The Healthy Ageing Doctor, Dr Vonda Wright on Diary of a CEO
Ageing Well, Building Muscle, and Why Movement Might just be Your Health Pension
Small shifts now can change everything later.
I recently relistened to Dr Vonda Wright’s interview on Diary of a CEO, and it hit just as hard the second time around. If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering whether it’s “too late” to get stronger, fitter, or healthier in your 40s, 50s or beyond, this is the antidote to that voice.
Dr Vonda Wright is an orthopedic surgeon who specialises in elite athletes. She’s not here to scare you into exercising. She’s here to reframe how we think about ageing altogether.
“There’s no excuse to slow down before our mid-70s.”
That’s one of Dr Vonda Wright’s opening lines, and she doesn’t say it lightly. In her research, she’s seen 80-year-olds who consistently lift weights performing with the functional strength of someone two decades younger.
The key takeaway? It’s not your age, it’s how active you are.
One of the most striking examples she shared came from a study on master athletes aged 40 to 85. She took MRI scans of their thighs and compared them to those of sedentary adults. The contrast was dramatic.
The active group had strong, defined, lean muscle. The sedentary group? Muscle loss and marbling, fat infiltrating muscle tissue, a sign of decline that sets in when we stop moving regularly.
And the difference-maker wasn’t genetics or magic supplements.
It was consistent, long-term movement. Especially strength training.
Because when we talk about strength training, what we’re really talking about is muscle, and what it does for us, far beyond lifting weights or hitting fitness goals.
Muscle: More Than Just Strength
We often think of muscle in terms of aesthetics or gym goals, but Dr Vonda breaks it down like this:
Muscle is your metabolic engine. It helps your body process glucose and regulate blood sugar.
Muscle is protective. It supports your joints, absorbs impact, and helps prevent falls.
Muscle is resilience. It’s what lets you carry your groceries, catch your balance, and move through life with independence.
Muscle is longevity. Without it, your health expectancy drops, even if your life expectancy doesn’t.
One of my favourite metaphors she used?
“Muscle is nature’s Spanx.” Supportive, invisible, and always working behind the scenes.
And just like muscle quietly supports us, our daily choices are shaping far more than we realise, including how we age, how we feel, and how long we stay strong.
Ageing Isn’t Passive, It’s Shaped by Your Choices
Dr Wright makes it clear: 70–90% of our ageing outcomes are shaped by lifestyle, not genetics. That means we’re not passive observers, we’re participants.
If you’re in your 40s or 50s and only now starting to think seriously about your long-term health, that’s an opportunity you need to start leveraging now.
She refers to the window between ages 40 and 63 as a crucial “course correction” period, a chance to build strength, resilience, and movement habits that set the tone for the next decades of your life.
But building that foundation isn’t easy, especially when so much of modern life (and work) keeps us in a chair.
Which brings us to one of the biggest threats Dr Vonda highlights: the sitting epidemic.
Sitting Is the Silent Killer
One of the biggest threats Dr Vonda identifies is what she calls the “sitting epidemic.”
When we sit all day:
Our core muscles switch off
Our metabolism slows
Our joints stiffen
Our back pain increases
And we stop stimulating the muscle tissue we depend on
You don’t have to do hour-long workouts to fight it. Instead, she suggests “mini mobility blasts” throughout the day, short walks, stairs instead of lifts, walking meetings, fidgeting, standing while on the phone. Anything that keeps you moving.
It’s a message that resonates powerfully with the Active Break Method: five minutes of movement, every hour.
Not to burn calories, but to protect strength, build resilience, and keep your body working the way it should.
Because if we’re going to invest in daily movement, it’s worth asking: how do we know it’s working?
That’s where Dr Vonda shifts the focus, from what we weigh to what really matters.
We need to be focusing on Recomposition, Not Restriction
Dr Vonda argues that over-focusing on calorie restriction without exercise leads to muscle loss. In fact, when we regain weight after restrictive dieting, up to 80% of it can come back as fat. That’s why her goal is recomposition, more muscle, less fat, achieved through movement, strength work, and smart nutrition.
That means:
Fewer quick-fix diets
More whole foods, fibre, and protein
Cutting back on simple sugars
Supplementing for any key deficiencies (like vitamin D or magnesium)
Try This Week
Here are a few ways to take inspiration from Dr Vonda’s message and make it real:
Add one mini “mobility blast” to your day, stairs, stretch, or short walk
Choose muscle-building movement at least twice this week (even bodyweight squats count)
Reflect on your “movement baseline”, how much do you sit, and where could you shift that balance?
Ask your future self what strength you might want 10, 20, or 30 years from now, and start building it today
If you’re looking for a reminder that movement is medicine, strength is strategy, and age is not the enemy, this conversation is a must-listen.
Listen to the full episode on The Diary of a CEO
Because it’s never too late to start moving, but the sooner you do, the stronger your future will be.