[Beginnings & Breakthroughs] Overcome Sugar Addiction with Alicia Snyder

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Welcome to Beginnings and breakthroughs. This is where I celebrate and coach people just like you who are on a mission to heal their metabolisms, feel better fast and live their best lives. We will be walking through what's worked for them and what they've discovered on their journeys. And then I'll coach them on their next best steps. And if you're interested in being a guest, stay tuned and I'll be sharing how you can join me too. Welcome to a new another session of beginnings and Breakthroughs. I am super excited to introduce Alicia Schneider to you. She is a registered respiratory therapist who works on flight transport teams in Cardinal Glennon. I gotta tell you, when I hear that because of what, you know, nearly losing a son who was on a flight transport and, you know, had this going on, she shout out to you first for what an amazing career and the work that you do. And I'm super excited to share Alicia with you. She started on the Virgin diet through her doctor, her functional medicine doctor, Dr. Chris Warner. And Dr. Chris Warner's business is healthy by design. So big shout out to Dr. Chris Warner too and we are going to talk about her experience with the Virgin diet and then we are going to walk through where she's going to go from, from there. Based on what's going on, I think you're probably gonna hear a lot of things in the story that you're going, ah, that's just like me. That's what I need. So there's lots of great takeaways all throughout this coaching session. And if you would love a coaching session, either you're just beginning or you had a breakthrough on one of my programs and you're looking for where to go next. All you need to do is go to jjvirgin.com signup and we will be in touch to see about having you on the show. All right, I will be right back, so stay with me.

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Okay, Alicia, so what I'd love to do is start from the beginning of our relationship together. When did you find me and how did that happen? And what was going on with you? What were you looking to change?

Okay. I was in a low point in my life. I had reached out to a couple of. I had seen an endocrinologist because I had noticed a nodule on my thyroid and I just wasn't feeling myself tired all the time. I just didn't feel right. So I went to see an endocrinologist where they told me that I was fat and depressed, which I was aware, but I wanted to know why? Because I am an active person. I do like healthy foods. I do, you know, so.

And did they ever tell you anything about the nodule?

So I got a biopsy on it and they basically said, oh, it's benign, so we're just going to watch it.

And I was not the old famous watching.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I have a really good relationship with my chiropractor, who then had been working with me for some sensitivity training on some other things. And he sent me to a functional endocrinologist. His name is Dr. Chris Warner. So I met with him and sat and cried in his office. And it was a two hour doctor's appointment. And so he, you know, we set out on a plan with supplements. I was to read this book, the Virgin Diet. So I ordered the book, read it, and got started on it. And he uses your book, actually for a lot of his patients.

I have to know this guy.

Shout out to him. He is.

Shout out to him. Dr. Chris Warner.

Dr. Chris Warner. He is with. It's called Health by Design and it's located in Chesterfield, Missouri.

All right. That just makes me beyond excited. And we need more functional medicine, doctors doing the work. So A plus all the way around. Okay, so then what happened?

So I started October 11th of 2021, and by day three of my virgin diet experience, I was having those intense cravings that you talked about in the book.

So you thought, this is fantastic.

You know, it was crazy how good I felt. But even in the first two days, the mindset had changed. It wasn't just trying a diet, it was. It was just different. So I got through day three and day four of the. Of the cravings. And I guess I'm one for self torture because I left. It was coming up on Halloween, so candy all over my house because it's a big, big deal in our subdivision and managed to get through my cravings. And it was wonderful. I had fun finding things that didn't have the high five foods in there. It became a game almost.

Hear that, everybody? Fun.

It's a game.

And you know what's so cool is when I first wrote the book, we're redoing it now, and it's going to come out as swap to drop in January 2024, because there's so many swaps now. There's so many awesome things. Right. It's so much easier than it was.

I really enjoyed. It was just. It really was fun. I got a couple friends on it as well. One friend that had been battling like a skin issue for two years. And I'm like, dude, I'm telling you, it's got to be this or it's got, you know, you got to read this book. And so her and I had fun. You know, she would find something that I hadn't found yet, and then I would find something like, you got to try this salsa. There's zero sugar in it. It's, you know, so it was fun.

Cool. Okay, so what happened?

So I am down in my weight. I have stayed away from gluten because that was a huge. I mean, I triggered within, I don't know, 30 minutes of eating the pasta that I had.

And what happened?

I bloated out to, like, I was seven months pregnant. I couldn't breathe. Like, that feeling of. And I think you talk about it in the book, too. Like, when you eat a meal, you're supposed to be contently full, but not, like, I can't breathe full. And while eating that, I was like, oh, I just feel like I'm so full. But I hadn't even. I don't even think I'd eaten a quarter of it yet. I already felt the fullness. But then after that, the bloat came along, and I was. I was miserable. Like, I was showing my stepdaughter I had a T shirt.

Look. I look pregnant. You know what I love about that is it takes away this idea of, I think I'll have a cheat day. You know, because you're like, oh, no way.

No, no. Like, I mean, it. It is legit. Of somebody offering you something, and you're like, oh, I can't have that. No, I do think so. I've noticed. I mean, I'll be completely honest. I didn't have a reaction to soy, so I was like, okay, you know, no reaction whatnot.

And do we know anything about your thyroid nodule? Is your thyroid normal?

It's. It got smaller, so the nodules started to get smaller. I mean, I couldn't even, like, wash my back in the shower without pushing it into my airway and sending me into a coughing fit. I don't want to have surgery. When I talked to Dr. Werner, he said. He goes, I'm not saying that surgery is completely out, but let's do these things. Let's do the elimination. Let's do. Since I have not been direct with keeping soy out, I've noticed the nodules right here, and it starting to come back again. So today I've in my phase two of elimination, so I'm going to do another round of it.

Okay, so soy gluten, any other ones that you noticed didn't work well for you?

Dairy? I break out horribly.

Me too. Isn't that a bummer?

It is.

Because I love cheese.

Who doesn't? I don't trust someone who doesn't love cheese. The reality is, very few People are loved back by cheese. That's the sad thing. But there's a lot of options out there now, thankfully. Okay, so dairy, gluten, soy. I think we're so much better off not having these in the diet anyway. How about corn or peanuts?

So I haven't had any reaction to corn or peanuts. I still try to stay away from that stuff, though. Like, anything, because I just, I resort back to what your book says about it, and I'm. I'm blown away. Like, oh, I'm, you know, I know that they talk about corn where you don't really get much out of it, but not only do you get much out of it, it's not putting great things in your body, you know.

So now if you're at a barbecue and they've got organic corn on the cob and, you know, they're barbecuing it, hey, big deal. But if you're, like eating all this processed GMO corn, this is a major problem. Major, major, major, major. And the problem is that's really where people are getting their corn, so. Yikes. So, yeah, that's. I mean, that's what I talk about. Just, you know, I mean, gosh, you could do peanuts legume, you know, one of the more moldy crops, or you could do all these tree nuts, which have better fatty acid profile. Not a hard thing to do. And then what. What's your story with sugar?

Oh, sugar is my worst enemy. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I would if I. If I sat here and was like, oh, I'm so good at staying away from it, I would be absolutely lying to you. So in this whole process as well, I have stopped drinking alcohol. I realized that that was a problem. But I've noticed that I've kind of replaced that vice with my sugar intake.

I will tell you, when I was working a lot in Palm, the Palm Springs area with clients. And so as a result, I had clients that were coming out of Betty Ford. It's big center there. And what would happen? Not saying that you're a Betty Ford level like, but what I saw there was that once someone got through the alcohol, they went straight to sugar if we didn't fix it. So, yeah, so we can talk about that, too. So in any issue with eggs?

No.

Great. I love pastured eggs if you can handle them. A lot of people with autoimmune disease, it can be a trigger. So then really, you know that soy, gluten, dairy are out, that you really are just staying away from corn and peanuts. And so it sounds like where we really need to focus next is on the sugar. And that is why I wrote Sugar Impact Diet. And we'll get to that in a moment. So tell me what happened in terms of like weight loss symptom shifts, where, you know, what changed and now where do you want to go from here?

Okay, so first weight loss I lost, I think I lost 13 pounds in the first week and a half.

Wow.

Yeah, it was very, it was, it was quick, but it wasn't like I could feel the difference in my clothing. So I tried to stay. And still I try to stay off the scale because I know sometimes that can get frustrating.

We're going to talk about how to use a scale correctly, but when you lose that kind of weight that quickly, it is. You were having inflammatory response to that stuff, right?

Yeah, yeah. So to me it was kind of eye opening in the sense of like, what have I been doing to my body? Even, even stuff that I maybe thought healthy, like, oh, I'm having popcorn as a snack, you know, and stuff like that. So I lost the weight. I ended up losing a total of £25 once all was said and done.

I.

Used to be really ragey.

Very.

Short tempered, very, you know, I have a six year old, so it was, if it wasn't the way I expected it, you know, it was a yelling household for the most part. And I've. That has, like, it's very much, I'm very much now back to my, my old self that I feel like where I'm. Oh, I mean, like, let's talk about it. Let's, you know. And again, I'd be lying if I, if it, if I said there wasn't any because, you know, she sticks. But I've, I've calmed down a lot. I'm not as anxious and high strung and I do a lot of affirmations. I do a lot of meditation now to help as well. And I overall just feel so good. And that's why I was like, oh, you know, let's do another round.

Well, where would you like to go from here? Like what, you know, you look forward three to six months a year and what would have changed in your health so that you can do, you know, again, like, you talk about how different your household is. We don't get healthy to get healthy. We get healthy because of what it allows us to do. Right. So what, like, you know, where do you want to be? What do you want to see shift in your health? Like, what is going to happen here? Because we'll future self it and then we can make it happen.

So really, I don't want to feel dependent on sugar to make me happy. I don't want that. Oh, I just need a Dr. Pepper with the carbonation and the, you know, or the, oh, I, you know, these gummy bears are gluten free. I can eat that.

Beware the gluten free trap.

Beware, you know, but it's, it's, it's. Oh, I can have this little, you know, this little treatment. It's. I want, I don't want to depend on sugar because, you know, I used to depend on alcohol and I've successfully. I will be nine months sober on the 11th, so.

Well, if you can do that, you can do this.

I know, I know.

So let's do this. Okay, so get rid of the sugar. I'll tell you, when I wrote sugar impact diet, I wrote it after the virgin diet. Because when I first was playing around with the virgin diet online, it was not drop seven foods, it was drop six foods was gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, peanuts. I do not have a sweet tooth, could care less. I would plow through like salty any day of the week, but crunchy. But sugar, nah. And so I tell people to pull these six foods out and guess what they go eat. And I'm like, what are you doing? Just like you said, oh, there's gluten free gummy bears. I'm like, oh, my gosh, stop it. So, um, so I realized I had to pull seven because really, when you look at it, the thing that can massively disrupt your gut microbiome, sugar and especially fructose. And of course artificial sweeteners we know make us glucose intolerant. So I was like, all right, you know, we gotta get rid of this stuff. And I had people coming off the virgin diet who were like, you know, gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, peanuts, no problem. But I can't quit the sugar. And, or people that were going, but it's honey. It's like, like honey sugar, it's honey. It's fruit juice concentrate. It's. But I'm using Splenda. So I was like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to tackle this one next. And my goal was to clear up all this confusion out there. It's really not about eating a no sugar diet. You know, all carbohydrates turn to sugar. We just want to make sure that we are making them slowly from the food we eat, not mainlining sugar. And so it's really knowing which to choose, which to lose and. And getting control of your sweet tooth. Because unless you retrain your taste buds to appreciate like a blueberry or cinnamon or vanilla as sweet, you will be trapped. And that is why these things that are out there, that are treats, totally undermine you, because it's like your body goes, ooh, ooh, you know, wow, I need more of that. And where reality is, you know, we weren't built to be in a world with food available all the time and food that's been developed by food companies to be overly sweet and not very satisfying so that you eat it and you go, oh, boy, that was good. I need more, right? And I think that's one of the big differences between eating more whole foods and sitting down, eating a real meal versus eating some of that stuff is you're just never really satisfied. You just want more. So that's what I did with the sugar impact diet. That is going to be the one that you're going to want to move into because we've really uncovered your hidden food intolerances. Now we need to retrain your taste buds to appreciate the natural sweetness. We need to get rid of your sweet tooth because you can't white knuckle your way through it. Like, when I looked at all the sugar stuff, I went, the biggest mistake we're doing out there is. And it was very helpful being in Palm Springs with the Betty Ford Clinic, because what I saw there was they would take them out of the environment where they got in trouble and put them in there until they got them through it. But with food, you can't do that. What are you going to do?

We eat.

It's all around us. You can decide you're not going to go to a bar or have alcohol in your house, but you can't, because I'm not going to have food here. I mean, you could. It's not going to work for very long. So one of the things I first discovered about this is that if we lead first with protein, that for so many of us, we're not getting enough protein. Protein is like we have three macronutrients, and then I really wish fiber was considered one and water. Now, what's interesting is we have protein, fat and carbohydrates. We can live without carbohydrates, but we can't live without protein. And fat. And protein of all of those macronutrients is the most satisfying satiating. It's also the most thermic. It takes like 20 to 30% more calories just to have your body assimilate it. It's going to help you with your muscle mass, which when you've got better muscle mass, more muscle mass, which as soon as we start to get over the age of 35, 40, we start to become anabolically resistant where we can't build muscle as easily. When you have more muscle, you have better glucose tolerance, you are more insulin sensitive. So that's really going to be your next step, is working through that so that you break free of it. Because that's what we have to do, you know, so that's what we're going to work on. But I have a couple questions for you first before we get into that. Number one, how's your sleep?

My sleep. Let's rewind to three weeks ago when I didn't have the puppy.

Yeah. Without a puppy. See, I got our puppy and I wasn't home for three weeks and my son was and he trained the puppy. And when we came home, the puppy sleeps through the night.

Lucky you.

Lucky you. Yeah.

Right before he went home, he was sleeping five or six hours, but that was just for two nights. So before that I, that was another thing that I really, with seeing Dr. Warner, I really changed. Like I said, it was a mindset thing. So I do have shift work as far as I work night shift and 24 hour shifts with work. And I was not making sleep a priority. Like I was like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Or you know, I've got.

Oh yeah, I love that statement. It's like, well, that's good because you'll be dead soon. You'll be dead.

I mean, I would work, I would maybe take a two hour nap during the day. I'd go in tonight, my night shift at 7pm, I'd get off at 7:30 in the morning. And then if I had things to do, I would just stay up. It was horrible.

All right, so what do you do? Besides puppy situation?

Yeah. No. So now sleep is a priority. Sleep has become where I want to be in bed by 9, 9:30. My little one will wake up anywhere from 6 to 7, just depending on the day. And I went from not being a morning person at all, I mean, struggling to even get out of bed some days, to being ready like, all right, let's get up and let's go. So when she comes in, I'm up for the day. When I do work on my 24 hour shift that I work, I do try to nap as much as possible because you never know when you're going to get a call and if you'll be up during the night because of work. So I kind of take the day to really sleep, but I've really tried to make sleep a priority and I've really seen the difference.

Cool. And how often are you on shifts that you have to interrupt your sleep?

I have one 24 hour shift a week and one 12 hour night shift.

Okay. So the one thing I'd recommend there. Are you using any kind of sleep tracker like an oura ring or an apple watch or anything?

I do have my apple watch.

Cool. So I would just definitely keep track of it especially when you have your shift so you can make sure that you are pregnant. Prioritizing sleep. I'm glad that you have. That's such a big one. Especially for where we're moving into next which is really watching insulin sensitivity, blood sugar balance and like poor sleep. You're done. And you probably notice it when you've got a 24 hour shift or a night shift like the next day you're hungrier and. Right. And you're not hungry for salmon, lo and behold. So be aware of that. Next thing is what so your thyroid nodule, thyroid hormone levels. Everything there is fine.

Everything would always come back in the. And I'm going to do my little quotes here, quote unquote normal range.

Which I'd be concerned if you didn't have a functional medicine doctor. With the functional medicine doctor, they're not going to put you into the lame normal. They're going to put you into the ideal normal. So. Right.

And he looked at so many different other things that goes into that. It wasn't just like oh, like your T3 and everything. It was oh well yeah, those might be in the typical western medicine normal range. However you have this, this and this that's going on that could be playing into that as well.

So you weigh yourself. Do you have a scale that also does your body composition?

That I do not.

Okay. This is an expenditure you're going to want to get. We just were going through them to find there is a Tanita scale that's like 100 bucks or less that does body composition. And I will put the link on my website too. So if you're listening to this going I want this scale. I'll put it on my website under resources. But it's basically a body composition scale that tells your visceral fat and what we are going to want to watch. Now, do you know what your waist and hip measurements are?

I have them in the notes on My phone, my hips. The last I measured were. Well, and I haven't remeasured, I guess since I've lost all my weight.

Oh, well.

Yeah.

Okay.

So when should we measure?

Yes. So I want to get off of looking at a scale for weight. Here's an idea. Do you remember when we used to just look at total cholesterol and you'd look at total cholesterol and make a decision on people's health? And then we realized that total cholesterol was not a meaningful number that you needed to see what was the different types LDL and hdl. Then we went further and went, that's not even meaningful. We have to see their particle size and number. It's the same with weight. You got to know what your weight's made up of. Right?

Right.

So 150 pound woman who has 30% body fat is in a completely different health state, metabolically healthy state, than a woman who's got 20% body fat. One's metabolically healthy, one is not. What I want to do is we've got so much weirdness around scales and scales are purely biometric tools that it's not a mean friend. It's not there to shame you. It's there for you to first go, okay, what is my weight made up of? And for you to approach it as a scientist, as a researcher, as a detective. Right. Not as the evil twin who's going to go say bad things about yourself. So that's overdone. You go in there and you go, okay, so if I weigh whatever it is, and I'm just going to use £150 as an example, I want to know what my weight is made up of. And there's two big components that you're going to get on the scale. One is fat and one is everything else. And everything else is called your lean body mass. Your lean body mass is your organs and your bones and your muscle. The thing you can really change there is your muscle. You're not going to all of a sudden get your organs growing. If you are, there's a bigger problem or getting a lot of bone density. It's your muscle. And your muscle changes everything. Because if you are holding onto and building muscle, and for so many people, it's like they're sitting here trying to lose weight when they really need to put on muscle. It's like they're approaching the wrong direction. Right?

Right.

So muscle holds everything in tighter, increases your metabolism dramatically. Takes a lot for your body to maintain muscle on your body, build it and maintain it. And it also is where you first start to get really good blood sugar control and your insulin starts to get sensitive. So I want you to have a body comp scale and specifically one that can tell visceral, what's called visceral adiposity. It's the fat around your gut because that stuff's the really bad stuff that's more inflammatory. And we want to make sure. I just had someone who went from six pounds of visceral fat to two. That is like a big win. And reality is we want you to be somewhere between, you know, for women, the range is 15 to 25% athletic, 15 to 20% normal, 18 to 22%. You can scooch up to 25%, but more than that, don't recommend it. So we really want to see where you're at and what needs to happen for you to get there. And if you're building muscle, you will then boost your metabolism and get better at burning fat. It will happen, but if you focus on just losing weight, you might lose some of that muscle and you'll actually start to slow down your metabolism, make yourself worse, not better. You also want to be watching your waist and hip measurements to make sure that you're losing your waist as you're losing weight and that your waist to hip ratio is 0.8 or less. Like what you don't want to have people you know, have yourself be a one to one ratio. You got to make sure that your waist is coming down. I would say if you're losing weight but not losing your waist, you're actually making yourself worse, not better because you might be becoming sarcopenic losing muscle. In order to do that, number one, you've got to monitor correctly with a body composition scale and once a week doing your waist and hip measurement. Number two, you need to then work on exercise that's going to help improve muscle mass.

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So what are you doing for exercise?

So exercise I've been doing, I started Asana Revel yoga. So I've been doing yoga at trying to do it at least three Times a week.

What kind of yoga is that?

It's an app called Asana.

Oh, okay, so it's an app. So what style yoga are you doing?

So has me on this like beginners or I guess it had me on this beginner's plan. And it kind of gives me a video daily. Like when I go, then the next video happens and then the next video.

How hard is it?

I like it moderate. I definitely like a challenge. I think I could be challenged more.

All right, so can you change it? Because here's what we want to have happen. You want to. And I think yoga is a great thing, but it's not going to be enough where I'd love you to do yoga maybe once or twice a week. I'd also like you to do some real resistance training. Yoga is going to give you good resistance training with body weight. But it's hard. You're not going to get everything you need from that. So another easy thing to do at home is to get a TRX trainer. These are like 120 bucks. You can go on YouTube and see all sorts of. I mean there's so many different things you can do with this. So if you have a TRX trainer and a couple sets of dumbbells and maybe one of those big stability balls, you can pretty much get a full on home workout.

Okay.

So you can create a home gym for like you know, 200, 250 bucks.

We've got, and we've got a lot of stuff. It's just that is, it's making excuses basically.

Yeah. So stop that downstairs.

Yeah, stop excuses.

Just stop it. Any other thing you need help with, just don't do that. You have to. And this is honestly why I love personal trainers. That and I learned it early on. I was a personal trainer 30 years ago and, and I first was really lenient. Oh, if you can't show up, just let me know, you know. And then I was like, no, you get, you get charged whether you show up or not. And I started to think I should probably charge double if you don't show up. Because the biggest reason I think personal trainers are successful with people is because people show up. Yeah, it's the number one success strategy. Show up. So you got to put that in your calendar every day some movement daily. As a non negotiable.

Yeah. I actually had before I saw my functional doctor, I was seeing a personal trainer because I was to the point like something has to change, something has to change. But was just missing that additional little piece. I had Stopped seeing her, you know, just because I was like, nothing's, nothing's happening.

Well, when you want to shift your body composition, step one is to fix your diet. Step two is to add this piece in. And I think that one of the best ways to use a personal trainer is to have them come and set up a routine for you and then like once a month come and mix it up and give you the things to do. Unless you're not disciplined enough, in which case then you need to have them come over. But get disciplined, right?

Yeah.

Okay. What do you take supplement wise?

Oh my goodness, I have a whole list. I take a multivitamin D3K2, I take a vitamin C powder. I take a probiotic and magnesium, zinc. I take biotin and let's see what else.

The one thing I'm wondering about, and this would be great one to talk to your functional medicine doctor about.

Sure.

Is sometimes. Now this is where really making sure your sleep is dialed. You're adding in resistance training. You're going to lead protein first with this diet and I'm going to walk you through sugar impact diet which will help tremendously. But I heard you say these sugar cravings and the one thing I thought of is it may be interesting for you to do a trial of five htp.

Ok.

And it's I have it in my sleep candy. So I take it at night before bed. That's one way you could do it. You could try taking 50 milligrams in the morning, in the evening and see if that helps of just straight that. But when I hear that I always go, gosh, you know, we should do trial 5 HTP and see if maybe you are just your serotonin is a little low and that's why you're craving sweets because it can make that happen. So just put that in there. Now walk me through like what's your typical eating day? What time do you eat your meals? Do you snack in between? What's typical for you?

Typically it is I am a horrible breakfast person.

All right, we're going to reframe that because we're not going to apologize or say things like that about ourself.

Okay?

There are enough other people that will.

Say I don't like eating breakfast. How about that?

Well, you don't have to eat, you don't have to eat breakfast. Why don't you like eating it?

I'm just not a, I don't really like breakfast foods. I mean even some people will be like, oh, let's have breakfast for dinner and I'm like, no, thank you.

But most breakfast foods are desserts. So that makes me happy. Realize that breakfast is breaking the fast. You could do that at 11, you could do it at noon. You can do it whenever. You don't have to eat breakfast. All the rules are out. I used to be really hardcore. Eat within an hour of waking up, but the research really doesn't support that. It does support eating more of your calories during the normal circadian rhythm. So you don't go, okay, I'm just going to eat it all at night. No, don't do that. And it does support stopping eating at least three to four hours before bed and going to bed at a normal decent hour and really optimizing circadian rhythm. So sleep when it's dark, be up when it's light. Eat the majority of your calories earlier in the light time when you're really active. So that's, that's key. But you know, if you could do your perfect eating for you, what would it look like? Like, that would make you happy and work with your, like when you're hungry, etc.

So perfect eating for me would be.

By perfect, I mean that makes you happy that you're being perfect. Okay.

Okay. Usually waking up, drinking my coffee to get me get my little caffeine jolt.

What time do you wake up?

Anywhere from 6 to 7.

Okay. Anything in your coffee?

Almond creamer.

Any sugar in that?

Yes, there is, but I like black coffee too, so I know that I could.

So let's just have black coffee. That actually breaks your fast and messes up something called autophagy, which we want to extend because it's basically your body's cellular detox. Okay, so we have coffee, Then what happens?

Then it's usually bouncing around the house running errands and stuff. If I do lunch, usually my lunches are lighter. And that was something that I did discuss with Dr. Warner is eating a heavier lunch and then my lighter dinners. But I'm even struggling because it's gonna sound like I don't eat a lot, but I do well.

So when do you eat a lot?

Usually dinner is my biggest meal because that's usually, you know, all families home. It's the evening chaos of husband's home from work, even if I'm working that night. But we try to have dinner on the table by 5:30 every night.

Oh, that's great. Okay, and what's a typical dinner?

Typical dinner consists of a protein and a starch sometimes. And usually protein, starch and vegetable is usually what it consists of.

Okay, give me a typical one.

A typical one. I mean, the other night we had steak and a baked potato and a salad.

Okay. And how big of a steak? What kind of steak?

It was from my brother's farm. It was a rib eye, but I don't eat the. I try not. I don't like fat, so I cut it all off usually. And I only ate half of it, so I probably ate 5 ounces.

Okay. And then a whole baked potato.

I did do a whole baked potato that day.

Anything on it?

I had. I did do sour cream. I knew I was doing. I was horrible this weekend because I was like, I am, you know, I'm doing my second elimination. So it was my.

That diet mindset is what hurts us all. And here's what's amazing. Have you tried Kite Hill sour cream?

I haven't.

It's awesome.

Is it?

It's dairy free.

Okay.

Won't notice the difference.

What's it called?

You don't need to actually go cheat because you can just have that.

Okay.

Kite Hill dairy free cream cheese. I think it's almond.

Okay.

So. And then you had a salad.

How big of a salad my salad was? I would say a cup and a half.

And what was in it?

Tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, green peppers, sunflower seeds. That's it.

What kind of dressing?

I do a Tuscan olive oil cranberry vinegar dressing that I make.

And cranberries, like cranberry juice. What is it?

No, it's a cranberry balsamic vinegar.

Okay. And just a little bit of that. Yeah, because that's pretty. That can be a sugary thing. So here's a simple makeover for that. Have a little bit more steak. Now, when I look at your overall, if you want to eat two meals a day, are you having a snack in between lunch and dinner?

It just kind of depends if my kid's home. And you know, if I grab a snack, though, like I have cut up fruit, fruits and vegetables in my fridge that I'm usually grabbing because a lot of the snack food is more processed. And I also had issues.

Gross. Don't touch snack food. I had an issue with losing my.

Hair and stuff too, so. Yes.

Yeah. So, well, whenever I hear that, I always think thyroid. When you eat lunch and then you eat dinner, what time is lunch usually?

Hit or miss? 11:30 to 12:30.

Okay. So you're basically. If you didn't do breakfast and you normally don't do breakfast.

No.

So you Normally eat like 11:30, 12 and 5:36. So you're doing a really like, you're doing a great job doing intermittent fasting, even though you didn't intend to do it. Sounds like. Do you eat anything after dinner?

If I do, it's making like I'll do yogurt fruit bowls for my little one, so it'll be fruit. But she's in bed by, I mean we're getting her ready for bed and stuff by like 7:30. So there's usually nothing consumed after seven.

Okay. And you go to when?

Nine. 9:30?

Yeah. So what I'd love to do is just get that done by 6, 6:30. So shut it down. You got to stop eating three to four hours before bed. What happens on your shifts? Are you eating when you're doing the overnight shifts?

So I try not to. Usually I eat before I leave and then I've been packing either leftovers from dinner and that I'll eat. Usually I try to eat it a small like before midnight, so that way I can lay down and sleep.

And do you need to do that?

No, I don't. It's more or less that has, I guess, become my safety net. Because if we do go out and travel for whatever reason, traveling, I don't know if it's the adrenaline rush of taking care of a patient, you know, and all that. Usually it's like, especially if we're flying, you know, it's, God, we're starving, you know, so usually that's.

So I would, what I call my emergency food, I would really work on for you because I think it's going to help with your blood sugar. So when you intermittent fast, which could be anything from a 12 to 14 hour fast, but really the research is done on 16 hours. 16 to 218 hours. You naturally do that and it helps with autophagy, cleaning out the cellular debris, it helps with activating stem cells, growth hormone, cleaning out all the bad stuff out of your gut through your migrating mortar complex. It helps with blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity, like all this great stuff. Right. The challenge will be making sure that you get enough protein when you're not eating that much. The thing I'm going to emphasize. So I have these bars that are brownie collagen bars. And what I would say is if you used those and took them with you on your trips. That way if you are starving before the patient comes in, you can always have one of those that will keep you going or one of the keto bars that I have, I would keep a bunch of those with you. Those are my Emergency stuff that I keep with me and if I'm trapped somewhere because you never know when you're flying or what else where you might get stuck. But instead of eating before, I need to, just in case. Because let's face it, when you're going into that and your adrenaline is up, you're not going to be hungry. It's going to be after, when everything settles down that you're going to go, whoa. Because all of a sudden, so you'll have that there and you'll be okay. That's what I would recommend there. What I would say is we've got to make sure that dinner, like how I would make over dinner is we gotta get your protein levels up because where you want to be in terms of body composition, et cetera, generally it's a pound. It's, it's at the lowest end a gram per pound of ideal lean body mass. And at the high end, which probably is going to be about 130 for you. 120, 130. So that's like, let's say your lowest end would be 120 grams of protein. But you probably would do better more with like 160. So three, two meals. Getting in that much protein is not very easy. Right. What I want you to do is you're building your plate and you'll see this. Get the sugar impact diet because you're going to go through that. It's going to help you get rid of your sweet tooth forever. And there's a tapering down that you do. But it really helps you focus your meals on starting building your plate around protein or your smoothie. This is why I like smoothies, because you can literally do, you know, I'll do two scoops of my protein powder and then I do a scoop of collagen and then I'll use this flax protein enriched milk from Good Karma. And I've got 40 grams of protein already, you know, and I can just goomp. I've got that. So you know, you got to look at now how do I get 50 grams of protein at a meal or even maybe 60, like we've got a protein focus, then your non starchy vegetables. And if you want to get 5 servings of non starchy vegetables as your baseline each, you know, floor each day, that's your bottom line. We're going to have to make sure, like if you're doing a salad, basically I would have doubled that salad. Then we would have gotten three vegetable servings. Like how I would have made over that dinner Is started with a little bigger serving of meat.

Okay.

More like eight ounces because you're not eating as as often. Eight ounces of that I would have cooked, cut the potato down, but I wouldn't have done the potato next first. I would have you eat the protein to make sure you get it right. It's very satiating. You might find after that you're like, I can't really eat that much more. I would have added in some broccoli, maybe with a little grass fed ghee and I would have added in a bigger salad. And between the steak, the salad, the broccoli, you've got pretty much all the fat you're going to need because you had some sunflower seeds there, the olive oil, you had a little maybe gheer olive oil on the broccoli. You also have your rib eye. Even though you cut out the meat, it's marbled and you had, I'm assuming a grass fed grass finish because it was from a farm. So you're pretty well set there and you're probably going to be full. But if you're not full, it would have been half that baked potato, like half a small baked potato with a little bit of that Kite Hill sour cream and you would have been done. Easy makeover. And a typical lunch for you is what could we just throw in. Throw in some smoothies here and there because it's an easy way to kick this protein up.

So I do have your chocolate protein shake. So I guess if I'm hungry in the mornings or I feel like I can't, then I'll.

You don't have to do that though. You could just have that for lunch.

Okay.

Like you could just make for lunch. It's. It's what I do a lot of times just because I'm out of time. So I'll just. I literally will take that. Good karma. Flax, milk and collagen and my shake powder. And then I'll throw in some extra fiber and some more. Some more flax. So I'm kicking it, you know, again, kicking that protein up to make sure that I'm getting what I need. It's easier to do when you have three meals a day. It's a little tougher. And two, that's why you want to lead with that first. But you're going to find when you have enough protein and those healthy fats that you always have to count the protein, the fat and the protein. So, you know, if you're doing a smoothie, like I'm getting fat from the flax milk fat from the flax in there. So I've got a pretty well counted. Or maybe I'm doing some avocado. So I'm doing protein, adding any fat I'm getting in from that, then adding non starchy vegetables. I'll tend to if I do it that for lunch, have a salad on the side. I don't like putting greens in my shake. I wish I did. And then we'll see what else happens. If you do a little bit of a fruit and smoothie that's part of your starchy carbs. But your focus really is protein, healthy fats, non starchy vegetables and then maybe a little bit. And you'll see it when you go through the sugar impact diet, how easy this is to do. But I think it's going to make it really easy for you to go through this.

Okay, so then do you recommend that I being as I literally just started to do the virgin diet since I understand what my sensitivities are and stuff. Do you.

You already know. So you don't like. I would check in once a year just to make sure eggs aren't an issue. But since we know that gluten, dairy, soy are out and that you really shouldn't be eating corn, you know there's better options than peanuts. Your big issue is sugar.

Okay. Yeah.

So basically sugar impact diet is going to be way easier for you to move into now that you've done the virgin diet. There's going to be the first phase where I take you from high sugar impact foods to medium sugar impact foods. You're already there. So it's going to be. So you could actually there's a taper week that I take people through so that I don't have to go cold turkey because that's how people fail. But I'm guessing you've already done that with what you with how you've been eating. So we can move you right into the next two weeks of it.

Okay, cool.

And then you'll see some and what it really helps you do. The goal with that program is to get rid of your sweet tooth.

I would like that.

Well, some of your sweet tooth realize like if you are doing a job that's kicking up adrenaline like that, it will deplete serotonin and it's going to make you want sugar. So it's kind of a rebound impact to follow up with something, you know, might be interesting when you get through that. But that stress part to either get a GABA chewable to take, there's a product. There's. There's a design for health as a great gaba. Chewable. Actually going to start bringing this product out because it's a great way for you just to calm down or following again when you're off work with the 5 HTP. I think that step. Let's test those and see if that can help, too. And eating more protein helps tremendously.

Okay. Yeah. I know that I don't get enough protein. I know that I don't.

Most people don't, because in the United States, for some reason, we're scared of it. Like, you know, be scared of, like, the process, bad seed oils. Don't be scared of protein. You know that you eat a lot of protein, you're full, you won't eat. You eat. You eat cereal, you're going to be hungry. So. Yes. All right, so body composition scale, weight training, TRX, playing around with BioHTP and GABA to see how those work. You can talk to your functional medicine doc about it. And sugar impact diet. Those are your things. And then, of course, tracking your sleep.

And what was J.J. what was the name of that scale that you recommended?

I'm going to look at the one that we just. Because I just had Jason on our team, who's awesome, do some research for me because I hate researching. And he found. I do. I'm such a baby.

I don't blame you.

I hate research. Tanita's BC533 interscan body comp monitor right now save 17%. It's $99. Yeah. And it does all the things we want. But the most specific things I want is body fat percentage, body water, and then visceral fat.

So.

And then do you always use flaxseed milk versus almond milk versus no, you.

Can rotate them around. The reason I'm liking that one is because they have extra protein in it. So it's a way for me to smuggle it in. So, you know, you can use almond, you can use coconut. Just. You can't use ones with cream. And when you start the morning and you start with an almond milk creamer with sugar, you just told your taste buds, wake up. Yeah, and want more sugar. So you got to stop that. One thing that does take your sweet tooth away is sour. So, you know, like, if you saw me, I was drinking the suja lemonade. It's got a little bit of stevia, but it's got cayenne pepper, so it's a little zippy. And the sour can take your sweet tooth away.

Okay.

Yes. Super Fun.

Yeah. There were mornings there for a while. I'm also reading a book right now called Atomic Habits to try and build these smaller habits that pay off in the long run. And it was the cup of lemon water in the mornings. And I got away from that. And I was like, I don't even know why I got away from that. I just go back.

I work on one habit at a time. Last year, during the pandemic, it was getting meditation going that took a year. I went to four Dr. Joe Dispenza retreats. I was like, I am determined to do this. And finally I've got it in and now I'm working on another one. Like, then it was like making sure I get fermented foods in every day. So just one, get one dialed, go to the next. Right. Give yourself grace. We all, we try to do too many things in our heart on ourselves, and it's ridiculous.

Yeah. That I think was the biggest, you know, struggle is looking back. I was so hard on myself and not looking in the right direction to try and heal myself. Where it was like, be skinny, lose the weight.

You know what, here's the thing. You don't lose weight to get healthy. You have to get healthy. And when you get healthy, your body is going to burn stored fat for fuel. You're going to hold onto and build muscle. You'll have great energy. It's a byproduct. It's not the thing. And we get ourselves all messed up and then wrap all the shame around it and it's just ridiculous. Instead of looking at the massive changes you made already that are crazy cool. Right. That should be celebrated, instead you're going, I'm not thin enough. Like, we just got to knock it off. So this is just, you know, we get healthy by peeling the onion. Right. In layers. So now you're on to the next one. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate it. I really. Your. Your book helped so much. It helped friends of mine. It's helped, you know, I. I love it.

Yay. Thank you. Well, I'm excited to get the. We were trying to get the. The, you know, revised one swap to drop out for this January 2023, but publishing world backed up. Oh, I'm sure there's no paper. So, you know, that changed things. So anyway, but it will coming soon. We're doing all new programs that are coming out fall 2022. So all sorts of cool stuff on the horizon.

Cool.

Well, I have to even give my doctor a heads up because, yeah, I.

Wrote his name down too. And again, shout out to Dr. Chris Warner. Thank you.

Yeah, it was funny. He was. My girls would use the term geeking out. He was just like, really?

Really?

Because I was like, oh, by the way, this is so random, but I'm going to be on a podcast and I have you to thank, basically.

Yes. Well, thank him when you talk to him next. Ask him about those two things and please let me know what happens as you do this. Okay?

Okay.

Love to come back in and share what happens.

Awesome.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, jj.

See ya.

Bye.

Bye. All right. I am super, super excited to hear what's going to happen next for Alicia, now that she's going on the Sugar Impact diet. And again, starting to monitor that body composition and add some muscle and go protein first again. If you would love to participate in the show, beginnings and breakthroughs, whether you're just beginning or you've had a breakthrough and would like to go to the next level, all you need to do is go to jjvirgin.com signup and I am so grateful that you are tuning in. If you have not yet subscribed. Hello. Make sure you don't miss any juicy tidbits by going to subscribetoj.com super easy and I'll see you next time. Bye.

Hello, listeners. This is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.