Unbreakable: Dr. Vonda Wright on Revolutionizing Women's Health with Edutainment

This week, The Dusty Muffins™ – Dr. Aoife O’Sullivan (MD, MSCP), Dr. Christine Hart Kress (DNP, MSCP), and Dr. Rebbecca Hertel (DO, MSCP) – welcome Dr. Vonda Wright, MD, the orthopedic surgeon-turned-longevity expert who’s rewriting the script on women’s health with a dose of laughter and a whole lot of wisdom.


In this unscripted, energizing episode, you’ll discover:
🩺 How Dr. Wright went from Rush University’s operating rooms to menopause mastery
😂 Why edutainment is her secret weapon for tough health conversations
💪 Sneak peeks at her upcoming book Unbreakable (coming August 2024!)
🎤 How she makes aging discussions actually fun (yes, really!)

About Our Rockstar Guest:Double board-certified orthopedic surgeon Dr. Vonda Wright, MD is on a mission to:
✔️ Smash stereotypes about aging
✔️ Empower women through joyful education
✔️ Help active people thrive at every life stage

Featured Resources:
📚 More resources and her latest book Unbreakable: DrVondaWright.com
📱 Follow her Instagram: @drvondawright

Connect With The Muffins Instagram:
✨ @thedustymuffins
✨ Dr. Aoife: @portlandmenopausedoc
✨ Dr. Rebbecca: @drrebbeccaherteldo
✨ Dr. Christine: @christinehartkress_dnp
🌳 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/thedustymuffins

Equal parts inspiring and hilarious, this episode proves women’s health talks don’t have to be dry  – they can be downright delightful. Subscribe for more conversations that make menopause and aging feel like a celebration!

Remember: Our hosts and guests are sharing knowledge, not medical advice. For personal care, consult your provider.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dusty-muffins--6539849/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Dusty Muffins, where menopause meets sisterhood and strength.
We're three menopause specialists coming together to laugh, share, and
empower you through the wild ride of menopause and perimenopause.
Whether you're curious, confused, or just looking for real talk,
you're in the right place. We're here to answer your
burning questions, educate, and advocate all with a dash of

(00:26):
humor and a lot of heart. So pull up your
chair and join the conversation. Before we dive in, Please remember,
while we're doctors, we're not your doctors. This podcast is
for educational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for
medical advice.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
We encourage you to partner with your.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Own medical clinician to address your unique health needs. This
is the Dusty Muffins.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
All right, Welcome back to the Dusty Muffins where mid
life gets all, gets wise, and gets loud. And today
we're joined by a true trail pleaser. Doctor Vonda Wright
is a double board certified orthopedic, surge and re author
and fierce advocate for healthy aging. She coined the term
minolescence to describe hormonal and physical transformation of midlife and
her new book, Unbroken, helps women stay strong in body, mind,

(01:12):
and purpose. So thanks so much. Among all of the
other things that she does.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
I am a doctor Rebanca Hurdle.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I'm a Board certified oristthroopathic family medicine physician, and a
Menopause Society Certified practitioner. I have a private telemedicine practice,
and I see patients in several different states.

Speaker 5 (01:31):
I am doctor Ifa O'Sullivan, a Board certified family physician
and Menopause Society Certified practitioner, and I see patients through
my telemedicine practice here in Oregon and Washington.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm doctor Christine Harcrass, a Board certified Women's Health nurse
practitioner and Menopause Certified practitioner, and I see patients via
telemedicine in several states as well.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
We could go on and on, but thanks so much
for covering out some time for us. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
No, it's my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I know we're like, we've been talking about this, and
you know we share that nurse connection, you and I
we do.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
We do.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So you know, I've known oncology nurses and I have
known orthopedic surgeons. It seems like very different personalities. So
how does an oncology nurse decide to become an orthopedic surgeon?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
What is that? I can tell you, I can tell
you my whole path. But I think oncology nurses are
bad ass. Right, we're canulating portals with needles the size
of a rocket, right, i'mulated a portal in the brain.
I mean that is no jokes, sticking chemo into somebody's
brain through a needle. So I think oncology nurses are badass.

(02:49):
I also think orthopedic surgeons in general are badass. So I, oh,
you know what, you guys probably have a really nice audience.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
I just no, no, no, no, no, no, we.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Have a great audience. We love cursing.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yes, because yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Your name is Dusty Muffin, isn't it? So I got
a rack? Yeah. So I think both both professions not
unlike other professions. I mean I can think a lot
of them require a certain amount of self belief. I'm
sticking and needle the size of the rocket into your skin. Uh,
and and encourage, But both of them take a deep

(03:30):
Although if you know orthopedic surgeons you may laugh out
loud at this, but a deep empathy because from the
very that is a lot of orthopedic surgeons work for
me in my life. Yeah, there's some very very good
men in orthopedic surgery, some very unsensitive people, but they

(03:51):
have good hands. So sometimes I say to my piction,
what do you want? I said, if you want? If
I refer, for instance, to I don't do total joints.
I'm a sports doctor. If I say to you, okay,
I try to only refer my patients to people. I
match them based on my patient's personality. If my patient

(04:13):
is a really analytical data person, accountant, meticulous like why
is the screw six point two, and they don't give
They don't care if the person has a personality. They
just want good hands. Well I got a guy for them.
But if they want somebody who's not only a meticulous

(04:35):
surgeon but sits down and has a talk like an
oncology nurse would, yeah, I got a guy for them.
And there's fewer of them, but I've got a guy
for them. So that's the long way around to say,
we get all kinds of orthopedic surgeons. And by the way,
if you are listening, I do love you and I've
lived with you for thirty years. So I'm like your mother,

(04:55):
I can't say these things. But how I got here
was I'm going to age myself here in nineteen eighty nine.
Y'all weren't even born then when I got out of college,
I know you where you were. Many people we get
in front of weren't they're like eighty nine, Holy cow,

(05:18):
that's almost forty years ago. Anyway, there was such a
shortage of nurses then like there is now that when
I got out of Wheaton College with a bachelor's degree,
I went straight into nursing school at Rush, which was
Rush University at the time, was one of the meccas

(05:39):
of powerful nursing. Luther Chrisman, this man was our dean
and there was no messing with the nurses because every
nurse on the floor had at least a bachelor's degree.
Most of us had master's degrees giving bedside care right
there were no and I'm not saying anything about people
with associate's degrees. I think associate nurses have a grit.

(06:01):
I have an amazing role, but just to show how
highly qualified my peers were, from whom I learned so much, so,
I was a staff nurse for and I was a
night nurse because I was still taking graduate classes during
the day. So here's a story that would only happen
because I was so friggin young. I would go to

(06:23):
school all day, finishing my master's degree in nursing, and
then I would work seven to seven at night on
eleven Kellogg, which pushing keemo at night, right, And I
lived about an hour from school, So three days a
week I would get out of school, I would go
to the Rush Library. I would find a dark place

(06:45):
and I would sleep for four hours, pretending to study
and read, and then I'd go do my night shift.
And three days a week. I could only do that
because I was twenty two frigin years old. There is
no way, no but anyway, So I pushed chemo on
eleven Kellogg for quite a while. We did some of
the tomoxathin trials, We did GCSF, we did zofran trials.

(07:10):
Those were new drugs when I was a cancer nurse.
Now they're everybody's drugs, right. And then I was hired
to be It had this weird name, but essentially I
worked directly for the new chairman of the oncology department.
I was the head nurse over the whole cancer institute.
And I was still only like twenty three years old.

(07:33):
So I did that for a while, and you know,
you get to a place you're like, what's next. I'm
only twenty six years old, So I could have gone
and gotten PhD in nursing. At RUSH, nurses got PhDs
because I don't think they'd invent in dnps yet. I
think that was a new invention a few years after
I was there, so PhD, which would take me away

(07:56):
from the bedside and really put me on a research track.
I could. They were experimenting at the time with doing
bone marrow transplant for breast cancer as an outpatient, which
turned out not to really work so well, but at
the time, so I interviewed for a job to set
up that kind of business framework in the outpatient setting.

(08:19):
And then the other choice was medicine, and ultimately I
decided to go into medicine because I need to be
at the bedside and I need to do research. Those
are two hallmarks of my career. Besides innovation. Those are
the three hallmarks of my career. So at twenty friggin eight, ladies,
I went back to medical school at a time when
there was me and the forty two year old artist

(08:41):
who decided he needed to be a doctor for some reason,
and then all the kids right, all the because I
was six or seven years older than everybody. But in
medical school, tell me, if you guys agree, you divide
out very quickly as to who thinks like a medicine
doctor and who thinks like a surgeon. Because, for those

(09:03):
of you who have never been on rounds at a hospital,
medicine doctors will spend six hours in a giant group,
rounding on the floor like browning in motion. They're just
like people back and forth, make a decision, they write.

(09:24):
And you know what, thank God for medical doctors. Because
I am dependent on medical doctors as a surgeon. Thank
God for them. But that is not me. I am
on the floor gathering data, making decisions, and then I'm
off to the o R and I am multitasking all day.

(09:45):
That's pretty clear pretty early in medical school. Whose brains
work in what way? And then when I saw something
and I got to be a surgeon, and I tried
to be ahead ear nose and throat surgeon. But you
know what, ladies, I can't stam mucus. I throw up.

(10:07):
I'm exactly so no, thank you, And then I thought
maybe I'll be a breast surgeon. But at the time,
remember it was so long ago. You had to do
five years of general surgery probably a couple of years
of research to even get a plastic spell fellowship. And
there's no way in God's green earth I'm suffering through

(10:28):
a five or six year general surgery residency because that
was life on happiness. Who are the happiest guys on
the floor. You tell me it was the orthopedic Surgeon's
totally get the rocks. I'm like, yeah, those guys, So
that's listen. That just took me ten minutes to tell

(10:50):
you how I got the orthopedic surgery from oncology. But
you know what, Dusty Muffins, nobody asks me that, so
I had to fit that all in.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
About it all the time, We're like, we don't even
know how that happened.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Do you still love being in the operating room?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I do you know what? I love being in the
operating room. When I'm in the operating room, yeah, and
it goes great, you know, and I'm exiting and singing
a song I sing in the hallway, I sing a song,
I'm like, oh my god, I can't quit because I'm
just so good at this. You guys are not seeing
my face. I am making fun of myself. But you

(11:31):
know what, I grew up on a farm in Kansas.
I've got really mechanical hands. I can I mean, you
guys know, I can literally see in my brain what
needs to happen, and my hands will do it. It's
just the way I'm made. So I love the operating room.
But you know what I don't love. I don't love

(11:55):
being paid three cents for for the risk I take,
for the time I take, and most people listening don't
know that from the minute I indicate surgery, which is
usually a month before I do it, through the whole surgery,
and for three months afterwards, that's all included in the
ten cents that insurance pays me. So it becomes it

(12:20):
becomes a little taxing actually, But the actual physical act,
Oh yeah, what, that's miraculous.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
It's funny that you said you go around singing, because
one of the things I was going to ask you
was do you like to have music in the operating room?
And if you do, what do you like to listen to?

Speaker 2 (12:38):
I do like music. Uh, you know, there are critical
times in every operation when no matter what's playing on
the radio, like you don't even hear it because you know,
in anybody who's been in a proceduralist or it's like
it's like deep work or studying. I kind of get

(12:59):
in this flow state where there's everybody's doing everything around me,
like the circulator circulating anesthesia's doing whatever they do back
there behind the curtain. You know, my assistant and I
don't really hear see any of it when it's a
really critical time in the case and you're in. And
other than that, yeah, we can talk about. Oh I'm

(13:22):
gonna tell a secret. Don't you tell any the other
orthopods I've done a year. We'll talk about anything, right,
Because I'm a sports doctor and so every morning and
I watch sports Listen. I'm married to do, an old
pro athlete. We watch more sports than anybody ought to watch. However,

(13:45):
here's anybody out there, here's how you get along with
an orthopedic surgeon or in a male dominated operating room.
You watch ESPN Sports Center every morning, Fluffy, they summarized
the ten things that happened the day before, and all
you gotta do to keep these bulls talking so you

(14:07):
can do your friggin work. Is to say, memorize a
few of these things. You're like, oh my god, did
you see that kick off the fifty four yard? I
was gonna go wide right, but that's two cents. Yeah,
so that's what. Don't tell anybody.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
But I won't tell anyone.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
I love it. But what I listened to in the
o R I have this whole weirdo playlist that most
people don't like. So when I started at this new
hospital that I was at, a very nice circulating nurse
named Tony who's a veteran. He used to jump out
of airplanes. I mean this man, He said, what do
you want to listen to? And I'm like, God, today,
I want to listen to Johnny Cash. Do you know

(14:52):
for the next whole year. My other poor our staff
was we all had to listen to Johnny Cash for
a whole year, like every song that is now inappropriate
due to a variety of reasons. Isn't that funny? Oh?
But I usually let my staff choose, so I have
a brilliant So I am no longer in academia where

(15:15):
I would have fellows and residents. Right now, I'm in
a private practice where I have the same first assist
every time I operate, and oh my god, he barely
needs me. He is brilliant with his hands. I'm thankful
for him. Don't worry my patience. I still operate. He
just assists me because many surgeries take multiple people. But

(15:38):
we're listening to something that he's chosen, and I see
him out of the corner of my eye going like this.
He's like this, and I'm working away, and I'm thinking
to myself, Dalton thinks I'm doing a really good job. Oh,
that's such a good surgeon. I don't want to look

(15:59):
at it because I stopped working. Still. Is this because
I'm a good surgeon? Or is this because you're catching
the beat of this music? Yeah? Don't you know? This
man was dancing in my o R and I thought
it was complimenting me because egotistic. Oh cracks me up.

(16:21):
So now I give him a hard time about it.
He was feeling trying to be subtle, and I'm like, yeah,
that's a good.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
He's just so he loves tnique excellent doctor, excellent.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
I concur.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
That's pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Before you got on here, we were doing the and
I had to do it with my whole family to
make sure was the stand to sit, sit to stand challenge.
And let me tell you, so I sent the kids
that don't live here yet. I'm like, please do this
for me, and then you know I still have some
kids here at home, so they were doing it.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
I do have an ACL repair kid. He just got done,
so he didn't do that.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
But it is not yes, it is not easy. And
I was like, that's every day for me. Now, every
day I need to incorporate this.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
And you know it's a real measure and you know
it comes from the cardiology research or they're looking at
what things could predict mortality or what things could predict
whose outcomes are going to be worse. And one of
the things they found is lower body strength and muscle.
I mean, it all goes back to muscle, right. So

(17:40):
I'm going to tell you how social media has reacted
to that and the push up test. But the reason
to do the sit and stand test is not because
I necessarily care whether you can do this Waco thing,
but it is a real measure of your lower body
strength because when you find yourself on the floor for
whatever reason, you need to be able to get up.

(18:01):
And it's okay to put your knee down, and it's
okay to put your hand down. But I had one
woman respond she had to do a full flip over
onto her belly get up in downward facing dog and
she still could not get up. And that is not
a judgment. That is an observation that we need to
get stronger to be independent, and so, you know, but

(18:24):
that's interesting to me. What's interesting to me is the
reactions I get from people and what I have learned
about human psychology and the state of midlife women from
their comments on the Internet. Here's what I've learned between
that test and the don't let me forget to comment

(18:46):
on the Peter Attia caveat to this don't let me
this test, the sit and rise test, and the push
up test, which was just me making a comment to
mel Robbins that went viral all over the world.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, that most of us went and checked to see
if we can still do it.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, because you guys know, there are patients who can't
move themselves from one gurney to the next. Right, It's dangerous, dangerous,
not that you need to move on gurnies, but that
you need to be able to protect yourself with your muscles. Yeah,
ninety percent of everybody who makes a comment is just

(19:28):
what you said, Christine. You're like, I'm on the ground
trying to do these push ups, seeing where I felt,
not as a judgment and observation of the work I
still need to do. Right. There are the ten percent,
including some very nasty doctors out there, who are saying
things like, oh my god, why are you being so demoralizing,

(19:49):
why are you being so isolatory to these women? And
to that, I say, I think that reflects how you
feel about yourself, because it is not a judgment. It's
an encouragement to take the next step to get strong
so that you do not become frail and break your hip.
And I have to put right.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
And for those that are primary care, we see that
we take care of these you know, we you know,
and I still do some primary care as well, and.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
So this is huge, This is huge to talk about.
So it's super important to be able to get up.
And my patients sometimes can't.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
You know when you can no longer, when your VO
two max is so low that you cannot get up
from a chair. I mean, if we're we're I'm happy
to talk about votwo Max, but it's your measure of fitness.
Right When your fitness is so low that you can't
get up from a chair independently, that's when you go
to a nursing home. You're either incontinent or you can't

(20:50):
get up from a chair, and you can't live alone anymore.
And one in three women ends up in a nursing home.
So these things are not just trying to to demoralize women,
which I reject that statement.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
You have to try to take it that way.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
You have to try, Yes, yes, you have to try.
And so I just swipe left or whatever I do.
I'm like, I may not be the right person for
you to follow, because I'm an aspirational person. I know
for sure that that even paralyzed people you know, whose
nerves are long connected, are out there on bicycles, yes,

(21:28):
rolling marathons. Don't tell me that we are not capable,
right without trying. Don't tell me without trying, we are
not capable.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
So yeah, and I'm like, check check, I'm doing good,
though I did ask Rebecca. And if I'm like, I
need to do that rise test before she gets on here.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
I want to see if I can do it.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
And I'm like, I.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Couldn't remember if I couldn't do it, if that meant
I was going to be dead soon, people.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Ask me that, No, you know what it means. It
means just look when your butt and hips. That's what
it is.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
It just shows where you are and flexibility because I
can tell you my low back feels it when I
sit down and I'm like, oh, but I am that
person that I'm just like okay every day and I
was going to do that and then, you know, but
it was.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Great to see.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
Even you know, I have a thirteen year old basketball
player who's you know, she's she had a difficulty and
I'm like, okay, girl, you know we have to do.

Speaker 5 (22:25):
This shows you where you are and it shows you
the work you need to do. It's teach. It's all knowledge, right,
Knowledge is power. And another thing you did the past year,
doctor Wright, to inform women and educate them and empower
them was release that article the musculos callital Syndrome of Menopause.
I mean, we were just irrationally excited over that because

(22:46):
you gave us the name.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
You put a name which makes it real.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Right and something to bring to the naysayer providers.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Look, yeah, and those providers are still not believing. But
you know who is believing more than three hundred and
fifty thousand people who have downloaded that paper because we
didn't write that paper. It was me and a couple
brilliant medical students and Joscelyn Witstein from Duke. You know,
we didn't write that paper understanding that that was the

(23:16):
first and final paper ever that was needed. It was
simply giving words to all the frustrated women who when
you go into a doctor's office and you say, I'm
getting weak, I'm getting short, my knees are killing me,
I'm growing fat everywhere, blah blah blah. Those are eight

(23:36):
things and in a ten minute doctor's appointment, it's too much.
But when they can read the paper, understand, oh, in midlife,
estrogen is all over the muscular skeletal tissues. Of course,
my knees are because my cartilage is degrading, or my
fingers are getting crooked, like see how crooked my little
thumb is getting because our cartilage is wearing down, or

(23:59):
all the things. It opens up a new pathway of communication,
which was the point of the paper. I hope somebody
comes behind me with their laboratory full of nice equipment
and expands on it.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
No, it was it's company for us to have to
give our patients. And you also paid to have ash
open access, so it's not behind a paper.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
I don't think people understand how big that is.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
So that how it works is for most medical journals
because it's expensive to publish. I mean it's it's it's
very a very expensive process. Research is expensive, Publishing is expensive.
The reason the general public and many many doctors don't
know the latest research is because you don't have access
to the papers. So in this journal Climate Trix, I

(24:48):
can never say that word. It's the journal of the
International Menopause Society. To make it public so that everybody
can read it, I had to pay five thousand dollars,
so I know it's no small sum, but if you
divide five thousand dollars by three hundred and sixty eight
thousand people, you know the dollar cost averaging makes it

(25:10):
worth it, right, And I encourage all researchers to build
the open access fee into their grants. So then yeah,
because what's more disappointing than spending five years on a
study with groundbreaking research and nobody can read it.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
I agree, Yeah, it's painful. So it's been wonderful to
have that to give colleagues and patients.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Y'all have it on our link tree, don't.
Well that's like.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah, that's yeah, And I like, print this out, take
it to your therapist, take it to your AUTHO, take
it to your VCP, take it to everybody.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
Well, I mean it's like you were saying, doctor Wright,
like joining those dots. I tell doctors when I go
to talk to them, this will make your job so
much easier knowing this information. You're not going to have
those you know, those heart sink patients like you said,
where there are eight thing and one visit and you
can't cover it all. If you can join those dots,
your job just becomes so much easier. So every single clinician,

(26:11):
I mean, we really need to have a massive overhaul
and just have everyone retrain in this.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Well. And you know, from for those of you who
are in private practice out there, I think of my
private I think of the orthopedic surgeons. I've made this
offer to several very large orthopedic groups, and one has
taken me up on it. If they bring me in
to train their surgeons not only on menopause or the
life of midlife women and this in particular. And then

(26:43):
I say to everybody listening, you know that group in Washington,
I train them to understand you their doors will be
blown off by women who want must have skeletal care
from people who know about midlife women and the role
of estrogen on muscle skull tissue. I say to them,

(27:03):
all you got to do is let me teach you,
and then I will say it because I'm not just
going to say it unless I spend time with these doctors. Right.
But listen, because women are like that, aren't they. If
they find somebody, they're going to tell all their friends everyone,
absolutely and they will. They will travel. Oh, people travel
from all of the world for me. I don't know

(27:25):
they're coming in. I'm feel bad when I have fifteen
minutes to spend with them.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
I know it's hard.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
I have someone that started off with you and then
came to me, and I'm yeah, so you know it.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
It's it's one of the it's going to happen. We
just have to keep being loud, you know, and.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
You said that one practice had said yes, and that's
where it starts, right, one says yes.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Well then, and they're giant, they're they're it's called the
Orthpedic Forum, and I'm teaching them in February. They've got
hundreds of doctors across all of the United States, so
you know that'll be more resources. Fantastic you won next year.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, so don't really be part of physical therapy as well,
like they're true.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Oh exactly, I agree.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Want the Dusty Muffins at your next event. We do panels,
live podcasts and talks that bring the heat literally corporate
see me or retreats. We've got you. So hit us
up at the Dusty Muffins three three three at gmail
dot com or dms on Instagram at the Dusty Muffins.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Oh, that'd be really good.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, So doctor Ray tell us something about midlife women
that they're still getting wrong and preparing for the next
forty years so that they don't age like the one
person they that reminds them every day that they need
to go do things.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
The mistake they're making. Say that again, you want what
they're still not getting.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
But they still are getting wrong.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Well, I still have women every every clinic who have
never heard of perimenopause, right, isn't that amazing?

Speaker 5 (28:58):
We hadn't heard of perimenopause until you know, I know,
until we.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Go years ago.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Yeah, until we all went through it.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you that funny story too. But
because I'm a decade past and I wish I had
known then what I know now. But I think the
biggest thing people are still getting wrong is despite hearing
how the WHI data has been completely refuted from multiple sources. Like,
if you're at all in this world, you're going to

(29:27):
know that the data that it's less than one in
one thousand new cases of breast cancer diagnosis, but no
increased deaths in very older women. Right, these aren't fifty
year olds. Despite the rational cognitive acknowledgment of that data,

(29:49):
they still think about their aunt Gerty, who at ninety
seven got breast cancer, and that she thinks she's going
to get it. There is this emotional component and I'm
not I mean, it's actually not a judgment, it's an observation.
There is something so emotional about breast cancer. And I

(30:11):
get that. Remember I was the cancer nurse pushing chemo
through ports in the nineties. I of all earth pods
get that. But that's still the thing we get wrong
the most, or the second thing is that, oh you
know what I'm used to suffering. I'll just I'll get
through this. What women don't understand is at a cellular level,

(30:33):
the vascular changes, the metabolic changes, the neural changes. It's
actually I could care less about your hot flashes except
that they're connected to your cardiovascular health. On your brain,
your brain fall your brain, Yeah, connected to your overall
brain and all time. Right, So I think that's a

(30:55):
big thing. Also that women don't get is it's not
the supervisial little things were that I make jokes on
from stage about sticking my thermometer leg out of the
bed just to keep cool.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
It's cellular, right, Yes, yeah it is. I've heard doctor
Jim Simon describe it as the zombie idea. You just
can't kill it, you know, wh I it's so many lives, Yeah,
just goes on and on. I don't know what you

(31:26):
said there that made me think of it, but I
was wondering, did you when you went on your trip
to Australia. It might have been when you said on
stage and I was thinking about Australia. Did you have
fun there? Did you get any time to explore or
was it all business?

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Uh? Well, I worked the whole time. I should have
planned it better. I worked the whole time. My husband
had a fun time, climbed the bridge, he took a
helicopter ride. But you know why I'd never been there before.
I love Australian people. They've got this just all healthy,
they've got this uh jois da vide, this joy of life.

(32:04):
They're all outside. So we're going to go back. But
you know what really kept me from having the best
possible time. I was devastated by this jet lack who knew.
Oh yeah, yeah, it really kicked me in the Yes.
That being said, I said to my husband, it's interesting

(32:27):
his perspective. I get off. I'm in the opera house right,
three thousand people. It's this iconic building. There is no
way I would have gotten there except that Carrie all
car Yeah, I'm thinking of all the organizers just worked
so hard to get us there. And I step off

(32:49):
stage and I said to my husband, Oh my god, Peter.
Now my husband, to put it in context, is a
pro athlete, a two time Stanley Cup champion. It's the
highest you can get in hockey here in this country.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
So I'm saying this to him, expecting him to understand
what I'm saying. And I said to him, oh my god, Peter,
that was like my career, uh, super Bowl or Stanley
Cupp And He's like, what are you talking about? Every
day you're in the operating room, that is your super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (33:20):
Oh okay, He's really right, but.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
I was feeling pretty good. The balloon, the air came
right out of that expected for me. Peter, However, that
was a time just to nod your head. Yeah, definitely,
this was a big deal. It's a really sweet.

Speaker 5 (33:47):
Thing to say, but yeah, you were on your high.
That was a big event.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
It was a big event, and I'm thankful that they
pulled it off.

Speaker 5 (33:56):
Oh yeah, what a meeting of the minds. Absolutely meeting.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
And yet now now another book. And I don't know how,
I always said, and I'm like, I don't know how
she does it.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Like, you know, we have multiple we all have multiple jobs.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
And kids and all of that, and I'm like and
writing and and now another brilliant book's coming out, and
what you know what was your inspiration behind that?

Speaker 2 (34:21):
For yeah, for the one. Yeah. So this book Unbreakable
is you know what, it's a I'm about to say
something silly, like you know it's my life's work, but
it's not. I've written five other books before, but I
haven't written for ten years. Okay, because I write, I'm not.

(34:46):
I don't love to write. I write for a purpose, right,
I'm writing to educate it I write to you know,
my first book I wrote to educate and sell stuff.
But you know this book is different than what's out
there now. For this reason, when we talk about people
living longer, better lives, when we talk about men living longer,

(35:09):
we call it longevity. And people like George Clooney, bless
his heart, when he turned sixty, he took his buddy
Brad Pitt. They dressed him all up in these suave
clothes and they took him to the south of France
and they did a whole photo shoot about how Debonair
demure it was for a man to turn sixty, right

(35:34):
for a man to be in longevity. That is not
the story that society tells women. Women living longer has
been sold as anti aging, as if there's a problem
with us that we have to solve, like, oh my God,
put this thing on your faith. So one of my

(35:54):
goals in writing Unbreakaball was to pivot the narrative because
women living longer can be help the vital, active, joyful
long into the foreseeable future if we take the steps
and if we choose to. And that's what all my
writing has always been about. All my academic research work
since you know, even before I was out of residency,

(36:15):
was always musculo skeletal aging and longevity. We did some
of the very first studies in humans on these topics
to dispel the myth that aging was an inevitable decline
from vitality to frailty. But that type of language has
not existed for women before. So I think being part
of you know, the Menoposse and being privileged to have

(36:37):
this community, interestingly that I've never had before, a professional
community made up of OB's and nurses and a variety.
I mean, it's amazing. You would think it'd be orthopedics,
but it's ob I think the Menoposse has done a
tremendous job writing books about menopause, and every book that's

(37:01):
out about menopause, including the very latest ones being produced
even now, have one chapter on what comes next lifestyle
because they're just trying to educate the public. Oh my god,
Oh my god, what is happening to you? What is
this chaos? Well, this is the first book that says

(37:21):
and now this because my book has fourteen chapters. That
has one chapter on menopause and the rest is all about,
oh my gosh, prepare for midlife both body and mind.
I have three chapters on mindset, on resilience. I became
a certified heartiness and Resilience coach during COVID and there's

(37:43):
reasons behind that. So this book is not just another
exercise book. There is exercise prescription in it, but there's
hard work on our mental attitude to pivot, to look
to the future with hope and vitality. So it is
the first book I say about longevity for women because

(38:06):
I take the time to explain to people, this is
why we age. This is the science of aging. We
talk about sinescence and mitochondrial dysfunction and stem cells because
women are smart enough to absorb this and then apply
the activity as they're doing to the why. And I
call it. I call the hallmarks of aging, the time

(38:30):
bombs of aging, and what we're doing with our lifestyle
and our choices is building shields against the inevitable time
bombs of aging. We can slow down biology by the
choices we make every single day. And so this book
is very hopeful, very aspirational, and it is exercise prescription,
and it is mental health, and it is twenty recipes

(38:52):
that I had my sports nutritionist right for us. Right,
it's a lot of things, but I'm proud of it
because it's the first and category. I'm sure there will
be many more books on female longevity, but right now,
the longevity books are written by the longevity bros. As
we like to say, all the people you know of,
they've done a great job. But it's all written from

(39:15):
the male perspective.

Speaker 5 (39:16):
Yeah. And if it's been ten years since your last book, yeah,
I would imagine even some of your ideas have changed
over the last ten years.

Speaker 6 (39:25):
Or relief I've said that. I'm glad you said that. Yeah, well,
let me eat the caveat. I did write a book
two years ago, but it was a textbook. It's called
How to Raise a Healthy Youth Athlete. It's more orthopedics
than anything but this genre of book. It's been ten years,
and you are absolutely right, because when I started writing,

(39:45):
all my exercise prescription was body weight, functional functional lifting.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
You could lift, hea you could lift. But now I'm
all about working up to lifting really heavy, all this
stuff I post about. Oh yes, this morning I posted
about getting back to squatting after being hurt. And how
you know I'm lifting as heavy as I can right now.
I got through four reps of this really heavy, which

(40:15):
is not that heavy compared to what I was doing.
But anyway, so, yes, you're right. My ideas have changed,
my prescription has changed, my attitude has changed. I mean,
I've always thought, because of my work that aging got
the short stick of any conversation, because I think aging

(40:36):
is a superpower. But yeah, my ideas have changed. So
if you read my first book and you read this book,
you're going to say, but wait. So the way I
use it is if you're not ready to heavy lift yet,
because you don't even know where your knees are. Sometimes
people are like that, go get one of my old books,
because I'll teach you. I'll teach you how to get

(40:57):
off the couch and then you'll be ready for my
new book.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
Oh good advice.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, yeah, I I was going. I was going through
your Instagram and so I because I'm like, you know,
I get asked a lot. You know, how do you lift?
You know, some people like you know, lift for a minute,
well a minute. You cannot lift a lot for a minute.

(41:24):
And it doesn't seem to have any gains. And so
if I understand correctly that you're for lifting heavy squats, deadlifts,
bench press, and then overhead pulled to lift heavy, which
I wanted to ask you, I can't figure out what
that one is.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
But and is.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
It fo reps as high as you can and going
up higher each time.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
So lifting heavy means that there's a range if you're
strictly counting reps. There's different ways to lift depending on
what your goals are when we're young. When I was younger,
I lifted for hypertrophy, which is lighter weights, more reps,

(42:07):
and that's gonna make you have bigger muscles, but not
necessarily power. I am lifting for longevity and power. I
am gonna lift my suitcase myself if I want to.
I am gonna get up off the floor. I'm gonna
do anything, I'm gonna walk at a brisk pace. That
all takes power. So if you're lifting for hypertrophy, you

(42:29):
go right ahead, lift your light weights a lot of
times you're gonna get hypertrophy and endurance. But if you
want power, you have to replace the stimuli that we
lost with estrogen leaving us. It's an anabolic steroid, right,
so we have to put more tension on our muscles.
So we do that by lifting heavier. The range is

(42:52):
four to six. I've been a doctor long enough to
know that if I say, okay, do a range of
four to six and do a range of sets, I
will get sixty two thousand questions about specifically what to do.
So you know what I chose. I chose to teach
people what I do. So I do four reps four sets.

(43:15):
How do I know it's heavy enough? When I get
to the fourth rep of my third set, I can
squeeze out one more rep in good form, but I
probably can't do six, and I'm definitely not doing eight.
So that's what heavy means. And for each person it's

(43:37):
different what that four is. And the good thing is
that once that four is easy, and you could squeeze
out two more. It's time to increase your weights. That's
called progressive overload. Right, So squat, deadlift, bench press, and
pull up some kind of pull up. You have to

(44:03):
put that one in there. You don't have to do
a real pull up. You can, you can walk up
to it. Right.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
But now I'm gonna be going and doing it because
I seem to do everything that you say.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, it's totally work up to a bowl, which i'm
you know, I used to at my max, I was
doing three pull ups. I was never really good at it,
but uh, we're working back to that, right. So those
are the four compound lifts, meaning you use multiple body
parts across multiple joints to support that you can do

(44:34):
and you should do single muscle lifts. So to support
my bench press, I still do biceps, triceps, lats, delts,
pull downs, rows, but I do eight reps, four sets,
a little lighter, a few more reps because they're single muscle.

(44:56):
And you know what this is. I didn't make this up.
These are all things written in the literature, all things
in The highest qualification you can get as a Strength
Conditioning Coaches certification is called a CSCs and so my
office happens to be in this taj Mahal pro gym.
And so when I came back to lifting my strength

(45:20):
conditioning coach, I said to him, I need to powerlift
and I need to do it this way. And he's like, okay,
I'll teach you how to do that. And so, yeah,
I didn't make it up, but it is the way
I do it. You made it clear. It's nice and
clear what we have to do. Yeah, and you know,
I'm not married to four reps four sets, but it
is easy to remember as.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
An ass it is, yes, and it doesn't take you hours, right,
And that was always my thing, like I cannot get
up I work out in the morning.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
I need something.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
That's that's you know, fairly quick, that is going to
make a difference. It's going to make me stronger. And
then I got to get up, I get ready for work,
at my kids at school, you know all the things.
And I do feel like for some you know, and
I don't know what your that is not that that
you know. For me, I've had to lift full body

(46:13):
whereas I never used to have to do that before,
but after probably forty three forty four, I needed to
do and maybe one day I would still focus more
on lower body. But I couldn't just do arms and
back one day in arms, which is what I used
to do. I had to work everything because I saw

(46:33):
that muscle decline.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
It was crazy, you know. And so the big thing
is is just making sure that we're getting everyone moving.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:45):
Yeah, I presume you've probably read one hundred thousand articles
writing your book. But other than medical journal articles, do
you enjoy reading anything else, any particular books A good murder?

Speaker 2 (47:02):
No. I don't like fiction.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
I don't read.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
The only fiction I would ever read is like a
historical fiction, so it seems true even if it's not.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
So if the outlet Scottish.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Guy, isn't that a TV show? I might have seen
him on TV A lot of books as well, Yeah, yeah,
or Bridgerton, which is a series about naked people dressing.
That's basically what that is, naked people who put clothes
on once in a while. But but if I am
going to read, which I don't do very often just

(47:42):
for pleasure, it's it's biographies. Oh yeah, because I can
learn a lot of things. But you know why I
don't read fiction, It's because I was in training so
long that I will skin through a whole paragraph to
get to the point fiction. You're to enjoy the color

(48:03):
of the flowers and the breeze, Like, really, who's coming
and what are they going to do? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Why the same way?

Speaker 2 (48:10):
I'm like, I don't want to do that, right?

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Oh yeah, get all the way down to that summary please.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
You know how geeky I am. I didn't bring it
on this trip. But there's this fascinating textbook called Osteosarcopenia.
It's all I'm just devouring this. It's a research book.
It's you know, it's not unlike estrogen matters, you know me,
it's like pleasure. I'm it's weird and wiki.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
Yeah you're talking to the podcast right, yes, every day
we're like what article did you read?

Speaker 4 (48:44):
Which podcast is?

Speaker 2 (48:45):
You know?

Speaker 4 (48:47):
A great day every day?

Speaker 1 (48:50):
So your your book launches on the twenty sixth of
at and then what tours? And what's your fall looking like?

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, you know it's real. It's shaping up to be
very busy. This book was supposed to be out in December,
which I was never that happy about. I'm like, December,
who's buying a book in December? But once they got
the manuscript and realized that it was the first book
on female longevity and it was really needed. They moved
it up to August. So I'm like scrambling, so I'll

(49:20):
be in younor doing different city as people do book tour,
as they do Every Tuesday, if anybody's listening, that is
on Instagram, I do something special called Unbreakable Tuesday, just
as a special nod to this book. Last week I
did a I made a PDF called forty ish Everything

(49:44):
I know now that I wish I had known then then? Anybody,
did you get it? I told you were nerdy?

Speaker 3 (49:55):
This is what is great?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, I wish I had known all that because when
I was in my mid forties and I just had
my geriatric child, thinks, so bea.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
I have one of those.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, I'll tell you my perimenopause. I was flying, I
was doing so great. I was all the sports things
I was supposed to be had doctor of this and that,
and then I was one of those girls who I
was an athlete. I never really had regular periods. It's
good that my bones actually survived that trauma of no

(50:29):
so I finally got to like forty six, forty seven,
forty eight, and my periods were not only regular, but
they were like a flood. And do you know what
I thought? I did not recognize that, along with the
sleeplessness and the brain fog and all the things heart
palpitations that I went to my cardiologist to make sure

(50:50):
I was a dying brain fog. I started looking up
the symptoms of Alzheimer's. I thought, I literally said to myself, doctors, ladies.

Speaker 7 (51:00):
Oh my god, I'm finally a real woman. I'm having really,
I'm having cyclical cycles. Nobody told me, and I didn't
know that.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
That was hard of us. I'm proud of myself for
actually having It's pathetic. So and then I was also
one of these people that because I exercised so much
that I could always if I gain five pounds, I'm like,
I'm just gonna run a little more this week. And
then I started gaining weight and I thought, you know what,

(51:32):
I'm pretty busy right now. I'll get to that. I
never it's different this time, ladies, it is. Yeah. So
I put out that Critical Decade because I feel a
real urgency for the thirty five to forty five year
olds to get the proverbial hell shit together. It can
be so much better for you than it was for
me and us that have lived through that.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
Yes, yes, I think am I starting. I think some
of them are starting.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
I think some of them were starting to see because
they're starting to get the longevity. And I think as physicians,
we're you know, trying to figure that. I think we
do it without under you know, without realizing that's what
we're trying to do is lifestyle and longevity and prevention,
and because that's really what we want to do in medicine,
you know. But but they have to this is important.

(52:23):
I read this and I was like, this is fantastic.

Speaker 5 (52:25):
Oh good, but another tool in the tool belt. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah. To send the.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Patience and if anyone gets the chance to go to
one of your events. Christine and I went last November
that doing in Orlando. Oh, I think we already looked
at dates because it was so much fun, you know.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
It really was.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
It was.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
We walked away from there just like you know what,
that was a great time. It was informative, but it
was it was fun and entertaining and the networking and
you're getting up and you're moving around and you know
that event I didn't.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
Go to that, And I have never heard anyone talk
about a conference the way I've heard women talk about
your conference and very different, and that makes a fun
with the education is something that you don't read a
gash at other conferences in general.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Well, I'm happy to see all the all the women's
conferences spring up, but I think what's special about the
way that I for and I've been doing that since
twenty twelve is I call what that the format? November
fourteenth and fifteenth, People in Orlando, it's happening again, keep
your eye out. I call it a utainment because nobody

(53:45):
is going to listen to some old guy in a
gray suit drone on and on and on. But what
they will listen to is some of the best speakers
in the country present their data in a dynamic and
entertaining way. Not everybody has to carry their femur around
or jump up and down like I do. I mean,
there were some very sophisticated talks and yet they were entertaining.

(54:08):
And I kid you not, and you can confirm this
wasn't the energy high all day, all all day music.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
You get a lull after like a lunch or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
No, no, all that everybody was so engaged, locked in,
learned about things they had never heard before. And that's
the whole point, right, is to give women a different
perspective on what the last forty to fifty years can
be like. And I call these conferences women's health conversations
because you know, remember I am an orthopod. Women and

(54:44):
men communicate very differently. Men when they're talking, like my
colleagues and my husband and our sons, they sit in
parallel and they're just putting out facts like oh did
you see that kick, oh the Stockmart whatever they're talking
about out They're not interacting, they're just putting facts into
the universe. But women don't do that. Women sit around

(55:10):
in a group. If there's a group, they will pull
the chairs around to face each other and they will
sit around in a circle and communicate around a subject,
even if they're not all the same specialty. It could
be a lawyer and a doctor, and a nurse and
a banker and an accountant, all experts in something adding

(55:33):
to the common conversation. That is what women's Health Conversations
is meant to be.

Speaker 8 (55:41):
And it was, I mean it did not I would
encourage I mean it was great, so much to look
forward to this autumn, the book, on the conference, and
thank you so much for coming on today, doctor right.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Oh it's been fun you guys. I got to talk
about stuff I never get to talk about. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 5 (56:06):
Your people can find you at doctor Vonda Wright dot
com and at doctor Vonda Wright on Instagram. And your
new book, Unbroken is out in augusta.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Unbreakable all right, pre.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Order right, it's available now for pre order, please order it.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
It's been such as it's my pleasure.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
You have a great have a great rest of the
night and Sunday, and safe travels back home.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Thank you. By now all right, bye guys,