the real world. And so, you know, one of the things we do where the little chair squats, where you sit on a chair and stand up and sit down so that you repetitively more than you would in real life, so you build up that strength.
But one of my clients renamed it the Toilet squats. Because I said, you know, the last step before going into a home is if you can’t get up and down off the toilet by yourself. So we’re going to train so that we can put that off as long as possible. And then
they stop whining about how much it’s uncomfortable, you know, because oh well, I’ve got a bigger goal here.
Yeah. So, you know, people listening to this, we’re not talking about, you know, getting in shape so you can compete someday. Some of you might want that. And why not then if that’s your goal? But your goals might be, you know, being able to pick up your grandchildren without throwing your back out, without throwing your back out.
Why? Why should someone have a trainer to help them in that process? Well, trainers have the knowledge of how the body works and the experience on their own selves to know what pain is when it’s injury and what pain is when it’s just effort. And so part of what I think my job is, is to guard people against hurting themselves so that they can get stronger because there’s nothing worse than, you know, going to the gym by yourself, doing something incorrectly and then being hurt, and then it hurts more and then you don’t want to go.
So you take a break and then when you come back, your weaker. The whole thing is just it’s too demotivating. So if you have at least somebody in the beginning to get you going and to teach you everything, I mean, you know, most of my clients I’ve had for ten years, you know,
I have a faithful bunch that is with me till the end, but then I have other people that just come to me for a short while.
One lady wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for her 60th birthday. Now she was a hiker. She did lots of little hikes and stuff, but I had to make a program for her so that she could be ready for the rigors of something like that, and I had never done that before, so I had to study up on it.
Just, yeah, I can do it. Let me go read and see how to do it. And I trained her on that. And so that was that’s a good example of a very specific goal. And then then she was done. And she was fine to go back to her regular regularly scheduled hiking. You know, so people a lot of times have a physical achievement.
I have, an 82 year old who got her scuba diving certification because she wanted to scuba dive, and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia at 82. So she was already a badass, but she realized that she would have trouble dragging those tanks on the deck and, you know, getting her gear assembled so that she could be ready to go down.
They are heavy. Yeah, she didn’t like that. Everybody had to help her. And she said, that’s what I want to train for. So I train. Yeah. Getting it on you and working yourself into the water is enough work. If you’re not putting it on. Strapping up in the water. Yeah. How to drag something heavy. How to use
your body properly to lift something heavy, and then how to put heavy things on in a safe way.
Yeah, yeah. You know, as you’re saying that it’s funny and as I’m thinking of you and looking at you and what you’ve done, I’m thinking of one of my customers. I met him about ten years ago, and his name is Tom Ellison. And I’m backing up to do the little demonstration because I walk in my office and when I looked at him, and I would never look at you and think that you are retired and I didn’t.
Yeah, I looked at him and that was the first observation. I’m just, you know, what an interesting person. Yeah. So my thing, what I said to him is, you know, hey, you know, nice to meet you. What do you do for a living? And the man is 80 years old. He’s 80 years old. He gets up from his chair, he goes, I’m a personal trainer.
You know, and he stands up 80 years old, a personal trainer. Wow. Well, I’ve known him for, you know, nearly 15 years now since then. And he’s still a personal trainer. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is, is I’m the chiropractor, and he goes, let me give you some tips. And he’s trying to state me up, straighten me up, work with your posture there, you know, chin up.
Okay. Not like nope, not that far. You know, he’s pushing on my, you know, belly and say, no, straighten up yourself here. You’ve got to get fit and stuff. You know, you’re all crooked. You’re a chiropractor. You should know these things. It was it was funny. But you know, the guy at 80 years old looked like he could, you know, still bench press a couple hundred pounds and do squats with a couple hundred pounds on his shoulders.
Yeah. The you know, when we talk about aging, what is aging? Is it a number. Is it a health status for him? Clearly it’s not about the age because there’s a huge gap between him. And heck, if he went to one of his high school reunions, he might be the only one there, right? That’s a good point. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. So how do you how do you look at aging? What is it? Well, I call it longevity and healthy longevity. So longevity is how long you live. What number what is the number you get to in your life before you die? Healthy longevity is paying attention to what the last 10 or 15 years are for your experience during that last bit of your life, and what do you want it to be?
And if you have, I think people people are afraid of getting old because they look around and see examples that they don’t like. And some of them are in their own family, their own gene pool. And I, I think that people need to understand that part of that fear is that there are things we love doing in this life, each of us as individual as we are.
There’s things you love doing, and there’s this idea that as you get older, you’re going to have to slowly peel away each little joy, each little thing you love doing and you don’t. The trick is you have to train for it. So if you love travel, if you love pickleball, whatever it is that you love, you have to train for it.
And by training for it, I mean you’re not. If you do nothing, you’re not going to get stronger. Just playing your game or just traveling or just biking. You’re going to stay at this certain level with a slow, steady decline. So the only way you can level the field and keep that decline at bay is to train harder than what that activity is.
I use the metaphor sometimes if anybody who’s a baseball fan, when the batter, the next one, the one that’s on deck is warming up, you know, swinging the bat around and getting his shoulder warmed up, one thing they do is they put a weight on the end of the bat, and they swing it around because it’s heavier than the real bat.
They take that weight off, they go up to bat, and they swing so hard because they were holding a bat that was heavier. So you want to hold the heavy bat right now so that when you get older, you can take that weight off and you’re just going to fly. Does that make sense? And no, it sure, it sure does.
We have to challenge ourselves. And it’d be great if we could, be prepared for more than we’ll actually need to use Yeah. So. Sure. You know, it’s funny, I’m. I’m at that point in my life, I had stopped working out a long, long time ago, and my wife had said something to me, a couple months ago.
It convinced me to start going to the gym again. I’ve literally taken like, 30 years off or so, you know, from the gym. Yeah. And the reason I’m sharing this is because I’m sure someone’s listening that can relate, that they’re out of shape and they wonder if they can get back in shape. Yeah. For me, it’s only been oh, let’s I’m going to guess six weeks if that.
And I remember my first time on the bench, for example, picking it up and just with basic weight, the stuff you would warm up with, it hurt. You know, I I’m, I’m out of shape. It hurt. And I thought, my goodness. But by the second set okay, I’m a little warmed up. And now, you know, it doesn’t hurt as much.
I realized in a very, very short period of time that first set doesn’t hurt anymore, right? I also, notice that it’s a lot lighter, right? Kind of like things are coming back for me now. I’m. You know, I’m not the guy that’s going to go in the, gym and only do bench press. It’s not about that.
So I’m taking a full approach, focusing more on legs, because I believe that when you train the largest muscles in the body, that kind of stress creates the hormones that go everywhere. You’re correct. I’ve never heard anybody say that to me in a podcast. You’re correct. And then your brain included. So brain health, people that are afraid of dementia.
Legwork don’t. Yes. Don’t skip brain day. That’s what I tell my. So for me, I’m noticing a rather quick return to strength and and less pain. And also, it’s giving me a lot of my breath back that I’m even noticing on the pickleball court. And that’s probably because when you’re doing legs, you know, by the time you’re doing that last repetition with, with a heavy weight on, you’ve used all your oxygen.
But every time you go back it seems to push that further and further away. Like your muscles and your, your body just has more oxygen to use now. Right? At what point is I’m going to use a phrase I heard you use on another podcast that
What point is the runway too short? The runway is too short.
When you die.
But it gets shorter every year, so it’s good to start as soon as possible if you haven’t. And if you have started, don’t stop. If you have a setback, get the physical therapy and jump back on that horse, because it is
that little time, it’s so little investment in time. When you think about how many hours are in a week and only three hours are spent, you know, doing that,
even if you go every day and go just for a half an hour, it’s better than not doing anything
or just doing cardio, because cardio is great and it is one of the components of aging well is to have a good
VO2 max. You know, where you can walk a long ways and talk at the same time. And of course, sleep, you know, sleep hygiene and eating a nutritious, mostly Mediterranean based, vegetarian or pescatarian Mediterranean style diet. But lifting weights, I think, is the Grand Puba of all of that, because it is what needs it all. It puts it all together.
Yeah. I mean, there’s one more component that I’m going to, suggest is very, very important. And that’s
the mental aspect, the decision, the discipline. Right. And I think to if you don’t have that, you need to surround yourself with people that do. Yes. And that’s another reason to have a trainer that has that mentality. Because they do rub off on you and they inspire and motivate you, and you become more like them.
And you’ll make friends at the gym. You’ll make friends that also like working out. So your social circle kind of morphs into that.
I had to give up a circle of friends when I first went in on this journey, and to my first show, I had a habit of going after work and, you know, having some beers
and blowing off steam about work, and that was no longer conducive.
I tried to go for a while, you know, and because I liked everybody great, you know, but after a while it was like, you shouldn’t be here. So, yeah, you have to say goodbye sometimes or see you later. And, you know, no hard feelings, but
I need to make a change. And so there is that.
And the mental part is. That’s part of that.
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I want to circle back to this aging thing because I was just thinking about the influence I had at a young age when it came to anti-aging, and what I like about what I read in this book was the concept. I don’t think the authors necessarily went about it at the best way they could.
And the authors were Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, who wrote this book called Life Extension. Okay. And both of them have passed already. I think they were born in 1943, but they wrote the book on life extension and, you know, barely made it to 80. I think one passed
at 78, Sandy Shaw, I believe 78, 79 years old or whatever it was.
And then, Durk Pearson just last year, I definitely congratulate them on the, concepts that they’ve developed and the fact that they literally use their bodies as experiments. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, they literally just took a handful handfuls every day of all kinds of vitamins, you know? And this one’s for this and this one’s for that.
So they felt that that was the key to anti-aging. But the concept is this. The concept is what change can I make today to be younger tomorrow. So wait a second. I’m a certain age, you know, this year I’m, you know, 57. I’m going to be 58 in a couple of weeks. So a year from then I’ll be 59.
Is it possible I can actually be younger at 59 than I am at 58? That’s the concept of life extension. Yes. How how am I healthier a year from now instead of less healthy now? Does it mean I’m going to live longer? I don’t know how that works. You know, is our DNA program to stop at a certain time, regardless of I don’t know.
Yeah, I don’t have the answers to life right. But I do believe, like you said earlier, we have a lot of say in how we live. You know, my grandmother, you know, she passed she was born in 1913. So it was years since she has passed, but she was very healthy, lived a very good, happy life. And one day we found her passed away in her chair.
She looked very, very peaceful. She must have fallen asleep in the chair. And that. And that’s how we all want to go. Yeah, we all want to live a happy, healthy life until we’re not supposed to anymore, right? You know, the health is
it’s an interesting thing because, you know,
we think, oh, wait a second, you are born and that’s the healthiest.
Then you spend the rest of your life dying. I don’t think so. Yeah. There’s, point in time when things start going downhill, but I think we have a say in when that happens. I do too. Everyone has a say to some extent. And
when that happens. Yes. Yes, there is there is genetic programing, but when it comes to illnesses and diseases that take us out, it’s a very small percentage of the reason,
if you live to be 50 and fairly healthy and disease free and, you know, still getting a decent report on your on your annual physical, then it really means that you’ve got a bill of goods
that you can go a long way and kick that can down the road, as long as you can buy things that you decide to do today and change that up. So even if you have cancer in your family or dementia or something like that, and it’s scary because you see the ravages of that, but you are doing everything that you can to take care of this machine that you live in, this biochemical machine that heals itself.
By the way. I mean, what in the world we have this body that never lies to us. It always tells the truth. And we want to not listen to it sometimes. And it is like my mind that said, no. The little girl said no. Well, that is a very profound thing. When you hear the voice of your own body saying, please, please take care of me, I can take you far.
Don’t just give up and don’t get lazy and just status quo thinking. I mean, it’s worth it. And you talk to a healthy 95 year old who’s been through it and said yeah absolutely I’m really glad that I took care of myself. And it doesn’t mean being a bodybuilder. Like you said earlier, it means doing right by yourself.
That is the true essence of self-love. Yeah, yeah, unless you want to be a bodybuilder, then go for it. Go for it. I’m going to be on stage in my early 70s. I’m going back. I’m going to be on that stage. Wow. Why not people listening? Go check out that blog post. Yeah. On your website, the photo, you know how old you were in that photo and that particular photo?
It was my mid 60s. My goodness. Yeah. I mean, it was just it was just like a few years ago, you know, stunning. Amazing. Yeah. Are there any, tricks? What are some I know there are some, for instance, you know, people use, you know, spray tan as an example. What are some of the tricks that they use to, make you present so perfectly on stage?
Oh, yeah. There is a whole science behind that. It’s fun. You can listen to a lot of the professional bodybuilders. They do little mini documentaries of their, you know, their trail to the stage. And, and it’s like it’s all very familiar. I mean, everybody does the same thing, but they’re so amazing, you know, that they do it to for, for their job, you know.
But I have to say though, because I don’t want to at all take away from what it took to get there. Right. That is hard work and dedication. And, you know, only a few make it that far. What are some of the tricks, though, that tricks? Well, it’s definitely, the thing with the diet is you eat very heartily and clean, clean food, but hardly.
You eat a lot of calories for a good length of time. While you’re building and you’re trying to get bigger muscles. And then just the last weeks, then you start to play with carbs and fat because some people do better. Having more carbs, less fat. So you start to kind of play with the different macronutrients, with protein pretty much staying nice and high.
And that’s what helps you drop the fat, keep the muscle. You want to go slow, especially for us older folks, because if you lose weight, you’ve heard of Ozempic face or Ozempic. But well, because they lose the weight so quickly and they are not doing the other stuff. And sometimes because they’re older,
if somebody over 45 loses weight really fast, you end up getting really crappy, kind of, droopy, saggy skin because you’re, you’re so depleted.
And the muscles, it’s the muscles that hold the skin up. So you want to go slow and let the skin adapt slowly. Only somebody who has been very obese and loses a lot of weight and has all that extra skin, then they have to have that surgically removed because it’s just more than the body can correct. But you can have nice, you know, tight skin if you go slowly because the skin does show your health quite a bit, whether that’s one aspect and the other one.
Yeah.
before a show we do get fortunately nowadays people used to go to tanning beds, which is terrible for you, but we do, they have they’ve keep improving at the spray tans are really great. They don’t stink anymore. You do, like, six, seven, eight coats and just, you know, look like a powdered donut.
By the time you get everything sticks to you. So you have to be kind of careful. But, yeah, you get really dark because that looks better on stage. So you will see bodybuilders looking very pale. They look great. They’re muscular, but they aren’t ready for the stage until they get coated with. That’s just kind of a convention of that sport.
To have that tan. And then eating very, strategically on, on stage day sometimes the train your trainer. Well, my trainer would say to me, all right, you know, put on your suit that shows tomorrow. Let me see how you look. You need to eat more peanut butter. You need more rice and some fish. And, yeah, they can look at you objectively and see where something is
getting filled out.
Or if you’re
we call it being shrunk, you know, so that you kind of get a little bit, shrunken in and you want to be full. And then the last thing is water, because when you are very low carb and then you eat carbs, the first thing that the carbs do is rush to the muscle, because the muscles are a little bit depleted in the muscles.
Love sugar. Muscles are
a glycogen dump. I mean, I should say storage. Yeah.
it wants, sugar. So when you drink water, where does the water go? It goes to the sugar. Right. It oh it binds it. Well, you think of carbohydrate. What is carbo. It’s hydrate. There’s the word hydrate is in carbohydrate.
What makes it hydrated is the water. So you end up having kind of like a little bit shrunk and, and then you eat sugar and then all the water in your system goes to the muscle and it makes your muscles swell and fill up. And that’s interesting. Yeah. Are you able to hydrate or is it just taking the water that’s already in you?
You have to be. It depends on the person. It’s very personal. And that’s why it takes maybe a show or two for your trainer to know how your body exactly reacts, because everybody’s a little different. Some people do better if they dehydrate a little bit before the show and then drink at the last minute. Some people do better if they’re very even all the way along.
And just depends on the person, because if you drink too much water, then you just kind of get a little bloated and a little puffy. So you have to be careful not to overdo it. You don’t want to spill over. So, just enough to make the muscles really, as big as possible so that they look great on stage.
Right. And, and then you have to learn how to pose properly. Of course, there’s, there’s certain compulsory poses that bodybuilders have to strike so that the judges have
As much as it is possible to judge each physique and figure out which one is the most symmetrical, has the right attributes. Now, I think one of the hardest parts of that would be keeping a smile on your face when you’re actually growling.
Yeah, it’s
I don’t know how you do it. Some of the guys have a hard time. They end up looking like they’re grimacing or they’re ready that like, like yell a battle shout or something. But it is, it’s very important to have that charm and that making it look easy. You what? You have to do is make eye contact with the judges and just smile at them and say, look at me.
I look better than you.
How you know, that’s, you bring up an interesting point. How important is the connection with the judges? You, you have to remember that they’re the ones making the decision. And, you also have to not be intimidated by that. What helps a lot is the audience is going insane. So the audience is hooting and hollering and whistling and yelling and
yelling people’s names that are up there that they’re there to see.
So
it’s very rowdy and raucous. And so that helps you kind of like get excited and it’s fun. It’s funny. It’s actually funny, but, you can always, contact the judges afterwards and say, okay, now that it’s all over, give me some honest feedback. And they will say, you know, well, your shoulders really came in, but you need to work on your lats or, you know,
you need to get a little bit more fullness in your quad or they’ll, they’ll tell you.
And so next year that’s what you work on. That’s pretty cool too. And it’s definitely going to require some humility on your part to, you know, say, hey, what do I need to improve? And then people start. But I my, my, I, I’ve been working on these for. Well yeah. Oh yeah. No no no no no no.
Yeah. You have to definitely don’t ask if you don’t want to know. Yeah. You have to look at your body as a canvas and you’re creating art. And then they’re an art critic
and they you know, they’re not mean. They’re not saying, well, you look terrible. They’re just like, well, you know, if you asked if you did, you wouldn’t be there.
If you did right. Well, where should people go to find out more? Your website is Ignite Fitness. Yeah, it’s ignitefitnesswithjanet.com And to all one word, ignitefitnesswithjanet.com And then I have a YouTube. I’m just starting a YouTube channel. So it, I mean if you join if you subscribe now I think I have four followers.
All right. And I’m going to be doing the five posting regularly.
I’m working with a social media person. And so my YouTube is longevity life quest. All one word @Longevitylifequest And my Instagram is janetmcconnellspeaks_ Great. Now do you have a call to action such as, do you have a newsletter that people can sign up for?
Not yet. Not yet. No, I don’t have that yet. I have a book. It’s a you can see the book on my website,
Elements of aging. Well, my journey so far. So if you go on to Amazon and type in Elements of aging well, you’ll see you’ll recognize the person on that thumbnail. So that’s my and I’ll make sure that there’s links to the book on Amazon in the description here.
And we’ll put links to your website and to your YouTube channel and your Instagram channel. Janet, thank you so much. You are inspiring. You’re amazing. You’re beautiful. Keep keep on aging well and teaching others to do the same. Is there anything
you wish I had asked.
I just think,
Yeah. My my call to action, if it’s anything to people, is aging is inevitable, but decay is optional. I like it. Yeah. Thank you, Dr Haley, I appreciate this time with you. Thank you so much.
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