By Valérie Orsoni — Biohacker & Longevity Expert
Valérie Orsoni is a biohacker, author of 56 books, and founder of biohacker.fr. She has been tracking her biology through N=1 self-experimentation protocols since 1998. She has completed a Stanford Genetics Longevity Research certificate, a Stanford Medicine Nutrition Science certificate program and is currently enrolled in the Stanford Medicine GLP-1s & weight loss certification program. She was named in the Top 50 Longevity Leaders by Life Spanning magazine and is currently the #1 on the Longevity Cup Leaderboard (chronological age -23 years).
The photo illustrating this article was taken right after a strength training session, and I’m flexing. At rest, my muscles didn’t look quite this defined. I’m sharing this photo so that, a few paragraphs from now, I can show you what my arm looks like after 6 weeks, then after 12 weeks.
Why I stopped lifting
For 12 weeks, I put my weights away. No deadlifts, no loaded squats, no presses. Nothing. And believe me, for someone who loves to train, the first few weeks were a real challenge.
Why put myself through that? Because I have seen, read and heard so many yoga and Pilates enthusiasts telling me you can get exactly the same results without ever lifting a weight. I didn’t want to argue in a vacuum. I wanted to test it, on myself, with measurements.
The protocol was simple: I kept everything else. Running, nutrition, sleep, my usual routines, but with yoga, Pilates and the gentle workouts that are all the rage on social media. I only removed weight training. One variable changed, to see what it really brings.
Here’s what happened to my body... get ready to be shocked! Let’s start with the photo after 6 weeks without weight training: