Expert Q&A: Movement as medicine and the role of muscle in functional health with Kristin Oja

The following interview is a transcript excerpt from The Heallist Podcast episode. Listen to the full audio version below and subscribe to get notified of new episodes.

In this episode of the Heallist Podcast, we explore movement as medicine with Kristin Oja, DNP, founder of Stat Wellness, a lifestyle medicine practice that brings strength training, physical therapy, health coaching, and functional medicine together under one roof. Kristin explains why muscle may be one of the most important foundations of long-term health, how functional medicine looks for root causes across a person’s entire health timeline, and why small, consistent “movement snacks” often outperform ambitious fitness goals.

This episode is offered for educational and reflective purposes only. It does not provide medical advice or recommend specific treatments. Its goal is to add context to complex health decisions and highlight the value of informed, personalized care across medical and integrative paradigms.

Muscle As The Foundation Of Health

Kristin Oja: We always say movement is medicine because to me it’s very black and white. When you look at what matters most if you want to live longer, it’s maintaining muscle on our body. The more muscle we have, the longer we live, and this has been well studied. So I thought, if I want to help my patients live longer, I need to put weights, kettlebells, and barbells in my medical practice.

Muscle helps protect our bones. Whether it’s osteopenia or osteoporosis, the more muscle we have, the lower our chance of fractures. I always say muscle is the opposite of diabetes, because the more muscle you have, the more glucose it utilizes. The more muscle we have, the faster our metabolism is, and the faster we can react when we trip on a rug. That means higher chances of living independently, seeing the world, and traveling. Any movement is fantastic, but muscle is really the foundation of wellness.

As a culture, we’ve always focused on how to move more and eat less. When you change the narrative to “How do I build muscle? How do I move pain-free? How do I have the best energy of my life?” you get to fuel your body more and move in ways that feel good. Exercise used to be very aesthetic. Now it’s very functional in nature, which is why it aligns so well with functional medicine.

Functional Medicine And Root Causes

Kristin Oja: At all of our locations, we would never get just your weight. If you’re on a fitness journey and building muscle, you may gain weight, and in a traditional primary care visit all they see is that you’ve gained 10 pounds since last year. That 10 pounds might need to be celebrated. So when you come to Stat as a new patient, we get a body composition. I don’t care what your weight or your BMI is. I do care about your visceral fat and your muscle mass.

We describe functional medicine as a root cause form of medicine. In my training, we were taught to match a symptom with a treatment. If you come in feeling depressed, I find the right medication or refer you to a therapist. A sinus infection gets the right antibiotic.

Functional medicine says we need to understand your entire health timeline. I want to know about your mom’s pregnancy, your birth, whether you were allowed to play in the dirt, how many antibiotics you were on, whether you felt nurtured and loved, and what you ate at the dinner table as a child. Our health today is a picture of our past.

For a patient who was born via C-section, wasn’t breastfed, and had chronic ear infections treated with many antibiotics, I’m going to think about gut health. For someone whose health took a turn when their parents divorced and they started having sleep and stress issues, I might focus more on their adrenal glands and nervous system. There are often multiple imbalances, so we peel back the layers and partner with patients long term.

When functional medicine is done right, there is never one quick fix. Nothing should bypass your lifestyle: how you sleep, eat, move, manage stress, and maintain relationships. Movement is one of those pillars, and I think it’s one of the most important.

Take hemoglobin A1C, a three-month average of blood sugar control. A range of 5.7 to 6.4 is pre-diabetic. At 5.6, you’re told you’re fine and we’ll see you next year, but you’re 0.1 away from pre-diabetes. We want to help you understand that you’re straddling the line. Let’s get you a continuous glucose monitor, manage stress, improve sleep, and balance your meals. Maybe you’re missing Akkermansia in your gut, which helps with GLP-1 production. Maybe your muscle mass is at 89% of where it needs to be. We look at the root causes affecting your metabolic health rather than waiting until you’re diabetic to start treatment.

Desk Jobs And Movement Snacks That Work

Kristin Oja: Life has seasons where it gets really full, and everybody is doing some lifestyle variables better than others. We need to view our health as something dynamic. If you sit for your job, start with a 10-minute walk after lunch. Research shows a two- to five-minute walk after a meal is enough to lower post-meal blood sugar.

Many people I’ve worked with have no idea how they feel when they wake up. We could accomplish a lot by taking a minute or two each morning to ask: How did I sleep? How’s my energy? How’s my gut? What do I want to focus on today?

I have three kids, eight business locations, and almost a hundred employees. I used to work out for an hour five days a week, and I can’t anymore. So I asked what I’d tell myself if I were my own patient. I committed to a 12-minute workout every day at the same time. Sometimes it turns into 45 minutes, sometimes it stays at 12, but I’m consistent. Fitness is functional: picking things up off the ground without hurting your back, reaching the top of your closet, playing on the floor with grandkids, or carrying a 20-pound infant car seat.

Sarcopenia, or muscle wasting, is often thought to start at 60, 70, or 80. In truth, it starts around age 30, and we can lose 8% of our muscle mass every decade if we aren’t strength training and fueling our body with both protein and carbohydrates. If we’re losing muscle, we’re aging faster. Heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the US, and per the CDC, it’s one of the most modifiable conditions.

Research also shows that if you work out for an hour but sit the other 23 hours, you lose a lot of the longevity benefits of movement. When we move, our heart beats more, our lymphatic system drains more, and our cardiovascular health improves. I’m a huge proponent of walking pads. At our headquarters, I can easily walk a 5K in one day during meetings.

Whatever you do for your health should work within your lifestyle and shouldn’t create stress. Try habit stacking with “movement snacks”: a walk after lunch, squats while doing laundry, calf raises while something cooks, balancing on one foot while brushing your teeth. Patients who embrace small steps are far more consistent than those who commit to the gym three days a week, then fall off after travel or kids’ sports. Little by little, a little becomes a lot.

Data can be motivating for some people, but for others it dictates their day. Some patients wake up feeling great, check their wearable, see poor recovery scores, and suddenly feel horrible. Your mental health is part of your physical health. What small changes can you commit to consistently?

Building A Movement-Based Care Model

Kristin Oja: Our goal is putting the health back in healthcare. The US has some of the best sick care in the world, but in terms of health span and lifespan, we’re one of the most unhealthy countries, because our focus is on sick care rather than health care.

We built a model with unlimited health coaching, unlimited dietitian consults, physical therapy, strength training, functional medicine, lab draws, body composition scans, and VO2 max testing, all under one roof. We do supplements, diagnostic testing, and peptides when appropriate, but we want patients to understand that lifestyle matters most.

My background started in personal training. I saw clients do a squat without knee pain for the first time, and the domino effect that followed: less depression, more confidence. Then I went into nursing and worked a med-surg floor, where patients came in with a brown bag of medications from 10 different specialists. I kept thinking that if we reduced their inflammation, many of their issues could improve.

When I got into functional medicine, I saw patients every four months. They’d leave motivated, then life would happen and they’d come back feeling bad that they hadn’t followed through. That’s what formed Stat Wellness: a third space where your only responsibility is to show up and learn how your body works. If you meet with a health coach every week and pick one microscopic goal, you’ll be a better version of yourself by the end of the year.

Many patients already know what they need to change. Applying those lifestyle changes is the most difficult and most important part. You need community, an understanding of the why, and unlimited access, so you don’t feel like you’re pulling out your credit card every time.

We opened in 2019 and now have eight locations and 12,000 patients. We didn’t do any marketing until 2025, and we still don’t have a CRM, because I wanted to build the model around the patient. My patients are my marketing. I believe connection is one of the most powerful forms of medicine.

If a patient comes back and says they didn’t do anything I suggested, they shouldn’t feel ashamed. That means I should have made it simpler. Let’s regroup and pick one thing so they feel accomplished next time.

We’ve seen significant improvements in markers like C-reactive protein, supported many successful fertility journeys, and helped some people with Hashimoto’s lower their thyroid antibodies and come off thyroid medication. We’ve also helped people come off sleep medication by working on sleep hygiene. When someone has seen 15 specialists, we go back to the basics and back to biology. These changes take time, which is why consistency matters.

Making Functional Medicine More Accessible

Kristin Oja: Insurance currently doesn’t cover this type of care well, so for us it’s about scale: more patients, staff, locations, and reach. Our membership is $185 a month and includes unlimited health coaching, unlimited dietitian access, five functional medicine visits, and three physical therapy sessions. When setting the price, I thought about what someone would pay for a boutique gym. Many functional medicine practices also accept HSAs and FSAs.

Diagnostic testing and supplements can give more information, but start with the foundations. Look at how you’re eating, sleeping, and moving before investing in expensive tests. Not everybody is a zebra. Sometimes we just need to sleep better, move better, build relationships, give hugs, and laugh.

Don’t wait until your schedule opens up. Treat movement like a medication someone told you to take every day. Put it on your schedule. It’s okay to start with five or 10 minutes. Some of my patients do 10 push-ups before every shower. Life is too short not to feel your best, so work with someone you trust, learn how your body works, and don’t try to fix it all at once.

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