A client asked me, she said, uh, how do I how do I define longevity? Right. And longevity seems to be this amorphous thing. Like there's no shape, no structure. And that's what led us to testing, doing epigenetic methylation testing, figuring out your biological age, because now we have something that we can actually measure. So it moved from this amorphous thing to this data-based um database science. We could look at this data and we could look at these markers and give you the best shot at living a longer, healthy life. But don't we we weren't designed to live forever.
SPEAKER_00So today's guest doesn't talk about GLP1s as a lifelong medication. He calls them a 90-day sprint, a tool to quiet down the food noise while you build a foundation that will actually help you keep the weight off. Welcome to the GLP1 Hub Podcast. I'm Anna Reisdorf, registered dietitian and GLP1 user. And today I'm joined by Jason Nelson, founder of Body Image in New York and a former competitive bodybuilder. He now runs a longevity-focused program called Human Optimization Project, and he spent the last 10 months integrating GLP1s into the program. One of his clients, a 64-year-old breast cancer survivor, missing her gallbladder, and she just dropped 30 pounds on a GLP 1 and then tested her biological age, which was now 49. And we're talking about how he decides who comes off the medication and when, physical markers, he says matter more than the scale after 60, and how to use GLP 1 as a starting line, not the finish line, of a much bigger plan. Also, if you want to stay connected with GLP1 Hub, make sure you're subscribed to the Steady State newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes below where I send out information about nutrition, fitness, and all sorts of upcoming research about GLP1s. Now let's get on to the episode. Welcome to the GLP One Hub podcast. I want to welcome today Jason Nelson, and we are going to cover a very important topic about reframing the conversation around GLP1 a little bit from so much focus on weight management to what is actually really important. So, Jason, can you introduce yourself and tell the people what you do?
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me, right? My name is Jason Nelson. I'm the founder and the owner of Body Image here in Bullison Park, New York. Like menu for the over 40, my body started changing, and I didn't have any answers. So I started to learn more, double deeper, and then I started helping people just like me. Thus far, my company is 19 years old. We're celebrating 10 years in this location this May. I've helped hundreds of people transform their body. We've build their metabolism and their energy. So, and now we've take taken the GLP1 weight loss and we've moved into what is called a human optimization project, which is more focused on longevity as opposed to just scale weight.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Interesting. So, what were some of the changes that you personally saw that inspired you to start doing this work? Like what was what was changing with you?
SPEAKER_02Personally, a bit of a background story. I was a competitive bodybuilder and an athlete for almost uh all my life. I bodybuilded when I started um in at 27 years old that lasted five years. And I did pretty well. And I realized that as I hit the 40-year-old mark, the same strategies that I used to get to drop my body fat into the single-digit percentages weren't quite working anymore. So I had to learn a different set of skills. And that now when I started learning to optimize my body, then I took that and I started, I tried to figure out how I can use what I did and bring it down a couple levels to help people who were stuck in the same situation just like me. Because what I did in my 20s and my 30s, I definitely cannot do now in my 40s.
SPEAKER_00Are you talking about like physical ability, like lifting weights, or is it just like being able to eat and see the results you want, or like what specifically is not the same?
SPEAKER_02It's it well, it was a bit of everything. I mean, we could start with recovery. Number one, we didn't re we don't recover the same anymore. And that could be from uh a myriad of of different issues. Sleep could be one, um, nutrient absorption could be one, exhaustion could be one. As you get older, your body doesn't regenerate energy as it as you were when you were 20. From a nutrition perspective, the needs of the body is changing, the hormonal landscape starts changing. So now we have to be more aware and intentional of what we eat and um how we're supplementing to maintain that energy and vitality.
SPEAKER_00Do you think it's possible to feel as good over 40 as you did when you were 20 something?
SPEAKER_02100%. I feel great. Like I've never um I've never felt better. I oftentimes people meet me at 6:30 in the morning and they're like, dude, how much coffee did you have? I'm like, I didn't have any coffee yet. So I guess I think people want to go a mile high without going a mile deep first. We need to learn the body and understand where you are right now, and then have a playbook. So you have you take inventory of what's going on with your body right now, how you want to feel, and just put everything on the table and let's let's figure it out. But you just cannot train or eat and recover like the way you did in your 20s. It's just not possible doing the same thing that you did then.
SPEAKER_00Sure, definitely.
SPEAKER_02You can, but you have to change the game. The game has changed.
SPEAKER_00Right. So with this new direction that you're going in with the GLP1 to help the people experience more longevity and true health, explain to me like what that looks like and how you're approaching GLP1 use.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'll start by saying that I was very skeptical at first about bringing GLP1s into the business. Right now we're at, I would say about 10 months in, GLP1 coaching. So I'm fairly new to GLP1 coaching, but I've had a lot of uh members sign up. So we've seen, we got a lot of data. We kind of figured out what works and what doesn't. And when we hit that sticking point, we kind of be through that and you know, we we we got that right. I always tell my people that fat loss is the entry point and not the final destination. The main focus is on longevity. But we must first start with improving your metabolic health. That opens the door. So the GLP1 coaching has been this foundational first step, part of this foundational first step, getting your metabolic health markers in check. And then we start moving forward, looking ahead, and then we do a lot of um biological age testing. Yeah. So that's that's something in the that's something as you move along and you get to what I call the appropriate height to weight ratio. So we're not but we didn't zero in on a specific number. But once you feel comfortable enough and you think that you do not have any more weight to lose, let's say around five to ten pounds out of your ideal weight, then we start layering on the next steps.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what are some of the metabolic markers that you're looking to help people improve?
SPEAKER_02We look at triglycerides, fast and glucose, um, fast and insulin, on C blood pressure, fine circumference measurements. So the things that I want to see in optimal ranges. And optimal ranges for that person. These things vary, right? Like if you're an athlete or you're a man who has a lot more muscle mass, things vary. But we want to get it optimal for that person based on where they're at right now. Body fat percentages change for people over time. Like if I were to if I were to test a 16-year-old and she would obviously have to have, would be, would have to have lower body fat than somebody who is 60 years old. Like it would match. So body fat levels change over a period of time. So we try to get those numbers based on where you're at, as optimal as possible, and then we move forward.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So let's say you're you're going along, you get your blood sugar improved, your insulin levels, your body fat is doing okay. So then where do you go from there for the longevity piece?
SPEAKER_02Okay, nice. So what we do then is we do a biological age test.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Right. So we do um we send it out to the lab, we do a blood draw, send it out to the lab, the lab sends a kit, send it out, and then we get your numbers. We get your chronological age, and then we get your biological age. And then within that test, we start, we look at three things. We look at one, your pace of aging based on the Junidin study that was done in New Zealand, trapped like a thousand people over like 30 years. And then we look at your organ system agent, which is your symphony age. So you have 11 organ systems, heart, brain, kiloskeletal, lung, kidney, and we look at where they are on this uh vertical scale. So it's like a sliding scale. We try to get everything back to the middle, and then we look at your omnic N age. And that is basically, it tells us how well or how healthy you've been over a longer period of time. So that is a wider shot. The symphony age, it's a narrower shot, and the pace of aging is also a narrow shot, too, as well. So we get those markers, and then we look at which systems need optimizing first.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Interesting. So what happens? I'd be afraid to take the test. I'm 46. What if you told me I was like 66?
SPEAKER_02Then you had some work to do. I tested and I was at a 36, and that was awesome. And important, important distinction here. I optimized for being lean and being muscular, being strong, but my brain health scores were higher. They were closer to my chronological age. And that scared me a bit because my mom is battling Alzheimer's right now. So I sat back and I'm like, wow, it's like my metabolic markers are almost like it's it's really good. But what you optimize for is what you get. And if you don't go dig in under the hood, you will miss some important things that would affect you 10, 20, 30 years from now. It depends on what age you're starting your journey. So it's very important to start looking for stuff because you don't just wake up one day when you when you get your dementia friggin', you know, not let's not put that in the air, but when you get that uh diagnosis, that didn't start last week, that started 20 years ago. We gotta dig for those things now.
SPEAKER_00Do you guys remember my conversation with Beth a while back, the one that became one of the most popular episodes? Well, Beth is from Tide Wellness, and that conversation is the reason I'm comfortable telling you about them today. So many people lose weight on GLP1, feel amazing, and then six months later, they're back to where they started because the program ended or the provider disappeared, or they were never set up for the long haul. But Tide Wellness is built differently. Licensed providers who actually adjust your dosing as your body changes. A real care team you can message when you hit a plateau or have a question or need help. Nutrition guidance designed specifically for how GLP1s change your appetite. And if you've got questions, you can book a consultation and actually talk to a provider, a rare find in this space. If you're looking for more than GLP1s, they also do microdose GLP1 programs, hormone therapy, longevity peptides, and the kind of support that matters when you're trying to fill your best long term. Tide is built with support by a team that really cares. Go to tidewellness.com backslash GLP1 hub and use the code GLP1Hub50 for $50 off your first month. Again, it's TideTywellness.com backslash GLP, the number one hub, and the code is GLP1Hub50. Right, right. There's a lot that can be done with prevention, but if you don't know, you're taken by surprise. Yeah, but these things they're called chronic diseases for a reason, you know, come up over time. So with this, all this health optimization that you're doing, so how do you use the GLP1 within this protocol? I mean, is your goal to like take the patients to improve their health using the GLP1 and then get them off of it later once you get all this handled?
SPEAKER_02Yes. So we when we we talk about GLP1 to our client, we don't speak of it as a lifelong thing. We speak of it as a 90 to 180-day thing, a sprint, just to uh curb the food, uh, quiet food noise, layer on the foundational work, and then as we achieve the desired weight loss, we start titrating down, and then the foundational work and the habits kick in. So now when the person, when my client is already at their goal weight, have the strong foundation in place. So now we could just take them off the medication and then monitor them to see how their weight, how they manage their weight over a period of time. Sometimes I always tell people, like sometimes you might go up like three or four pounds, five pounds. That's fine because sometimes I when you start within carbohydrates, it pulls water into the muscle cells. And that could just be cell voluminization, right? That doesn't have to be fat gain. So that GLP one is just for that short period of time. If we do have people that have higher levels of inflammation or they're still struggling with their glucose control, their blood sugar control, we could put them on a low dose into the optimization phase as well.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. That's that's good. I think that's a safe way to do it. But what about the people? Because, you know, out in the world, we would love, me and you, to have it be about longevity and health and living a good life, but the people just want to be skinny sometimes. So how do you address that with your with your patients? How do you turn their minds towards looking for longevity? We're looking for a better life when you're 80 and not just uh weighing 110 pounds today.
SPEAKER_02You know, I did get stuck early on, right? And I always tell my co-coach, I'm like, I'm not Jesus. I want to I want to help everybody, but some people just a little harder to to reach to, right? Just want to start with that. I always asked them, I said, if you were to see with an older person that you believe aged well, what are the things that you can look for? They would say, well, they're happy, um, the gate speed is is is on point, they have good balance, mobility, they could bend, they could pick up, they're strong. I was like, God. I was like, so those things are like those things are the the the the pinnacle of the journey that you want to get to that point. So if you just focus on the scale and you ignore strength, no mobility, you ignore flexibility, you don't train or get your protein intake up while you're going through this journey. It's like that more than likely would not be you.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02And it's like you think about an athlete who trains for a sport. Athletes is just focused on that outcome, the body fat, the way they train, the way they eat, that all falls into place. So the athlete doesn't think about what he or she is gonna weigh on that scale. Yeah, he just thinks about the outcome, the ultimate goal. And saying your ultimate goal is to, at least my ultimate goal for you, and I hope you want the same thing, is to delay, shrink the chronic disease window. And the lady on set of that, set that up, push that as far into the future as possible. So you could have more years of energy and vitality. If that doesn't ring a bell, if that doesn't hit home, and yeah, no, I I completely agree.
SPEAKER_00Like that's where I'd like everybody's brain to be is thinking about what do you want your future to look like. And I would guess that most people, the answer is not going to be I want to be 80 and weigh 100 pounds. No. It's like I want to be 80 and going on a cruise with my friends, like and and doing the things, the activities, right?
SPEAKER_02We work we work with a lot of older adults. And most of our most of our older adults, when they travel in groups, they're the ones that help their friends put the suitcase in the overhead compartment, pull their bags, pull pull the doors, or they have to slow down so that their friends could keep up. And this is why you do it. You build this life. You need to enjoy this life that you build for a long period of time, as long as possible.
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure. So, what are in terms of the older population and the older adults that you work with, what are some concerns that you have about the the health of this population? Because the the population is aging. So on a population level, you know, there's a lot to be thinking about.
SPEAKER_02In terms of physical ability, we wanna first look at balance. That's a big thing. Because you break your hip, you have a one in two chance of dying between the first five years or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And you start, and I saw an interesting metric about calf circumference measurements and its effect on mortality, right? Like, yes, very interesting research. I'll see if I find it and send it to you. But what it hints to is the fact that if you're if you don't have good balance, your gait changes. You don't plan to flex as much. You don't spike the calf when you walk. So the calf is one of the fullest muscles that starts atrophying and it could give you a hint of where this person's muscle mass is headed. That's that's that brings me to number two. Keeping your muscle mass and your strength at I would say optimal functional levels. Functional in the sense that you can go to the supermarket and pick up a case of water at the bottom shelf and put it in your car. Take your bags out, carry it to the house. Right? Those things are important. Um in terms of health, again, metabolic markers, blood pressure, and the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. I think you know it's I I make it I oversimplified it, but those are like the four things that you really want to focus on as an older dog.
SPEAKER_00So for balance, what can you do for your balance?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, you just have to balance. So easy. What what I I ask them to do is like when you brush your teeth, just stand on one leg.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Right? And then if you want to add a little bit of brain work to that, brush your teeth with your other hand. If you're right-handed, try your left hand. Switch your leg, left leg, right leg. You start getting the um different parts of the brain to coordinate different parts of the body, right? When you're trying to pick stuff off from the floor, try and get down with one leg if you can. So try to improve your balance static first, but balance is truly dynamic. But you gotta start somewhere.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02So now you start again bending, picking up stuff on the floor, training, doing your bicep curls on one leg, doing a row on one leg, tossing a ball against the wall, catching it to the one leg, training your reflexes as well. Because those things apply to the real world.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Definitely. And then what about strength? How many days a week do you think people should be strength training? Or what what are some idea, easy ideas that you have that they could get into it to build up some of that strength or keep the strength?
SPEAKER_02Are we talking about people over 65? Right? So there. I would say the older you get, the more stimulation you need. Because just as how we have insulin resistance, we have anabolic resistance, we have resistance when it comes to built-in muscle. And that in that needs more mechanical stimulation and it needs more stimulation via protein. So 20 grams of protein affects a 20-year-old much differently than it affects a 65-year-old. So we have to start with that. Ideally, something is better than nothing, but you want to woke up to at least four to five days a week. And that might sound like a Hukrian task, but you gotta know where you want to. You gotta really buy into where you want to end. Like, what's your why? Like, if you just wanna move your body for moving your body's sake, it's great. But if you really want to like make some ground or say, you know what, I want this, I want the next 10 years to be something really special, that's your prescription. Because you need to mechanically stimulate your muscles. Because after the age of 70, you lose about 15% of skeletal muscle per decade. That's a lot. So in terms of prescription, start with two whoop to three. I would like to see you at four or five. Along with people I coach are at four or five over sixty-five. You want to start with total body movements, bone body movements. You wanna squat variations of that. Squat to sit, assisted squats, TRX. You want to pull vertically, you want to pull horizontally, push vertically, push horizontally, and variations of it. Use movements that allow that train in a way that you use your body, you make your body the machine, as opposed to sitting on a machine. I mean, if that's where you want where you could start, start right there. But eventually you want to train in an upright position because with free weights, free weights, cables, rubber bands, body weights, make your body a machine because that will. On teach the increase what is called intramuscular and intermuscular coordination. The body doesn't work in isolation. We're not bodybuilding. We're training for function. So this is connected to that, it's connected to that. We have to learn to stabilize, to produce force, and we need to learn to decelerate as well, because that's where the injuries happen. And we try to decelerate.
SPEAKER_00So would you recommend somebody look for a professional? Because for somebody who's new, that might be overwhelming to start, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yes, 100%. Uh look for somebody who has experience in working with older adults because the exercise parameters do change. So work with somebody who definitely has that experience and somebody who is used to working in a small gym. And here's why. What I've found was hiring trainers and, you know, being in the corporate facilities myself. Trainers that come from a smaller space with fewer equipment become more creative. There's less to sit on and less to lie on. So now they now they have developed this unique skill set of making, making do more with less. And that's very beneficial for an older adult.
SPEAKER_00Right? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So in terms of longevity, you know, I there's this big longevity space. It's a it's a bit of a trend in the health space, like longevity, and they people throw this word around. And there's people who are taking it very extreme, like who think they can live forever or like all this sort of stuff. And to me, I feel like, you know, God decides only so much I can do. Right? Yes, I can do all these wonderful things that you're telling me, and we should, of course, but I can't control that. So where are you in the longevity space? Do you think you can live forever, or is it just about function and living the best life you have today?
SPEAKER_02I think it's about function living the best life you can live today. Like a client asked me, she said, uh, how do I how do I define longevity? Right. And longevity seems to be this amorphous thing. Like there's no shape, no structure. And that's what led us to testing, doing epigenetic, epigenetic methylation testing, figuring out your biological age, because now we have something that we can actually measure. So it moved from this amorphous thing to this data-based um, database science. We could look at this data and we could look at these markers and give you the best shot at living a longer, healthy life. But don't we we weren't designed to live forever. So I believe that longevity is having that energy and vitality and mobility and strength for as long as you could possibly have it. Simplified explanation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I I I agree. I think that, you know, there's always those people that want to take it to the extreme.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I and I I I think that over the age of there was some longevity metric that I think it's past like a hundred and hundred and five or a hundred and ten. I could be wrong, could double check this. The mortality risk goes down by like 50%. So you have a 50-50 chance of living and dying. And it's much higher in your 70s, but as you cross that threshold, it becomes lower.
SPEAKER_00Huh.
unknownInteresting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Well, maybe one day we'll live, you know, over a hundred. We'll see. We'll see. So do you have a story that you could share of one of your clients who maybe like how much they were able to, I don't want to say de-age, get to a better chronological age. No, it won't be a chronological age, biological age.
SPEAKER_02Biological age, correct. So let's start with, I'll just call it G, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02She is she started working with us about five years ago. She started strength training and uh she did really well. Like she became very strong. And then she did our fat loss program or stress-reduced fat loss program, holistic coaching, and she did really well with that. But she always struggled with stress. And by the stress comes the cravings for the sugars and the carbohydrates, right? And she became a candidate for the GLP1 powered weight loss. Now, to take back, let's go back a bit. She was a breast cancer survivor. She also had a gallbladder. Somebody who's in this situation, I think, wow, like the deck is stacked against me. Like, there's no way that I could live, you know. I've I've I've beat this disease, but something is, you know, things are not in my favor. We got on the GLP 1 program. She dropped like another close to 30 pounds. She did her first pull-up and her biological age before and after, she is 64.5. She tested at a 49-year-old biological age.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02So you're talking about someone who is 64, 5 breast cancer, without a without without a gold bladder that has a biological age of 49? Like it's it's it's ridiculous. So that in itself shows that number one, it's not too late to start. And if you follow the right steps and you have the right intervention, you could really move the needle fast on your health.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Was she able to figure out a way to manage all that stress? I need a secret here.
SPEAKER_02We have a set timers on a phone to take a couple deep breaths. And I always tell her, I said you need to just let it go because she takes your work stress home with her. I said, You just got to let it go. And we use other therapies in terms of like supplements to help calm her mind before she goes to bed, contrast showers to help teach that stress response. So when she gets into that hyperventilating, we usually uh use a cold shower protocol to teach the nervous system automatically. When you're faced with that type of anxious moment, the body turns on this breathing sequence automatically. So you learn that in the shower and then you tr it transfers into real life. It takes some practice, but it does. The body just learns in response, just as how you learn to ride a bike or catch a ball. And um, that's what we that's what we use with our that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I mean, those are those are incredible, incredible results. That really is like 20 to be almost 20 years younger than your biological or chronological age.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I often joke at her, said, Hey, you're gonna have to start sending out applications for a new husband.
SPEAKER_00Seriously.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's she's she's killing it. I mean, she did her first pull-up at the age of 64.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I thought that that time was past for me. I'm 46.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, Jason, where can people find out about your wonderful program and more about your work and connect with you?
SPEAKER_02They can find me at bodyimage.health. And you could connect with me on Instagram, gnelson, J V Y, N-E-L-S-O-N-0580, and shoot me a message and let's chat.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'll make sure to put all those links and connection info info in the show notes. And I want to thank you. This was a really interesting conversation. Love uh, I love innovative things that are going on.
SPEAKER_02Yes, definitely. And you know, sometimes we we can't just wait on the research. We have to move forward without it anyway. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the light bulb or the car or the airplane. We just got to go forward as long as it's not deleterious to your health, but we have to move forward sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. I completely agree. Thank you again for being here.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the GLP One Hub podcast. I hope that you enjoyed Jason's unique point of view and perspective about improving longevity and to and true health, which is where I think we all should be focused along this journey. And if you're loving the podcast, I would really appreciate a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you're listening on Spotify, you don't even need to leave a comment. You can just click the five stars. And I'll see you in the next episode.