[Beginnings & Breakthroughs] Reclaiming Your Health + Being The Best You With Siobhan Davis

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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. All right. I will be right back with our awesome guest. Welcome to Beginnings and Breakthroughs. I am super excited to start this, and I'm starting this with Siobhan Davis, and she is from the UK and she is very brave because she was our first to be on the show. I am really excited to share her results with you. And also what we've done is gone through what. What's happened since she started with first six weeks to sleepless and sexy and then the virgin diet and then where she is now and where she wants to go and the tweaks that we could make to the program that as you're listening, you may go, hey, that would. That's. That's something I want to do, too. So she started this January 30th, really? February, early February, 2022. And since then has lost 30 pounds. Wow. And. But what's more important is she lost her migraines. She lost her gas and bloating. She lost her fatigue and foggy brain. She lost her joint pain, like, changed everything for her so much that it just became the way that she and her partner live, which you're going to hear all about. And then. But now she's kind of in a got herself in a little rut, let's say, and has hit a plateau and was like, okay, where do I go from here? So we walk through where she's at now, where she wants to go and what things she could shift to take her to that next level, which is what will be. We'll be reviewing her results and then doing that. So stay with me. I will be right back with Siobhan.

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I am so excited to have you with me, Siobhan, for our beginnings and breakthrough podcast. This is our first one. You're the virgin here, and I couldn't be more pleased about having you start it off. So what we're going to do is we are going to talk about, first of all, how did you find me? What were you looking for? And then we'll talk about what's happened since you've used my books.

Okay, so I discovered you back in 2013 with sleeveless to Sexy the book.

And I'm sure most people don't know that book because I think that book, like, you know, that was my very first book. And it was like, I think we've had 13 printings, but because they've only printed 100 at a time. So I'm so excited you read that book because it was one of my favorites.

That's an amazing book. I really enjoyed it and it's still part of My regime, along with the 21 day virgin diet. But it's got great exercises within that book, so it is still very much a big part of my fitness regime. And there's some great diet tips in there too. But I was looking for something a little bit more that explained about intolerances and I could not lose weight. And I went on a very well known diet that is based on psychology and it did not work for me.

What. What was that? So you done? So you did six weeks to sleeveless and sexy, really focusing and. And for those listening, going, what was that book? That book I wrote because I literally would go to all of these places, they go, how'd you get those arms? And I'm like, I was like, I should write a book about this. And so it really focused on how you can build muscle. And so that's why you say it really got into exercise and of course dealt with diet some, but it didn't go deep with what I did with the virgin diet and sugar impact diet. So you did that piece of it. You started to see results with body composition, but you said you wanted to get a bigger result. So you tried this one diet. What was it you tried?

I don't know. Can I say the, the brand name or.

You can say anything. It's my podcast.

Oh, okay. So I did noom.

Oh, okay.

You've heard of noom? Yeah. So I paid quite a lot of money for NOOM and read the lessons each day that would be sent to me and logged all my food, but I could not see any budging on the scales. Literally, I was on it for three months and I lost six pounds in total.

And was it. I don't. I'm not very familiar with noom. Do they just. What do they do, Count calories? What's their gig?

So you really set the speed that you want to lose weight. So of course me being me, I wanted cheater weight. So that's what they call it Cheetah. So I wanted to lose weight quite quickly.

Well, anyone given that option is going to probably choose like, right.

So I wanted to go really quick with my weight loss. So my calories was 1380 per day.

Ah, so they did this based on calories.

Yeah, and then also on colors, so red would mean they were fat, so that they were really bad for you. And as we know that.

Wait, so they did a low calorie, low fat diet?

Yeah, so it was low. So you were allowed X amount of points for fats. The same with moderate fats. And it was Like a graph. So as long as you kept in with this graph, so as long as you was in with the reds, if you was in with the yellows and the greens, then you would lose weight. So that was the idea behind it.

So there it is. It's like, so if your body was a bank account, that would have totally worked.

Exactly, Exactly.

But it's not.

I'm here as proof that it did not work because I thought, this isn't right. You know, three months. This has got to be the worst diet that I have ever been on to lose fat. You know, it just wasn't going. So I started to check myself, thinking, am I doing this correctly? Questioning myself, so.

So I should just do it more harder.

Yeah, exactly. So it was like, oh, what? What else can I change? You know? So then I thought, right, okay, I'll have a look for jj. And then I found.

Okay, so how did you find six weeks to sleeveless and sexy in the first place?

Oh, on Amazon. So I was looking for something. So I was looking for a fitness book. And at that time, I was getting married, so thought, right, okay, six weeks. I can do six weeks. I was already going to the gym, but it was just. I have a real problem with my arms. So I thought, oh, this sounds, you know, just up what I need, you know, up my strength kind of thing. And I read the book and then applied it in the gym. And you know what? It does work. And I also. Because part of it isn't just about, you know, doing the exercises. It's also about, you know, watching what you eat, but eating correctly. And so that kind of revolutionized the way I was seeing food as well. So that combined. And if you do it properly, it does work.

So then you did this detour over and fell into the. Your body's a bank account, and I'll just eat less and eat less and less. And, you know, I'm glad people are hearing this because, you know, you get into that trap and you think, oh, my gosh, I just have to do it harder. You know, it's like. And it just doesn't work.

Yeah. And it literally was that. It was just, what else can I do? You know, shall I cut down more calories? You know, shall I add calories in? What do I do for the best? So in the end, all that that app was really good for was was literally logging my weight. And, you know, the program expired, but I was just logging my weight each day when I was, you know, when I actually found something that did work, which was your program. So, you know, it's a very expensive fitness tracker.

All right, so then you, you went on the Virgin diet. What happened?

A miracle happened. So again, read the book. Now the preparation to actually do the Virgin diet was a month. So I started the noom in the October. By December, December came and I thought, do you know what, does it really matter if I eat anymore? No, it doesn't. But I'll start in January. So I thought, right, okay. So between kind of December, when we had the break to January, I thought, right, I need to find a solution. So that's when I discovered your book, the 21 Day Virgin Diet. So ordered that that came, read it from page to page, and it took me a month to prep really. So to find the correct foods because our foods here, we can't get some of the foods that, you know, that you can get there. So it was really about trying to find the alternative. So all in all, it was about a month's preparing. So I actually started the program on the 29th of January. So a month later than what I wanted to do. But the results was just amazing. First, first couple of days was quite bad.

When I say quite bad with how so?

So headaches, withdrawal symptoms, I sound like a drug addict.

But it wasn't really this is the case. Gluten and dairy and sugar are drugs. They have a drug like effect on your brain. And so the first couple days, I always want people to reframe this of if you're feeling crappy those couple days, that's actually good. If you're feeling like, oh my gosh, I got to have that cheese or, or I've got to have that bread that's actually good because that means you're going to have a really big result from it. So. And I also want to point one other thing out, Siobhan, because most people would say, oh my gosh, this is too hard. I don't live in a place where I can get these things easily. And they put out my, one of my mentors always said, you know, you'll hear them say that and just put right after it so I don't have to. Right. But not you. You went, all right, I'm going to figure this out. Out. And you know, 10 years ago when I wrote that book, it was a lot harder back then, even in the US like, you know, you'd have to go into the aisle in the supermarket and find the coconut milk in the can and there was none of these nut milks and all this alternative stuff that Makes it so much easier. It was challenging. So, you know, and you didn't have access to our shake powders or any of this stuff. So go you for just figuring out how to make it work. Okay, so let's go back. So now it's the first couple days in. You don't like me anymore? Then what happened?

So I started it, and then my partner then said, well, I've seen you reading this book. What's this about? And he's just finished in the military, actually. So he served 29 years in the military. He was medically discharged with PTSD. And so I said, I don't know why you don't join me and. And, you know, embark on this journey with me. So he said, well, I don't think I want to give up. I said, well, you know what? You're either in or you're out. There's no middle ground here. So if you want to do it, then great, we can support one another. But if you don't, then you need to go it alone and make your own meals. Because once this is. Once this is set down, this is set down and this is what I will be doing. So he said, right, no, no, I'm going to go all in. How hard can it be? 21 days. I said, exactly. So, you know, think of 21 days. Anybody can achieve that. Let's go for it. So we both went for it. And he started seeing really good results. In the first week, he was like, you're not going to believe this, like, what? And he said, I've lost six pounds in a week. It's like unheard of. And I said, well, yeah, that was predicted in the book, you know, so let's keep going at it. So the second week came, all was good. No headaches. I started to feel a lot, lot better in myself. More energy. He felt like he had more energy. And he's had ptsd. He's still got ptsd, but he felt that his mood had changed so much, so he was feeling the benefits from it. And he also noted that he said, you know, since we've been on this, we. We eat like kings. I said, exactly, because we're eating all of the right things. So that's it. We're still on the virgin diet now. Not much has changed. We have put it back in our foods, eggs, because I can control what the chickens eat because I've got my own backyard.

Yeah. For anyone listening, so what we do in the virgin diet is the first, at least 21 days you're going to pull out what foods you potentially could be intolerant to. And those are dairy, gluten, eggs, corn, soy, peanuts, and then of course, sugar and artificial sweeteners. And what you don't know, Siobhan, is I had to pull those out because when I first did this with people, I had the six foods and they would eat, just go eat sugar. I'm like, but sugar makes your gut more leaky. And artificial sweeteners damage your gut so that you get create more food intolerance as you become more intolerant to those foods. So these are the most common, but that doesn't mean they're. They're common for everybody. And so once you've taken those foods out and swapped them for healing foods and give your body time to cool off and reset, then you can go back and see if some of these foods work for you. And for some people especially, you said a really key, important part around eggs it is that you are what you eat ate. One of the challenges with eggs is that we get a lot of factory eggs and it's just junk food. It's just like when you look at wild salmon versus farm raised salmon or factory cow versus pasture raised and grass fed and finished cows, it's like one's a health food and one's a junk food. And so the fact that you can control your chickens, Fabulous. Awesome. So you went back and you connected the dots. What foods did you figure out worked well for you and which foods didn't?

So eggs, they work okay. Although I do limit them. So we have eggs twice a week. Milk. So we've put milk back in, but again, that is more, you know, we have one cup of coffee or one cup of tea per day rather than the 10 or 15 that I would, you know, be quite used to. So gluten and bread. So bread, I've not got an intolerance. However, I do prefer gluten free bread, but only if I can get it with less than like one gram of sugar. Because I don't know what it is here, I don't know if it's the same there, but anything that's gluten free here is loaded with sugar. So I have found a brand and it's literally, we have, I don't know if you have them, but here we have like green and red to show us that reds are like high in something. So it could be high in salt and it'll be labeled as red. And then the same with amber and green is, you know, it's good for us. But so when I can get the brand of bread with the less sugar in, then I go for the gluten free. All the other items that are on the seven list that you know, that are on the list, no, we haven't put them back in. So no more peanuts, no more corn, no more soy. So we use coconut aminos and the soy and that works for us.

Oh, that's great. You can get that there.

Yeah, well, Amazon. And so the eggs, because I don't, you know, I can put the eggs back in because we don't feed the chickens corn anymore.

And you rotate, which is a really important, you know, very lost nutritional concept is that quite often when you rotate, you don't give it time for a protein that you could react to to build up enough to create the symptoms. So what were the things, what are the big shifts that happened when you went on this program? What's happened with your weight, your energy, joint pain, any of these types of things.

So in the book, it asks you to tick down everything where you know, you feel, where you score. Do you know what? Embarrassingly, I must have scored the maximum. You know, that's how damaged I was, not only from the insides, but on the outside as well. Mentally, you know, no energy, didn't want to get up, didn't want to do anything. And then by starting this, and this is why I'm reluctant to put the foods back in because I never, ever want to feel the way that I felt prior to this diet. And I've got a real thing at the minute. I say, well, it's not really the 21 day virgin diet because it's actually become a lifestyle. So it is our lifestyle now. We've added, you know, a bit of milk in, a bit of, you know, gluten in, and we've added a little bit of, you know, eggs in. But everything else has kept out of the diet and we don't need it. And we've proved that this long. So, yes, I've had no intolerances. We're in really good health. I've got loads of energy sleeping so well now. I mean the sleep before, you know, going on the diet, you know, I'd be lucky if I got six hours. I'm getting a full nine and a half hours.

Nice.

I still fast, so I still do my 12 to 16 hours. The kitchen shuts at half past six and it's not reopened then till in the morning. So just a massive lifestyle change, you know, that's.

So I'm actually working on the new Virgin diet coming out was going to come out in January 2023, but we're still messing with it. So it and everything in the book world is delayed by like months and months and months because of all of COVID stuff. So we pushed it a year. But part of what I've put into the new virgin diet is it's really all based now around swaps and this idea that certain foods can heal you and certain foods can hurt you. And you know, so what you do when you go through this is you pull these foods out, you give your body time to heal. You go back and see how you feel when you each one of these eat them. If you feel okay, feel like if you feel great, you can incorporate them back in. If you eat it for four days and you start to notice about day four, I don't feel so great. You could rotate them in like eggs. If you eat them and you go, I don't feel good. They're out. And then the other thing that I've incorporated in is what I call a Lima fasting. And I love the fact that you're doing intermittent fasting because it can speed heal your gut and also trigger autophagy to take out the cellular trash. So one of the things that has been a big shift for me is I used to say eat within an hour of waking up. And I've massively changed that viewpoint over the years because there was so much research showing that people ate a good breakfast, lost more weight, kept it off better energy throughout the day, weren't likely to binge later. And I still believe that, but I believe that breakfast that break the fast actually should happen later. So, you know, where a lot of people do intermittent fasting and they have lunch and dinner, I, I kind of have a, a brunch in an early dinner and usually a mid afternoon. So I'll do like a 10, a 2, a 6 instead of the, you know, 12 and 8. And sometimes it's just a 10 and a 5. But what that does is give you, your gut a time to just heal, which is super important too. So there's besides all the other things like good blood sugar and insulin, all that. So that's part of what's coming out with the new book is a real focus on what are healing foods. And one of the big challenges I saw when I wrote the book is people didn't want to go back and ever eat the foods again. They're like, I feel so much better, forget it. And I'm like, well, what I really want to know, because when I was going back and incorporating foods back in, I. I accidentally ate some egg in Las Vegas in a mayonnaise thing on a sushi. Like, I didn't, I didn't know. And I got so sick, so sick. And I was doing a talk the next day on food intolerance. And I was like, that night I thought, I'm gonna have to go to the hospital. Like, I look like the alien on my stomach. And it was just. When you unmask a food intolerance, you can have an extreme reaction because your body now doesn't have the antibodies built up. So I like people to test so they really understand. It took me some six months to heal my gut enough so that now I can incorporate eggs in. I can't eat them every day. I do more what you do, like once or twice a week. So I just mentioned that because this is the, what you've put in with the intermittent fasting is part of what we are incorporating now in and will be in the new book. Now that you're here, are you happy where you're at? Is there anything that you want to shift? Any other things you want to see change in your health or are you like, I'm, I'm golden.

I would like to lose just one more stone. So that would be £14 and then I'll be good. What I did notice and I managed to kind of kick start. So after a certain amount of time, I stopped losing weight on the scales. But then, weirdly enough, the inch loss came. And so I don't know if you've got my statistics there, what I started off on and what I am to this day, and it's just unbelievable.

So you lost two inches off your chest. Three and a half.

Three.

Two and a half inches off your hips, two and a half inches off your waist. Let's see. But I just like. And so many health things that have shifted. Like, and by the way, you said your teeth and gums improved. It's actually not strange. That's because it's, it's one of the first signs of inflammation. Not having headaches or migraines, not having IBS or bloating, no heartburn. So all of that stuff, like, doesn't surprise me at all. And you said that you were in, you're in perimenopause and you were taking hrt, but then you ran out and you feel fine. So. So you are how old?

46.

And here's what's, here's what's fantastic is, like, you did all of this the perfect time. Because ideally if I could catch someone before they go into perimenopause, you know, where a lot of people come in, right? Like, and, and I look at this, like perimenopause is this very slow wave, right, that then gets, then all of a sudden it becomes very choppy waters. And that's like. So there's, there's this kind of pre perimenopause that you're kind of ramping up and then all of a sudden you're like in the middle of a storm that's, that's supreme. And then you're in menopause and, and it's like, it's all calm again. It's really easy when it gets there. The critical time is before you get into the tumultuous waves to set yourself up correctly. Because you, when you are in perimenopause, you want to really kind of know what feels normal for you. So you know how to navigate. And you've really got to have like going into it good body composition diets dialed in for you sleep styled in stress management techniques so that you can get through this and sail through this. So let's talk about how to do that. And first thing is you mentioned that you lost weight, but you. Or that your weight then started to not really shift, but you start to see big measurement changes. And that's actually the most important thing. And that's actually the book after the book I'm doing coming out. And it's really this. We need to stop looking at losing weight. We need to focus specifically, specifically on building muscle. If we focus on building muscle, on improving sleep and balancing blood sugar, you'll lose fat. Because all of those things teach your body to be a really good fat burner, right? So you got it. In order to do that, you've got to be able to know what your body composition is. So you need to have a scale that can tell your lean body mass and fat mass. So that's step one is to buy one of those scales. And I'm sure you can get them. And the brands that are the ones usually are like Teneda or N Body, but it's a body composition scale. Now here's the thing. They aren't 100% accurate. However you're going to get, they'll be accurate to you because you're getting on it every single day, right? Like we have two scales at home and one weighs a pound different than the other. It doesn't matter. It matters. It's the one you get on every day, right? Just don't go back and forth. So you get on a body composition scale every day, and what you're really looking at is what's going on with your total body water. Because as your muscle increases, your total body water increases, unless you're dehydrated. So if you see a big weight drop, and this is why body comp's so important, if you're trying to lose weight and all of a sudden your weight drops two pounds overnight, you'd be like, yahoo. Except it's not real, right? Just like if you gained two pounds overnight, you didn't do that either. Both those things are indicative of a problem because if you. If your weight shifts dramatically one way or the other, you either dehydrated yourself or you're inflamed. One or the other, right? You either ate something you were intolerant to, got inflamed, or you, like, let's say that you ate no carbs that day, didn't eat that much, went in a sauna, you dehydrated yourself, dropped a lot of water. So we want. What we're tracking is the trend, and we want to see that over time that your body water is increasing because that shows your muscle mass is increasing. And that's what really it's all about, is having a really good body composition, which for a woman, it was interesting. Back when I was in grad school, the statistics for body composition were different than they are now. Now we haven't changed. What's happened is the world's gotten more overweight and obese and they've upped the levels to make it acceptable. But that it's not. It's not okay for your health because too much body fat is inflammatory. So that's why it's all about tracking that, not tracking your weight. I just had a client who, over the course of three months, he was getting so frustrated and, you know, I'm not losing any weight. Well, he did a DEXA scan once a month, and over the course of three months, he lost 11 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle. That's crazy. That's an insane response to be able to have that happen. But if he hadn't been on a Dexer looking at body composition, he would have thought he was a failure, when the reality is that's a huge success. So we've got to look beyond the scale because it's really what your weight's made up of, not just your weight. This is all important. So the first thing I want you to do is get a body composition scale. And because you don't ever want to be a tofi, which is thin outside, fat inside. And that's what happens when people control their weight by diet alone. So what are you doing workout wise?

Back to my trusty sleeveless to sexy.

So you're doing resistance training, what else? And just walk me through your program over a week.

Okay, so mornings, I train in the morning. So before I've even had my shake, I get up and I will have a glass of water and then straight into my exercises. So they take, well, depending on what week I get. Because you know, we've got super sets of stuff and it's so, you know, between half an hour and 45 minutes a day and that's six days a week. I have one day off and then I do the blast training, you know the, where we go and we do two minutes steady and then we blast it out for one minute. I do that twice a week. And I know what you're going to say you need to do more. But I don't enjoy that bit. But I do it because it's part of the program and.

Okay, and when you're doing your workouts, are you doing upper body one day, lower body the next or what are you doing?

So what I've done is. So I do the, I do the schedule as it's laid out in sleeveless to sexy. But then what I've done is I've got resistance bands. So I try and I'm not going to say that every time that I do it, but I do try to do a certain amount of squats, a certain amount of lunges, sponges just to try and you know, trim up the, trim up my legs and my butt. But it doesn't always work. But I do, I do try.

Here's the big thing that I would tell you about this and it's funny because lots have changed since then and what I'm like going, what did I write back here? What is in here so funny. So here's what I want you to do. I want you again in sleeveless and sexy. I know I talk about doing 8 to 12 repetitions because that's the hypertrophy range. Doing at least, you know, doing three sets with a 60 second rest break and really focusing on multi joint exercises. So I do have this little thing called the trifecta which is bicep curls, tricep curls and this diagonal raise because that really makes your arms look great. But I focus more on multi joint Exercises like bend over rows and push ups and pull ups and overhead presses and upright rows. So what I want you to do is I want you to think the body in four parts. There's upper body pushing and those are things like push ups, overhead presses, dips, chest presses, upper body pulling and that is things like bent over rows and pull ups and bent over and upright rows and then hips and thighs, squats and lunges and plies and step ups and then power core and that's all the things for your abs and back. There is. There are two things I love at home I love. Well, three. I love free weights, I love exercise balls and I love something called the TRX trainer. Have you heard of it?

No.

Look it up. I'm sure you can get it on Amazon. This is the greatest kept secret ever. It's like, it's like 120. I'm not sure what that is probably about because you guys are are twice so probably about £60 I bet. And it is fantastic. You can do squats and single legged swats and chest presses and lat pull downs. All sorts of cool stuff with it. Because we got to mix your stuff up. You are in a rut. So we got to mix up your exercise because you're in a rut. So I want to give you a couple things to do. I want you to hit each body part of those, of those hips and thighs and chest, you know, upper body pushing, upper body pulling and power core. I want you to hit each of those body parts two to three times a week with the 48 hour rest. So that means you could do legs and core one day and chest and in upper all upper the next. You can put it all together, I don't care. Just make sure that you get each body part in at least twice a week. And if you're trying to build three is better in between that. Or let's say if you're doing legs one day, you could also do your high intensity interval training that day. But you got to do your high intensity interval training three times a week. I know, I hate it too. No one's going to say, oh my gosh, I love that so much. It's so awesome. No, it's not awesome. It hurts, but it doesn't hurt for long. And what I want you to do is vary the timing on that high intensity interval training. So high intensity interval training is where you go all out and then you recover for twice as long. Vary the all outs between 20 seconds in a minute. So I will do high intensity Interval training. I've got a peloton bike, I've got a StairMaster. I've got a step up bench, I got an exciser. I'm always messing with what it is. I don't like any of it. All right, so like, I'm not saying I love this, but it's necessary. In fact, I just nagged at my husband a little bit because I'm like, honey, you got it. Like, hello, you got to do your high intensity interval training. So super important to do because it activates growth hormone, right? It's going to help you build muscle. So we want to do that every other day and break it up and do different things. We got to cross train. I'm going to talk about cross training your diet and cross training your exercise. So those first two things, getting that TRX so it's something different. And then if you can do this, the best thing, if you guys could add it in is after dinner, if you could go for a short walk, 20 minutes, because it's going to lower the blood sugar response to the meal. Possible.

Yeah, absolutely. We've got some really nice places where we can take a walk.

This is a perfect one. And it's funny, I noticed when we go on vacation it's so easy because we'll walk to dinner and walk home from it. And so we've actually found in Tampa, where we live, live now, we're like, all right, we found restaurants we can walk to because it's so great to go walk to dinner, walk home, you know, or just eat dinner and then go out for a walk. So get that, get as much movement in. We need to move more. I've got a stand up deck, so I'm sitting right now. But I've been doing interviews all day long standing, but I stand on my stand up decks. I try to, I try to set as little as possible. So I want you to move more. That's super important. But it's that combination of resistance training, TRX added in there and then also doing the HIIT training. And then. Do they have any hot yoga where you are?

Yes, we do.

Have you done it?

No.

I will tell you that two summers ago, so I went and spoke at a really fancy schmancy spa in California and my girlfriend came with me and she goes, okay, we are going to do yoga. And I avoided yoga like the plague. I'm like, I am not a yogi. And I'd go, and the yoga teacher's making fun of me. I'm that bad. And so I Go, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make Tim, my husband, do it with me. So we start going to the LA Fitness, and we think we're doing really well because we go to LA Fitness and we're like, in there. And I that the hack for us was to go with a bunch of older men because they're the least flexible. And I looked like I was good, except this was like total beginner yoga. And so we get kind of cocky. We're really great. We go back to San Diego, which is like a yoga capital of the United States, and sunny this. And we go to a yoga class. But I hadn't read the. The. The class description. I just knew it was the right time and happened to be close to where we were staying. So we go in with our yoga mats and it's hot. And I'm like, what is this? And we realize we're in a hot yoga class. And I'm looking at Tim, I'm like, we have to get out of here. And he goes, no, we're going to stay. Anyway, it was brutal. It was like we were slipping and sliding. We hadn't brought towels or water or anything. But after we did that, we went, wow, that was the best thing ever. So now we go to hot yoga one to two times a week. And I will tell you, it's the hardest. I literally count the minutes. They're like, what do you. What's your intention for this class? I'm like, just to, like, get through it, man, get through it. But it has been a game changer. And I think it's a reminder that, you know, it's so easy to get into these ruts. You get into a rut, you're going to stay. Hey, you'll stay the same. But the problem is our bodies don't stay the same. And we're defying gravity. Right? Like our body says, hey, age, let's lose muscle, let's lose bone. And so you got to go. Oh, no, not on my watch. Nope. I've got to continue to challenge and improve, otherwise I'm going to be declining. So it's time for you to mix it up.

Yeah.

And push yourself. Okay.

I'm gonna inquire about hot yoga, and let's hope I'm thanking you for it.

You won't be thanking me for it, but you will be thinking, I. I feel it's so funny, too, because the first time I went, I'm like, my hair was soaking wet. I was like, oh, my gosh. So don't get a blowout and go to hot yoga is the first advice. But honestly, like change your stuff up, find times that you can walk, add in that trx, add in more. Just get, make a focus on this because it is so key, critical. And as you start to go into perimenopause, the big storm, you're going to want to have the tools of yoga on board big time. So that's the first part that will help tremendously. Monitoring your body composition so that you know what's happening with your body. I like historical hip and waist measurements, as you know, but I also want you to do that. And then as far as diet goes, I tell people, you know, you do the virgin diet at the end of the three weeks minimum. If you can go longer, more like six to eight weeks better, you go back and you test each food to see how you're doing. Then the foods that you decide to incorporate back once a year, you need to go back and do it with them again. So it is time to do that again with the dairy and if the gluten's been sneaking in, yes, the gluten too, and the eggs, where you just clean it all out for at least a month and then just go back and check in with it. Because quite often if you're doing milk in your coffee every day could be causing a little problem because you can develop an intolerance at any time. Just because you didn't have it a year ago doesn't mean you don't have it now. So that's the other big thing.

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How vigilant are you? Like, did you read the Sugar Impact diet?

Not the Sugar Impact diet, but however, we do not have any sugar and we don't have any alcohol.

Okay. So Sugar Impact diet actually is about looking at sugar differently that all carbohydrates except for fiber turn to sugar. It's just whether you're mainlining them or making them slowly and that we have to look at things that have higher sugar impact that you wouldn't even think about. Like ketchup, marinara, Sauce, balsamic vinegar that could be sneaking in and raising your, you know, giving you more sugar than you're realizing because of how quickly your body can convert that, those things, right. Like sweet potato chips or things like that. So that's one place that you can look. The other thing to look at, and this will be my book after the next book is to really focus on how we build our plate. And you know, in the virgin diet I talk about your plate being protein fat and then fiber from non starchy vegetables and slow low carbs and fruit. And so here's what I want you to look at is for you to build muscle, you are going to want to probably increase your protein. So what do you weigh?

168.

Okay, so. And how tall are you?

Five foot six.

Okay, so let's say that you, your ideal that you wanted to be. Because you told me you wanted to lose £14, right?

Yeah.

And honestly here's the thing, I don't care what someone's weight weight is. I care what that weight is made up of. And again, I had a client come to me years ago who wanted to lose weight and I'm like, you don't need to lose any weight. But she was the tofi thin outside fat inside. And so we actually dropped two clothing sizes but didn't lose any weight because she put on the muscle and lost the fat. I had another client who was my height and she was a size bigger than me, but she weighed 10 pounds less than me. So that's why we've got to always consider body composition. But let's say that, you know, we'll just, we'll say okay, 154, you've got this £14 in your head. Again, I'm going to look at what's, you know, what's your body composition look like? If that's the case, you'll probably need to eat like at least 130 grams of protein to maintain that. And that's kind of the floor and you know, so somewhere between 130 to 150 grams of protein is going to be where you're going to want to be. And so what you do is this, this is a new way of looking at building that plate. The first thing that you do is you put your protein in. So if I'm doing that, let's say I'm going to have eight ounces of wild salmon. Well, eight ounces of wild salmon gives me about a one and a half fat servings. So I had eight ounces of Wild salmon. I know if I'm going to have two to four fat servings, I just crossed off one and a half so I have to be aware. Right. Because the two places we can't take away from protein and we've got to make sure you're getting your non starchy vegetables. So then we've got to look at how much we can do in here in terms of you know, starchy carbs and fat. Knowing that between veggies and the slow low carbs we'll still get some. But if you're trying to lose weight where you can manipulate the most, keep the protein up, loads of non starchy vegetables fat keep to like the 2 to 3 gram, 2 to 3 servings per meal rather than higher and then drop the carbs and drop those carbs down to zero to one serving for those three meals. Keep. I like to put my serving at night because I find it helps me sleep. But I keep it out at my breakfast and lunch or my breakfast and lunch where I'll do a higher protein style shake with my protein powder, collagen, flaxseed meal, extra fiber and then I'll have a lunch that's a salad with some turkey and some nuts or avocado and some other veggies in it. And then dinner will usually be like broccoli and a little wild rice and wild salmon. See how that works?

Yeah.

So I'm building leading protein first. Whatever I got in that protein, if I got some like say if someone's doing this more plant based, they're going to get fat or carbs from their protein, they have to count it. But if you're animal protein eating, let's say you're doing grass fed beef or wild salmon, you're getting one to two fat servings. There's then you're adding loads of non starchy vegetables. Then you're looking at like maybe I'm using a little olive oil with my non starchy vegetables. So you're probably good on your fat. And then you may or may not do the slow low carbs. Just depends. But I bring them way down.

Yeah, I'm going to try that.

Oh you said the naughty little three letter word. You said the T R Y. So let's not try it. Let's do this, let's just do this. So walk me through a typical day of eating and let's just, let's just tweak it. So tell me what you normally have to break your fast and what time is that?

So I try to get my Exercise done first, which is awesome.

Fantastic.

I can't exercise once I've had a protein shake. No way. So in the morning, what I will do is I have my protein shake and then I put a cup of. So I use Garden of Life protein shake because I can't get yours.

I know. And that Garden of Light protein shake. Let me just see what's in it so I can see what we need to tell you to do.

So it's the male that I have and it's the vanilla one.

Okay, and then. So what do you put in it?

So I have either almond milk, unsweetened, or coconut milk. I put 250, 250 milliliters of the almond milk or the coconut milk, whichever one comes out of the fridge.

They're both unsweetened. I know, because you're very careful about that.

Yes. And then I do a cup of berries. So they're summer fruit berries, frozen. Then I have nut butter, but I have the almond butter, so it's about one tablespoon of that. Then I have my chai and my flaxseeds. I put them in.

How much flax?

See, I did a big schoolgirl error with the flax seeds and it had a real effect.

So. Wait, so hold on. I didn't understand. I heard. I did a big. So you've got slacks and you've got chia. Are they mixed together?

Yeah. So I do do one. One table. One and a half teaspoon of each.

1/2 teaspoon chia.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I like to mix them up, but when I first started, I thought, oh, it'd be okay. And I put lots in and it wasn't good. Let's put it that way. I don't need to say anymore.

I know what you're talking about. It's okay.

So, yeah, that. So that had to be built up. But that's where I'm at with that at the moment. And then I whizz it all up and then that's it. That's my shake. And that will actually keep me full until I come back in an evening and then have a meal. I don't feel that I need to have anything else during the day because I'm not having my shake till I'd say about half past nine, ten o' clock in the morning. And then when I get home, you know, I'm ready for my, you know, for my evening meal, my. My dinner.

And how much water do you drink during the day?

Well, you're going to tell me off Because I know that I don't drink enough. I absolutely do not drink enough.

Here's what's interesting. Even mild dehydration, like 2%, decreases your metabolism, raises stress hormones. Like, it's one of the easiest things to do. And if you've watched me, I've been like drinking the entire time. I've got some ice cream. Ice cream tea is like the greatest, greatest thing. So you gotta drink water. Ice cream tea is another big hit. That's fantastic. But you've got to be drinking at least half your body weight in ounces. I mean, that's like the least, right? So this is a super key critical that we're also writing down that you're going to start paying attention to, because again, more water is going to help boost your metabolic rate. Slight dehydration lowers it and raises stress hormones. So that's just a silly thing, right? I mean, I can understand being bummed. You have to do hiit training. But I'm telling you to drink some water. You can do that.

Yeah.

Okay. And then tell me what a typical dinner is.

So every evening we have meat. So whether that be a steak or a pork chop, you know, we have a pork chop. Or we may have chicken or salmon or fish. We do have some kind of meat.

Okay, these are clean, right?

Yeah, yeah. And then we have our organic vegetables. So I've made a point. I know it's a little bit more expensive, but I think that when I read the book, it absolutely made sense. And with the meat, with. I didn't even realize that, you know, that you. We're buying meat and it's full of, you know, antibiotics and that is. And we are what we eat. So yes, it's a little bit more expensive. But then, you know, can you put a cost on your health? Really? And that's what we, what. That's what we had been doing. So everything's clean that we eat.

Okay, so you eat some kind of animal protein or fish. What size? Like six ounces? Eight ounces?

Yeah, eight ounces. I would say eight ounces per meal.

Okay. And then what else?

And then vegetables. And then I make a dressing. Because we eat lots and lots of salads, more so than we eat, you know, what I would call, you know, cooked vegetables, like broccoli. You know, we do have that, but we do eat a lot of salads with every meal. I don't know why we do it. So I mix up my own dressings the way that the book, you know, the book tells you to do. So We've got lots of dressings. I also make up my own ketchup that you suggest that we make in the book. And that's really good barbecue sauce as well. We've done that.

The one that I have in the book.

The one that you have in the book, yeah.

So you do the protein vegetables and then any. Are you doing any kind of a slow, low carb.

Sweet potato? We do. So I chop those sweet potatoes up and just roast them and then they're almost like, you know, potato wedges. We pretend.

And how much of that do you have?

Well, I do a whole potato and that and it's only, you know, a small potato. And then we have that between us.

Okay, I'm going to give you a couple little tweaks. Overall, this is fantastic. Water, water, water. In your morning shake, what I'd like you to do is increase your protein because when you look at it, you're doing two meals a day. So we have a lot of protein to get in between two meals. And so one of the things that can help you in your morning is to get to some collagen. And I know you can get some grass fed collagen because they'll have it, so.

Got that already. So that was from Garden of Life as well. And it's, it doesn't, it doesn't taste the best, I'll be honest. And I think that it needs to go into the smoothie because, well, it.

Has to go in the smoothie, it won't taste like anything. So it's cranberry and. So it's, it's, it's sad when you're there and I cannot get my stuff to you. So what you're looking for with collagen is you want collagen peptides that should be grass fed and grass finished. And they actually shouldn't taste, I mean, they should be kind of tasteless. And what you're doing is you're adding that to your smoothie. And what I want you to do is add that to your smoothie because we need to get in like, you know, 20 more grams of protein into your smoothie. So if you do your shake powder and then the collagen we're going to. Plus you've got the chia flax, which honestly I would just kick that up to 2 tablespoons between the two of those, focusing more on the flax because of the phytoestrogens. Roll out the nut butter. And then if we can sneak in some greens into your shake. And the cool thing is with greens, you don't really taste them. What I'd love to see you do is a half a cup of berries or a half of a barely ripe banana. And I like, basically it's a green banana. Just when you get to the point where it's like, because you want to get the resistant starch kicked in on it, but it has to be peel like you have to be able to get out of its skin, you know, So I, what I do is I get bananas and I just, I get them green and chicken. Just as they're just starting to get to that point, I, I freeze them. And so I'll use a half of a barely like green banana or berries or a half a cup of berries. Kick up the flax, get the collagen in there. So that's the morning, we're going to get you with more protein in there. And I'm also doing the more, a little more of the phytoestrogens. Then in the evening I just want them in the greens. If we can get greens in there. Because if we want to get at least 5 servings of vegetables a day minimum, right, we got to get the protein in, we got to optimize both of those, which means the majority of your veggies are at night. So that's like two cups of salad and a cup of cooked vegetables at least. And then any of the slow, low carbs like wild rice or sweet potato or any of that, half a cup.

That sounds good.

And that's. So, I mean we've got a change in your exercise, got a change in your water, got some tweaks in your diet, upping the protein, lowering the carbs a little bit and then let's see.

Yeah, now that's really good. Yeah.

Okay, so what I want you to do is make sure. So you know, you're getting a body composition scale, you're paying attention to your protein first. You are shifting up your exercise. Keep track of this because I want to hear what happens in a month.

Okay.

Okay, cool. Any questions?

No. I think that I've got something now to take it to the next level and I think that's where I needed to go with it because I think, you know, the scales did stop, but then the inch, the inch loss is still there. So I know that, you know, I'm not putting on and I'm not losing, but now I think this will kick start it.

Now what we do need, there's only one other piece to the pie because obviously you've got your blood sugar. Must Be doing well. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to go as long between meals like you do. You're sleeping well. Stress, how are you besides the moment right now? Because I know you've got some additional stress, but in general, what's your stress like?

Do you know? And again, I think it was all to do with the diet. I feel more calm in myself where before when I was just eating whatever I was eating, I just. I don't know, I felt irritated all the time, which caused me to have stress and this anxiety where I haven't got that. I can deal with stress a lot better. But yes, you are right with everything that's going on at the moment. And I've identified that myself. I know what's, you know, my trigger has been, you know, with. With the headache. I know that it's not, you know, a food that has caused that, you know, that is stress.

So when I look at things that could get in the way of us losing weight or cause us to gain weight, I always look at gut health, insulin resistance, blood sugar, stress, sleep. Of course, we look at genetics and toxins. But the two that I'm thinking about with you is to make sure that your thyroid is working well. Do you. Have you had a thyroid test recently?

No. But I did read that article that you pushed out the other day, and I thought, I'm wondering if, you know.

Yeah, very important, because it's one of those things as you go into perimenopause, boy, you want to make sure your thyroid is really on target. And then also, are you still getting regular periods?

Yes, they're a lot lighter, but yeah.

So it's interesting because they put you on HRT when you're still getting regular periods. And reality is you want to first make sure your thyroid's great, make sure you're handling stress well. Look at what you can do with things like phytoestrogens in food. That's why I love flax, because it's a really good one. I don't like soy. Look at things like, there's a great product. I wonder if you can get it from Designs for Health called. Called Femguard Plus Balance. That's got great stuff in it. I'm just getting it pulled up to tell you what. What is all in it. But I wonder if you can get it. I believe they have things in the UK which could be great if that was the case, because there's some of the specific things in there that I really like. Besides the dim is black cohosh and chaste tree, which is Vitex, as super helpful. So something like that. But then just start to really monitor your periods. We want to make sure right now that you're handling stress well, that your thyroid's doing really well. So before things start to really shift, because we want to postpone you going into actual menopause as long as possible. All right, so that's it. So you. You get going on all that stuff, report back in, because I'd love to hear what happens as you do this. And go, you. Because you have a great foundation to build from. Right?

Yeah, I'm going to start tomorrow. So that's it.

Yeah, we're going to start today because you could start drinking more water right now.

And here he is.

There you go.

I will start on the water today, but most definitely, the food will alter tomorrow. Most definitely.

All right, awesome. Well, I appreciate you going first on our new Beginnings and Breakthrough podcast and pulling back the kimono and just kind of sharing what's going on with you, because it's a huge inspiration for others who go, oh, my gosh, like, she's gone through the things I'm going through. So your story inspires others. So I super appreciate you being willing to kind of come out and bear all and share and I to report back in as to what goes on with you, too. So thank you.

Definitely. And thank you so much for this opportunity. You know, it's. It's not every day that you get to meet someone such as you. And you know, you have. You haven't just changed my outlook in life, but you've also changed my partners as well. And, you know, to meet you, as you know, it's been fantastic. So thank you so much for inviting me onto the show. Really appreciated it.

My pleasure.

So I gotta tell you, this is my most favorite thing of all. Like, this new show is my favorite. This Beginnings and Breakthroughs. And maybe it's just because Siobhan is so awesome, but I'm really excited to be doing those. If this is something that you would be interested in doing as well, reach out to me. I would love to hear from you. And you can do that by DMing me on Instagram when easiest ways to do it and say, I'd love to be on your show and we'll send you how to do it. And I'm @jj virgin and Instagram. And again, what we'd love to do is feature you on Beginnings and Breakthroughs either if you've been on one of my programs and you want to share your results or you have been on one of my programs and now want to go to the next step, or you're just looking to get started. We'd love to work with you. I'd love to work with you in real time on the podcast and have your story inspire others to do the same. So if you haven't yet subscribed to the show, by the way, make sure you do@subscribetoj.com and I will see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. I'm always so inspired by my awesome guests and I hope you are too. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of these incredible stories and the great tips you can use in your own life. And if you'd like to share your story and get free coaching from me, go to jjvirgin.com sign up to apply. That's jjvirgin.com signup. I'd love to be your next coach.

Hello listeners, this is Ann 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 tag 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.