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Diary of a CEO · 2025-10-27

Women's Exercise Debate: The 7 Weight Loss Lies Women Believe!

Four women's health experts debunk weight-loss myths and lay out exactly how women should exercise, eat, fast, supplement and sleep across every life stage.

Women's Exercise Debate: The 7 Weight Loss Lies Women Believe!
The guest

Dr. Mary Claire Haver, Dr. Stacy Sims, Dr. Vonda Wright & Dr. Natalie Crawford: A panel of leading women's health experts: Haver (menopause physician, author of The New Menopause), Sims (exercise physiologist specializing in female athletes), Wright (orthopedic surgeon and author of Unbreakable), and Crawford (fertility specialist).

What this episode covers

Part two of Steven Bartlett's panel goes deep on the practical side of women's health: exercise, nutrition, fasting, supplements, environmental toxins and sleep. The experts argue most fitness and nutrition advice is built on male data and fails women, who need muscle and bone built early to fight insulin resistance, frailty and dementia. They prescribe a concrete weekly plan of mobility work, heavy progressive lifting, jump training and short high-intensity sprints, while warning against the moderate-intensity 'always smashed' workouts and chronic under-fueling. They tackle GLP-1 drugs, debunk multi-day fasts and juice cleanses for women, run through a supplement stack (creatine, vitamin D, magnesium, omega-3, etc.), and close on toxins and sleep as the non-negotiable foundation of everything.

Recommended on this episode

ProductRecommended

Creatine

“It's like a go-to”
“And so, usually I'm having creatine. Absolutely. It's like a go-to.”— Vonda Wright
ProductRecommended

Vitamin D

“vitamin D is hugely important”
“that is one that we can supplement safely up to about 4,000 IUs international units... vitamin D is hugely important in multiple enzyatic processes”— Mary Claire Haver
ProductRecommended

Magnesium

“magnesium is critically important”
“vitamin D, magnesium is critically important for a variety of uh metabolic functions.”— Vonda Wright
ProductRecommended

Omega-3 fatty acids

“omega-3 fatty acids are really important”
“But also omega-3 fatty acids are really important in your entire body, but especially in your reproductive years”— Natalie Crawford
ProductRecommended

Folic acid

“we want to make sure you have folic acid on board”
“if you are trying to get pregnant... we want to make sure you have folic acid on board... it is the only supplement folic acid in its folic acid form that is proven to prevent these neural tube defects”— Natalie Crawford
ProductRecommended

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)

“can be highly beneficial when it comes to egg quality”
“there are studies that show that co-enzyme Q10 can be highly beneficial when it comes to egg quality. This is important in our mitochondrial health.”— Natalie Crawford
ProductRecommended

Fisetin

“So I add that on”
“Another way is to use an herb called fiseten. So I add that on”— Vonda Wright
ProductRecommended

NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide)

“for myself and for my people, I supplement with NMN”
“for myself and for my people, I supplement with NMN, which is the immediate precursor of NAD+”— Vonda Wright

The guest's own work

BookBy the guest

Unbreakable: A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power

Vonda Wright

“A woman's guide to aging with power. Unbreakable. >> Yes. Unbreakable.”— Steven Bartlett
BookBy the guest

The New Menopause

Mary Claire Haver

“I'm going to link all of your books below. Uh Unbreakable, the fertility formula, the new menopause.”— Steven Bartlett
BookBy the guest

The Fertility Formula

Natalie Crawford

“I'm going to link all of your books below. Uh Unbreakable, the fertility formula, the new menopause.”— Steven Bartlett
BookBy the guest

The New Perimenopause

Mary Claire Haver

“I believe you've got a new book on the way menopause. >> The new permenopause. I'll link that as well if it's available for pre-order”— Steven Bartlett

Also referenced (named, not recommended)

BookReferenced

Joyspan

unknown gerontologist

“there's a new book out um coming out called Joycepan. I don't know if you've spoken with her. So she's a gerontologist”— Vonda Wright
ProductReferenced

Collagen

“there is some efficacy in taking the type 2 collagen to reduce joint pain. It doesn't help with cartilage regeneration.”— Stacy Sims
ProductReferenced

Melatonin

“Melatonin can be helpful in very low doses, like three. Most people are taking 5 to 10... I often recommend, you know, the patients take maybe like a milligram”— Natalie Crawford
ProductReferenced

L-theanine

“use things like eltheanine which is a a nonproin amino acid that works the GABA right trying to bring parasympathetic activation back”— Stacy Sims
ProductReferenced

Whoop

Whoop

“who showed me their Whoop data and would often tell me they would say I get three hours four hours sleep”— Steven Bartlett

Big reveals from this episode

  • 70% of all hip fractures happen in women, and 30% of the time a hip fracture leads to death within one year.
  • Each expert reveals their own training; Wright, firmly postmenopausal, still does all of it and punches the treadmill to 11 to hit a heart rate of ~186.
  • Choosing to be a caregiver for a parent with dementia carries a 60% increased risk of death even after genetics are removed.
  • Bartlett discloses he is a co-owner and investor in Ketone IQ, the exogenous ketone product he then promotes.
  • Wright reveals she personally supplements with NMN and measures her own intracellular NAD+ levels for longevity.
  • The panel warns GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic don't burn fat, they stop you eating, so without lifting and protein you lose muscle and bone ('Goodbye biceps').
  • A study found women who were sexually abused, and whose children were abused, went through menopause about nine years sooner, implicating chronic emotional stress.
  • More than 50% of women with sleep apnea go undiagnosed because they present differently than men, leading to shorter lives and more Alzheimer's.

Worth remembering

  • Hormones and the gut are a two-way street: your hormones influence your gut and your gut influences your hormones.
  • Pilates and yoga build control, balance and core strength but won't build the muscle and bone density that true heavy strength training does.
  • Women can lose 15-20% of their bone density during perimenopause from loss of estrogen alone.
  • Dr. Beck's 'Lift More' study had osteoporotic women safely lift heavy (5 reps near failure) under supervision, none broke and they built bone.
  • A weekly plan: knee-dominant squats one day, push/pull upper body another, posterior chain (deadlifts, hip thrusts) a third, plus jumps and sprints.
  • Sprint intervals can be just 30 seconds all-out with 2-3 minutes full recovery, repeated four times, and a 4x4 VO2 max session needs doing only once a week.
  • Experts recommend roughly 1 gram of protein per ideal pound of bodyweight, far above the RDA 'survival dose' of 0.8 g/kg.
  • You'd need to eat about 22 chicken breasts to get the creatine that a 3-5 g daily supplement provides.
  • Multi-day and water fasts mostly benefit men; for women they can promote visceral fat, inflammation and shut down hormones, and the autophagy benefits can be gained from exercise instead.
  • Soy products can be protective: people with higher soy intake had the lowest BPA levels and better reproductive performance.