If you’re ready to build muscle properly — including glutes that actually fire — join me here:

👉 www.musclemonth.com

And if you’re supporting your metabolism alongside your training:

⚡ 5-Amino-1MQ & SLU-PP-332 available at 👉 www.joanneleestore.com

I keep hearing the phrase “lazy glutes.”

And honestly… it makes me twitch a little.

How can the strongest, most powerful muscle group in your body be lazy?

It can’t.

But it can be badly recruited.

And that’s where most people go wrong.

Because here’s what I see over and over again:

You’re squatting. You’re lunging. You’re hip thrusting.

But your hamstrings cramp. Your lower back tightens. Your quads grow.

And your glutes? …not so much.

That isn’t weakness.

That’s mechanics.

Your glute maximus is a powerhouse. It was built for:

✨ Sprinting ✨ Climbing ✨ Explosive hip extension

When was the last time you sprinted?

Exactly.

We sit. We drive. We walk on flat ground. We live in hip flexion.

Hours of sitting shorten the hip flexors, lengthen the glutes, and tip the pelvis forward.

Your nervous system adapts to whatever you repeat most.

So when you go to the gym after sitting all day, your body doesn’t suddenly switch patterns. It keeps using what it’s practiced — hamstrings and lower back instead of glutes.

That’s not laziness.

That’s adaptation.

Most people live in anterior pelvic tilt — hips tipped forward, lower abs disengaged, glutes already at a mechanical disadvantage.

Try this:

Stand up. Push your hips back. Arch your lower back. Now try to squeeze your glutes.

You’ll feel quads.

Now gently bring your pelvis back underneath you.

Boom. 🔥

Glutes switch on.

That tiny shift is massive.

If you squat and lunge in anterior tilt, you’re training around your glutes — not through them.

As we age:

⚡ Fast-twitch fibres decline ⚡ Muscle mass drops if not trained properly ⚡ Dieting shrinks glute tissue ⚡ Rapid weight loss without loading = muscle loss

And here’s what most people don’t realise:

Your glutes are one of your largest glucose storage tanks.

When you shrink them, you don’t just lose shape.

You reduce:

• Insulin sensitivity • Metabolic capacity • Skeletal protection

This isn’t just about leggings.

It’s metabolic. It’s hormonal. It’s structural.

Feeling isn’t required for activation.

But if:

– Your hamstrings cramp in bridges – Your lower back burns in deadlifts – Your quads grow while your glutes stay flat

Something is off.

Most people never reach true hip extension.

They arch their back to fake it.

Real hip extension means your thigh moves behind you and your pelvis comes through under control.

That last 10% of the movement?

That’s where the magic lives.

Great exercise.

Common mistakes:

Too heavy too soon. No posterior pelvic tilt at the top. Bouncy reps. No real lockout.

The exercise isn’t the problem.

The execution is.

And the devil lives in the details.

Nobody builds muscle accidentally.

The people walking around with strong, developed glutes did not stumble into them.

They had strategy. They understood mechanics. They respected progression.

Once you understand this, training becomes fascinating.

Every rep has purpose. Every meal has direction. Every adjustment matters.

That’s when it becomes fun.

Inside Muscle Month we fix:

✔️ Pelvic positioning ✔️ Hip extension ✔️ Glute recruitment ✔️ Midlife muscle strategy ✔️ Progressive loading

No random reps. No guessing. No wasted time.

📅 March 29 – April 25 👉 www.musclemonth.com

And if you’re serious about metabolic support alongside your training:

⚡ 5-Amino-1MQ & SLU-PP-332 👉 www.joanneleestore.com

Weak glutes aren’t lazy.

They’re under-recruited.

Fix the recruitment… and everything changes. 🍑💪

Hello hello — welcome back to Midlife Mayhem.

Quick update first:

🔥 Muscle Month is back on. 📅 March 29 – April 25 👉 www.musclemonth.com

This is my favourite program to coach because we build muscle properly. And after today’s topic, you’ll understand why that matters more than ever.

Think of your skeleton like a savings account.

You do most of your depositing before age 20.

👉 Up to 90% of adult bone mass is built by 18–20. 👉 Peak bone mass happens by 25–30. 👉 After that? You’re mostly maintaining… then withdrawing.

Bones respond to load.

Lift. Jump. Sprint. Carry.

Muscle pulls on bone — and bone gets stronger.

No load? No signal.

Childhood and teenage years are the aggressive investment phase.

Modern kids:

• Move less

• Sit more

• Scroll more

Bones don’t respond to scrolling.

If little gets deposited early, withdrawals later become dangerous.

Especially for women.

When estrogen drops:

• Bone breakdown speeds up

• Rebuilding slows

• 10–20% bone loss can happen within 5–7 years post-menopause

Layer in:

• Low muscle

• Chronic dieting

• Low protein

• Vitamin D deficiency

• High cortisol

• Sedentary habits

And bone loss accelerates.

GLP-1 medications reduce appetite and body weight.

They work.

But physiology doesn’t care about marketing.

Lose weight rapidly → reduce skeletal load → reduce bone stimulus.

Add:

• Low protein

• Low calories

• Muscle loss

• No resistance training

Now you’re accelerating bone loss.

Is it inevitable? No.

But it requires intention.

And most people aren’t being coached on this.

We already have drugs like:

• Prolia

• Fosamax

And new osteoporosis drugs are in development.

Why?

Aging population. Sedentary youth. Rapid weight-loss pharmacology.

I am not anti-medicine.

I am anti-ignorance.

Awareness changes behaviour.

Build muscle. Load bone. Eat enough protein. Maintain vitamin D. Train properly.

Nobody builds muscle by accident.

Gyms are full of people who never change because they have no strategy.

Muscle building is a skill.

And muscle protects bone.

Bone isn’t cosmetic.

Hip fractures in older adults dramatically increase mortality within a year.

This is about:

• Mobility

• Strength

• Longevity

• Quality of life

Your bone bank is a 40-year project.

You can’t go back to 14.

But you can start now.

If you want to:

• Build muscle properly

• Protect your bones

• Train with strategy

• Stop guessing

Join me.

📅 March 29 – April 25 👉 www.musclemonth.com

Muscle does not happen by accident.

And neither does strength in midlife.

See you inside. 💪🦴

🔴 Red Light Therapy — The Bit Nobody Explains Properly

Red light therapy is not one thing.

People hear “red light” and assume a face mask, a mat, a sauna, and a $3,000 panel are all just different price points of the same thing.

They’re not.

They are doing different jobs in the body.

And if you don’t understand that, you either overspend… or you buy the wrong tool and feel disappointed.

So here’s what actually matters.

When we talk about red light therapy, we’re really talking about specific wavelengths of light interacting with your mitochondria — your cellular batteries.

That part is the same.

What changes? How deep the light penetrates.

This stays relatively superficial.

It’s brilliant for:

• ✨ Collagen stimulation

• ✨ Skin texture

• ✨ Wound healing

• ✨ Post-procedure recovery

That’s why face masks work.

They’re not nonsense. They’re just skin-focused.

But red light alone doesn’t reach muscle tissue in any meaningful way.

This goes much deeper.

Now you’re influencing:

• 💪 Muscle recovery

• 🦵 Joint irritation

• 🧠 Nervous system regulation

• 😴 Sleep quality

• 🙂 Mood stability

This is where things become systemic.

If your goal is skin? Red light may be perfect.

If your goal is recovery, inflammation reduction, deeper sleep, better resilience? You need near infrared.

Different again.

Saunas use heat.

Heat improves circulation and sweating. That’s thermal stress.

Helpful? Yes. The same as mitochondrial signaling from red/NIR light? No.

Sauna = heat adaptation Red/NIR = cellular signaling

Completely different mechanisms.

A small mask treats a small area. A mat treats a local region. A panel or bed treats the whole body.

And mitochondria don’t live just in your face.

If you want:

• Better sleep

• Whole-body recovery

• Nervous system calming

• Systemic inflammation reduction

Surface area exposure matters.

This is why Kevin and I ended up with the larger setup.

What started as scar support turned into something much bigger.

Yes, his healing was remarkable.

But what surprised us most?

The sleep. The depth. The calm. The way training stopped feeling like it drained me and started feeling like it rebuilt me.

That’s not magic.

That’s improved cellular energy and lower inflammatory load.

Red light therapy is a support tool.

It enhances recovery. It regulates the nervous system. It improves resilience.

But it does not replace intelligent training.

If you’re not:

• Stimulating muscle properly

• Eating adequate protein

• Managing recovery between sessions

No amount of light will create the body you want.

We start March 29.

This is not random workouts. This is structured hypertrophy training for midlife physiology.

Inside Muscle Month we cover:

• How muscle actually builds in midlife

• How to stimulate it properly

• How to protect your joints

• How to recover intelligently

• How to create a body that gets stronger — without the bulk

Red light can support recovery.

Muscle changes your metabolism.

If you want to build the foundation properly:

👉 www.musclemonth.com

Let’s build the body that doesn’t need constant fixing.

Joanne 💪

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider Muscle Month. I simply can’t do topics like this true justice in a short podcast. Muscle Month is where I teach the actual physiology behind muscle building, fat loss, and long-term health—properly, in context, and without fear-based nonsense. 👉 Join here: musclemonth.com (or joannelee.com)

It was only a few years ago that we lived through the protein panic.

Fear-based documentaries told us protein was going to kill us and that we should avoid it at all costs. Films like Forks Over Knives painted protein—especially animal protein—as inflammatory, cancer-causing, and reckless.

At the same time, I was in a constant verbal battle with would-be clients asking me to write “new” vegan diets while also wanting to build muscle.

(Yes. Build muscle… while eating leaves.)

It was a fun time to coach.

But seriously—people became genuinely terrified of protein. And now? The very same people are being told to eat gobs of it.

No explanation. No accountability. Just a hard pivot.

So if you feel confused, cautious, or unsure who to believe—you’re not wrong. You’re watching what happens when badly handled science gets turned into marketing.

This episode breaks down the three biochemical villains that were used to scare people away from protein:

• TMAO

• IGF-1

• mTOR

Here’s what actually matters.

The scary headline:

“Red meat increases TMAO, and TMAO increases heart disease risk.”

What was conveniently skipped:

• TMAO production depends heavily on gut bacteria and fiber

• Fish contains ~66× more TMAO than red meat, yet is consistently linked with better cardiovascular outcomes

So no—TMAO is not a simple “protein = danger” equation.

• Soluble fiber (can reduce TMAO production ~60%)

• Cruciferous vegetables & sprouts

• Resveratrol, garlic, berberine

• B vitamins, probiotics, vitamin D

Translation: protein wasn’t the issue. Protein without plants might be—but that nuance didn’t sell documentaries.

IGF-1 supports:

• connective tissue

• heart tissue

• brain health

The fear came from animal studies suggesting lower IGF-1 may relate to longevity—without explaining that centenarians typically have normal IGF-1 but reduced sensitivity to it.

Key facts that got lost:

• Resistance training raises IGF-1

• Adequate protein supports IGF-1

• Fasting naturally lowers IGF-1

Translation: IGF-1 isn’t something to eliminate. It’s something to cycle and balance.

mTOR is the pathway required for:

• muscle protein synthesis

• repair and recovery

Protein (especially leucine) and resistance training help activate it.

Yes—chronically elevated mTOR without balance can be problematic. But that’s a constant-feeding, low-movement lifestyle issue, not a “protein is dangerous” issue.

Your natural counterbalance is AMPK, activated by:

• exercise

• fasting

• glycogen depletion

You’re meant to move between these pathways.

Translation: mTOR isn’t the enemy. Misuse is.

A small amount of real science was:

• oversimplified

• taken out of context

• weaponized with fear

And in many cases, the loudest voices had financial incentives tied to plant-based products.

Protein was never the problem.

The real issues were always the unsexy ones:

• ultra-processed food

• lack of fiber

• inactivity

• metabolic imbalance

If this episode made you think “Oh… that explains a lot”, Muscle Month is where I teach this properly—with structure, timing, and application.

You’ll learn how to:

• eat enough protein without fear

• trigger muscle-building pathways correctly

• stay lean while building strength

• stop trying harder and start getting results

👉 Join here: musclemonth.com (or joannelee.com)

It won’t be back for a long time

In today’s episode, Joanne dives into two simple, misunderstood products — one for skin and one for muscle — and explains why what something does matters far more than where it comes from.

This is a practical, science-backed conversation about cellular biology, not marketing hype.

MUSCLE MONTH STARTS IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS! www.musclemonth.com

Joanne shares her personal experience using niacinamide powder as part of her nightly skincare routine — a product that costs less than $10 and has quietly delivered some of the best skin results she’s had.

In this segment, you’ll learn:

• What niacinamide (vitamin B3) actually is

• Why it’s a cellular support nutrient, not a cosmetic trick

• Its role in NAD⁺ production, cellular energy, DNA repair, and inflammation control

• Why niacinamide improves:

  • Skin barrier strength

  • Hydration retention

  • Redness and reactivity

  • Texture and overall resilience (over time, not overnight)

Joanne also explains why she prefers niacinamide in powder form, including:

• Greater stability

• No unnecessary fillers

• Fresh activation every time it’s mixed into a serum

• Complete control over dose

She discusses her experience using niacinamide from The Ordinary, a company known for simple, single-ingredient products without inflated pricing or marketing noise.

Find it on Amazon for under $7 https://a.co/d/aWfMIJr

A listener question sparks the second half of the episode:

If complete proteins come from animals, how can a plant-based amino acid supplement be high quality?

Joanne breaks this down clearly and practically.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between whole proteins and isolated amino acids

• Why plants are considered “incomplete” at the food level — but not at the amino acid level

• How amino acid supplements are produced using fermentation and purification

• Why once isolated, amino acids are chemically identical regardless of source

• Why muscle tissue does not care about labels, only:

  • Total essential amino acids

  • Leucine content

  • Proper ratios

  • mTOR activation

  • Muscle protein synthesis

This segment is especially relevant for:

• Midlife adults

• People with gut sensitivities

• Those struggling to hit protein targets

• Anyone losing weight and trying to preserve muscle

Whether it’s skincare or nutrition, the mistake is the same:

People judge the source instead of understanding the biology.

Cells respond to:

• Vitamins they recognize

• Amino acids they can use

Not branding, not buzzwords, not price tags.

AMINO ACIDS for under $20 https://a.co/d/1TpEODX

If this episode resonated, Muscle Month is where these concepts are taught in depth and applied correctly.

🗓 February 16 – March 14 🎯 10 live coaching calls 🎯 Full access to Joanne for the entire month 🎯 Training, nutrition, and strategy 🎯 365-day access to a deep content library (50+ resources)

If you want to:

• Preserve muscle during weight loss

• Understand leucine, mTOR, and protein strategy

• Stop guessing and start training with intention

👉 Learn more and join here: https://joannelee.com

• Supplements & education

• YouTube videos on amino acids, muscle, and metabolism

In today’s episode I cover two topics that came up in real conversations this week: energy drinks (especially in teens/20s) and a key Muscle Month training concept most people get wrong.

A client told me her doctor is seeing more gallbladder issues in young people, plus signs of gut lining irritation — and energy drinks keep showing up in the pattern.

This isn’t fear-based content. It’s education.

Why energy drinks hit hard:

• They’re not “just coffee” — caffeine can be coming from multiple sources, and people often stack it with coffee, pre-workout, and sometimes ADHD meds.

• If they’re sugar-based: blood sugar spike → crash → cravings → repeat.

• If they’re “zero sugar”: some sweeteners may affect tight junctions / gut barrier over time, especially with a low-fiber, processed diet.

• Add in acidity + carbonation and you’ve got a perfect recipe for reflux, nausea, bloating, and ‘my stomach is always off.’

The real problem: it becomes a daily habit replacing sleep, breakfast, hydration, and real food — aka borrowed energy.

Nope — and the “muscle is muscle” line is oversimplified.

In Muscle Month, I explain how muscle fiber tendencies and fatigue patterns often differ, which changes:

• pacing

• rest times

• exercise sequencing

• how you build muscle efficiently (without grinding yourself into dust)

If you want to actually learn how muscle is built (and train in a way that works for your body), join me:

➡️ www.musclemonth.com

Questions? joanne@joannelee.com

Coaching? www.joannelee.com

In this episode of Midlife Mayhem, I’m talking about thyroid and testosterone — two topics I’ve covered before, but ones that came up for me personally this week in a way that highlights just how misunderstood midlife physiology still is.

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism over 15 years ago, and for me it was never just about weight. It showed up as fatigue, cold intolerance, Raynaud’s, dry skin and hair, brain fog, constipation — the kind of symptoms that slowly chip away at quality of life. The frustrating part is that the older we get, the more likely these issues are dismissed as “normal aging.” They aren’t.

What came up in my recent labs was something many people don’t expect: I needed less thyroid medication, not more. That goes against the narrative most women are told — that once you’re on thyroid meds, you’re on them for life and the dose only ever increases. But when you understand that most thyroid hormone activation happens in the liver, it starts to make sense. If conversion improves and metabolic stress decreases, needing less can actually be a sign that the system is working more efficiently.

That conversation naturally led into testosterone — another hormone surrounded by fear and outdated advice for women. Hormones don’t act in isolation. As estrogen and progesterone decline in midlife, women often tolerate and benefit from higher testosterone levels than they would have earlier in life. That support matters for muscle, insulin sensitivity, bone density, energy, confidence, and recovery — all of which feed directly back into metabolic and thyroid health.

I also spend time clarifying why SLU-PP-332 has become one of my core metabolic tools in midlife. Despite being associated with an “estrogen-related receptor,” it is not hormonal and does not raise or lower estrogen or interfere with HRT. Instead, it works on metabolic pathways that regulate mitochondrial function, fat oxidation, and muscular endurance — the very systems that tend to decline with age, even when nutrition and training are solid.

What makes SLU-PP-332 especially useful in midlife is that it doesn’t suppress appetite, force rapid weight loss, or override physiology. It improves metabolic efficiency — helping the body access fat for fuel more easily, supporting energy output, improving endurance, and making training feel productive again. In other words, it helps the body behave more like it did when it was metabolically flexible, rather than fighting against it.

This episode isn’t about quick fixes or chasing numbers on a lab sheet. It’s about understanding how the system actually works, challenging outdated conversations, and choosing tools that support your whole body — muscle, metabolism, energy, and long-term health — not just one symptom.

Products discussed: www.joanneleestore.com Next coaching program: Muscle Month starts Feb 16 — www.musclemonth.com Podcast topic requests: hello@joannelee.com