The Hard Workout That Asa Akira Can Only Do Once a Week

Topics covered include: turning 40, why LA salads are better than New York salads, NAD injectables, mouth taping, DIY Hailey Bieber smoothies, and strategically planning for a facelift.

Welcome to the HEAVIES Feelgood Routine, a series that talks to cool, interesting, and creative people about how they design their busy schedules to accommodate good habits.

Every friend group has that one open-minded homie who’s down to try anything. And last year, when I was asking around for ideas on who I should feature in the newsletter, more than a few people were like: Yo… you need to talk to Asa.

Asa Akira is an adult industry legend, author, podcaster, parent, soup lover, and certified LA hater. In other words an ideal interview for HEAVIES. She’s also onto a bunch of cutting-edge health stuff that I’ve never heard of, so we hopped on a Zoom a few weeks ago, and the conversation below was as far-ranging as it gets.

And if you enjoyed this post, consider becoming a paid subscriber for the monthly cost of a single cold brew. Also, if you buy anything linked below I may get a small commission, which will immediately go to childcare.

Chris: So everyone was like, “Get Asa on HEAVIES. She’s on another level.”

Asa: I was thinking about talking to you today and I'm like, “I don't even know where to start the conversation.” I do so much and I've done so much and I've lived in LA—so that alone. [laughs] And I just turned 40 last month.

Oh me too! Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to you too! Thirty felt like nothing and 40 is like… I can’t.

I was like 11 or 12 when my mom turned 40, and I remember being like, “Oh no, you’re going to die any day now.”

Now that I'm 40, I'm hearing all this stuff about how I have to be lifting heavy.

I hear you’re on some new workout that’s so intense you can only do it once a week?

Yeah, so this workout I'm doing is called X-Force. I want to say it’s from Denmark. Think of basic gym equipment, like a gym machine that racks all the weights for you. Every session is one-on-one with a trainer and it’s only 30 minutes long, and you can only do it once a week. Their philosophy is to train less frequently for shorter amounts of time, but way harder. So the idea is that you push a certain amount of weight. I think it's called eccentric motion?

Like when you’re decelerating or whatever?

Yeah. So the machine automatically racks your weights and then adds 40% more weight. It’s crazy how sore you get.

How did you get into X-Force?

Word of mouth. A friend was doing it, so my husband and I both started it and we love it. I do that and reformer Pilates like two or three times a week.

Are you doing it for strength?

Yeah. For me, every time I start seeing a trainer, I'm always like, “I don't want to get big!” And then the trainer’s always like, “Don't worry, you're incapable of getting big because you're a woman.” But it's completely untrue! Women get jacked all the time! And I can see myself getting more and more jacked in photos. It’s a very fine balance.

I was just talking with a friend about this, but it's crazy how as we age our only options become either (1) get really jacked or (2) wither away. Like melted bones.

I feel you. My wife is one of those people who never works out and still looks svelte, but she’s starting to have to consider her age.

My husband is like that. He doesn't work out at all, and I actually find that I have so much information. I'm not a trainer, I'm not educated in that space at all, but I’ve been working out my whole adult life. I actually have so much knowledge that I didn't even know I had.

How do you calibrate between feeling good and feeling like you have to look a certain way?

For me it always takes some time because I'm a really easy sell. I'm so susceptible to placebo effects. I will love anything in the beginning, it’ll be the greatest thing ever, and I'll convince myself that I'm seeing results. So for me, it's really just a matter of time.

The strength training thing is actually very new. I used to be one of those 6:00 a.m. Barry's Bootcamp people and that was the extent of my weightlifting. But the five pound weights at Barry's, they aren’t even hard.

Have you had to change your diet since turning 40?

I'm starting to think about it. Honestly, I never thought about protein until I had kids. Now I know how many grams of protein are in everything. Like: Oh, there’s an egg in this recipe. So I'm like, okay, that's probably like eight grams of protein.

“How can I sneak cottage cheese into these muffins” or whatever.

I think before I had kids, I only thought about nutrition in terms of how it affects the way my body looks. Especially being in porn and living in LA. That was all I really cared about. And then once I had kids, I really started thinking about nutrients. I even signed up for this farm delivery where they send me a random box of vegetables every week. It forces me to learn how to cook more, incorporate more vegetables.

Do you usually eat what your kids eat or do you make separate stuff for them?

For a few years it was a real struggle. I was definitely making my kids separate meals for a while. I think I'm out of it now, but during those first few years of my first kid's life, I was really, really obsessed with what he was eating. I had to teach myself how to be more relaxed about it. I think I'm still more uptight than your average parent; I still don't keep processed foods in the house.

I feel like all babies are really good eaters until they're two. My kids were eating, like, natto.

Oh shit.

And suddenly one day they just didn’t want to eat anything anymore. That was scary and anxiety inducing.

I’m glad you’re out of it. So what’s your go-to weeknight recipe for everyone?

So now I actually make a menu every week for dinner. [laughs]

Oh wow. So you’re a Capricorn.

Yes. Tell me you’re a Capricorn without telling me you're a Capricorn. But I just found that it's easier to have a menu when you’re buying groceries. I've been entering my cooking era. There’s a cod soup I really like. I probably make that once a week.

I don't really supplement protein. I don't even take vitamins. I really try to eat my nutrients. Maybe that'll change next week, but so far that's kind of how I feel about it.

Oh, also I do NAD.

What’s that?

Wait, you don't know about NAD?

Well now I want to know everything?

So it can be an IV or an injection. I started off by doing the IV, which you do once or twice a month. But now that I do the injections, I do it once a week.

I'm about to sound like a big, huge idiot, but it has something to do with cell turnover. It's for a lot of different things, as you can imagine. My husband does it for his chronic pain. I do it for depression and anxiety. It helps us both immensely. I don't know what it's doing, but I’ve been doing it for two years now and it changed my life. I've always had a kind of low-grade depression where maybe once a week I'll have a really cloudy day where I'm just really sluggish and don't want to leave bed—that kind of thing. And now that’s gone away.

So you do the injectable?

It's an injectable. I inject it in my stomach. You can do it into your fat or your muscle.

What else do you do?

I have this medical massage spot that I love a lot. It’s called Healingspot. They don't even speak English and I don't speak Chinese, so I'll do anything they tell me to. And sometimes they just look at my eyes and my tongue and they're like, okay, I need to do moxibustion.

I also did this tongue reading thing…

Tell me more about that. I'm really interested in getting that done.

I've had this sneaking suspicion that I'm in perimenopause for a while now, and this confirmed it. Which was cool.

I… feel like I'm saying all these things with zero evidence to back it all up. [laughs]

I’ve been going to an energy healer in Chinatown recently. I went in super skeptical. But the treatments have me feeling fresh. Less anxious.

You feel better?

Yeah. I don’t get super high or low anymore. Just steady.

That's the goal. I feel like I'm learning that the goal is not to be high so much as a nice baseline.

Do you do caffeine or anything like that in your day to day?

Yeah, I quit coffee six times a year.

Are you on or off coffee at the moment?

I’m on it right now. I always say coffee is really good for my depression, but it's really bad for my anxiety. [laughs]

“Do I want to fall asleep at a reasonable time tonight?”

Half-an-hour of happiness. But it's interesting you say that about the chi stuff. It reminds me of this lady I used to go to in Pasadena. I think she's kind of quasi-famous. Her name's Irina and she is kind of famous for doing leech therapy…

Go on.

But I saw her originally 15 years ago because I had this weird skin infection on my nipple and it was weird. It just wouldn't go away. It kept coming back. I did antibiotics. I had an ultrasound, all this stuff, and we just couldn't figure out what it was!

I forget how I even heard about her, but I went and she did this thing where she laid me down on a bed. She held my feet by my heels and then lifted them up and clicked them together as she read off a list of different bacterial infections and viruses. And I guess the idea is that the body just tells her when she says the right one. She diagnosed me that way and then she put these magnets all over my body to move my energy… and it worked? The infection went away and it never came back. And it was not the power of positive thinking because I was completely skeptical the whole time. I felt like an idiot for being there while she’s like casting a spell from Harry Potter.

I feel like I’m starting to hit an age where I’m okay if science can’t completely explain something yet. Science told us the food pyramid was good for us like less than two decades ago.

Exactly. I believe in science and modern medicine, and I think maybe you'll agree with this, but since having kids, I really feel like whatever we think now in 10 years is going to be idiotic.

Yes.

Take eggs. It's like one year eggs are good for you, and then the next year they're bad for you. And then it's don’t eat the yolk. Okay, maybe eat the yolk.

Cigarettes… maybe good for you?

There's always some asshole being like, “Actually nicotine is good for you.”

What kinds of skincare things are you into?

I do Botox. I've been using Tretinoin. It's like another retinol, I think.

I also think me and every other person I know, we all feel like we're in this weird awkward phase before we get a face lift in 10 years. I think that’s where the facial surgery space is really heading. Because we were all about fillers up until now, but fillers make everything more plump.

And maybe this is just the information I'm getting because of my age now, but everything I'm seeing now is how to prep your face for your facelift: don't get fillers, don't do the threads. And start being more strategic about what you do with your face now so that it's easier for your surgeon.

Is that something you’ve got to go to Korea to get the best one? Or can you do that in LA?

I really don't know. It's funny. I've had full body liposuction. I got full-body lipo maybe three years ago. I was 37 at the time. When you're 37 and you go around saying, “Oh, I want a facelift,” people are like, “You're crazy. You're 37!” But I told my surgeon, I was like, do you know any good face doctors for a facelift? I was fully expecting him to be like, oh yeah, you don't have to think about that for another 15 years. But then he just started listing names and price points. [laughs]

That's so funny.

The really good doctors are running 200k now for a full facelift. So I don’t know. I’ll probably go for the Korea route. I kind of want an Asian doctor who understands Asian face structure.

What else are you into?

I'm a huge fan of topical magnesium. I feel like it helps with soreness, but I feel like it's also helped with my mood. I think I'm pretty sure they say most people are deficient in it.

Oh! I've been really into stretching lately. I've found that if I stretch for 15 minutes before a workout, I work out so much better.

Stretching’s important.

And I didn't know that before. I've been raw dogging it all this time and wondering why some days are so bad. But a good stretch? Oh my God.

Where’d you get your stretching routine from?

So for a long time I was working out on the Mirror, and they have a stretching class. And so I would take that. Otherwise I would I feel so guilty paying for a stretch class. You know what I mean?

I get how that’s frivolous, but I also feel like no one’s really taught us how to stretch.

Right? I’ve always been interested in trying Doctor Stretch. Have you heard of that?

I want to try that!

Have you ever stretched with a trainer at the end of your workout?

Yeah.

I am worried that it's going to be too horny. I am married! I’m a wife.

My trainers were always like awkward college freshmen bros, so my experience is a little different from that.

I have a history of having sex with the trainers, so maybe this is a me issue.

I'll do it and report back. Watch it be 98% non horny.

It might be completely not horny. You do need a rapport.

So you didn't stretch before doing scenes in porn or anything like that?

No, I think work was the stretch routine.

I'm so washed that I feel like I’d pull a muscle.

No, for real. I pulled a muscle the other day by coughing.

Do you do anything special to get a good night's sleep or are you a bad sleeper?

Actually, I'm pretty good at sleeping. I can admit I'm pretty good. I started mouth taping.

Oh yeah. I've done that a couple times.

It also kind of sucks? It's such a commitment to put a piece of tape on your mouth. It's like, “Okay babe, any final words?” With mouth tape it’s like you have to either be single or married.

There's no in between.

You can't be dating with a mouth tape!

I’ve always had trouble breathing through my nose because my seasonal allergies are so bad.

There’s this thing I love that’s like a better Neti Pot. It’s called the SinuPulse. It's like a hundred bucks on Amazon and it lasts forever. It's amazing. It looks like one of those old school water picks that sits next to your sink. So you jam it into your nose or just like, and it blows water into one side and pulls water out the other. I can confirm it’s good.

Is there anything else that you do where your friends or family are like, hmmmm. Why?

I think the most controversial thing I do is probably this stuff called Melanotan. Have you heard of if? It’s called Melanotan II, actually. It's melanin injections and it helps you tan. It's really big in the bodybuilding community and the surfing community. People who burn easily will do it in the sun when they're surfing.

Are there any side effects from doing it or?

Well it's not, like, FDA approved. So I have heard from this shady site in Europe. But the side effects are kind of crazy. It makes you really nauseated.

Oh wow?

It makes my face flush but I think that's everyone. I don't think it's just because of Asian flush. They say it suppresses your appetite, but I think it's really just because you're so nauseated for the first half hour after you do it. It's so nauseating that I cannot do it during the day. I have to do it at night.

How often do you have to do it?

When I'm doing it, I do it once a week. Right now, I'm not doing it, because the thing with it is that you do have to have some sun exposure, so when I was living in LA, I would do it year round. I was also laying out in the sun a lot. Now I only do it during the summer months. It makes you look so nice in tan. And I love being tan, so.

Then what else? I think that's probably the only controversial thing I'm doing right now. Oh. I'm really big on bone broth.

Do you have a go-to recipe?

I wouldn't say it's even a recipe. Every two weeks I'll just make a big batch. It's just a bunch of bones from the butcher, and then I'll put in 20 chicken feet for the collagen.

Do you drink that every day?

I'll either drink it every day or I'll cook with it every day. For my birthday gift this year, my husband is making me two big batches of soup every month for a year.

Oh that's amazing. Are his soups really good?

He’s really good at cooking. And soup is kind of time consuming. It's a commitment. It’s a lot of chopping.

You can't make a two-person soup.

It's impossible.

You've made Haley Bieber's Erewhon smoothie too, right?

Yeah, I made a dupe. I found a dupe recipe.

Does that include the 70 grams of sugar or whatever?

I haven't gotten into measuring sugar. Is that a macro? I have the recipe in my Notes that I’ll send you, but that smoothie is so good.

I still haven’t tried it. Every time I’m in LA for work I’m just far enough from an Erewhon where Ubering there would be stupid.

If you Seamless it or DoorDash it becomes like a $50 smoothie.

Maybe I’ll just rent a car next time I’m out there.

It’s not overhyped. That's how good it is. I've tried the other celebrity ones, but they're not as good as the Hailey Bieber one. That's one thing I really miss about LA.

I hate LA at this point, but I really miss that you can get a delicious, healthy salad anywhere at any time.

It’s better than any city except maybe New York.

In New York you can get a salad anywhere but it's not an LA salad.

What was your go-to spot to get a salad in LA?

I really like Goop Kitchen. I mean, it's impossible not to be basic in LA. And I think the niçoise salad from Urth Caffé is so, so good. I also don't live there anymore, so I don't really know. My information's probably a little bit dated.

This is not healthy at all, but there's something called the Spanish Latte at Urth Caffé…

What's in it?

I'm pretty sure it's just half condensed milk.

So you really are a coffee person.

Yeah. Sometimes I'll go down to one a day and then it's so much better for my sleep, but I just can't make it through the afternoon. It's so hard.

I've been wondering lately if I should just, instead of quitting—and this is such addict-speak—but I'm wondering if I should just move my one-a-day to the afternoon instead of the morning, because there is a point at two, three o'clock where I'm like, I can't stay awake.

That's where I'm at most days, especially if I get up early to work out.

And sometimes your real work begins when the kids get home. This is a really annoying trad wife hack, and it's so obnoxious to even say, but for me, a game changer has been to wake up 30 minutes earlier than the kids.

What time do they wake up?

They have to wake up at six for school. But even just to get their school lunch together by myself has been a much nicer way to wake up.

So you're up at pre-dawn hours.

It’s crazy! I don't think schools should start this early. It doesn't feel right to start school at 7:45, especially with work.

Yeah it’s like, we’re not all farmers anymore.

And yet we’re all just doing it…

Other news:

• I was on Vox’s Today, Explained podcast talking about my protein story for New York Mag, where I likely set a new record for my usage of “like”s and “dudeee”s.

• Over at SSENSE, Alex Frank went inside the apartment of the legend Amanda Lepore, who to my great horror apparently shares a bathroom with everyone who lives on her floor.

• Also please DM me (or leave a comment) with your pressing wellness questions for the next reader mailbag. Thanks for reading.