Best Diet for Fat Loss (and it Includes Chocolate!)

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I'm JJ Virgin PhD dropout. Sorry mom turned four time New York Times Best selling author. I'm a Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven most of all by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover with as many people as I can. And that's where you come in. That's why I created the well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you through thrive. In each episode we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to powerful aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now @subscribeToj to start unlocking your healthiest, most energetic self. Want to listen to the show ad free? Head over to subscribetoj.com and start your ad free experience today. Hey, it's JJ here.

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Want to lose fat without giving up chocolate? Yes, of course you do. I do too. And you can eat chocolate and see results. So let's talk about the best fat loss diet now if you in this video, I'm going to share why you want to include dark chocolate in your daily diet. Note I said dark and I'll be breaking down the best diet for fat loss while holding on to our better yet adding muscle. And we call that in the game body recomping. We're also going to talk about which foods can help you put that muscle on and burn fat and which foods can sabotage your progress and how to crush the cravings before they ever even happen. First off, let's talk dark chocolate because that's the most important here really. Can chocolate be part of a fat loss diet? Now it may surprise you to hear that I eat usually about an ounce of dark chocolate every day. Sometimes it's a half an ounce, sometimes it's two. But I try to get some in every single day. Sort of my chocolate prescription, right? I do a lot of it usually with breakfast. I love no sugar added dark chocolate chips. I will put them on top of a smoothie on top of my Greek yogurt. So that's one of the things that I like to do and I always stick with 70% or or higher dark chocolate cacao sweetened with either allulose, monk fruit or stevia. And if I'm traveling and I cannot find one of those, I go with either. It has to be at least 85%. And I found some amazing 90 and 100% dark chocolates in Peru and Canada. So remember those higher cacao content dark chocolates mean less sugar. While you might feel like you're craving chocolate, it turns out that that bitter and that's why I like the really dark chocolates. Bitter actually satisfies sweet cravings. Bitter also lowers ghrelin, that's that appetite stimulating hormone and so it can promote feelings of fullness. Now the other cool thing with dark chocolate and why you want to have it in the day and not the night is. It can also enhance metabolism. It has a little caffeine and something else called theobromine. And this is again, it's one of those things, it's great to have a little pre workout in your loaded smoothie, but also not a great thing to have at night. Now these compounds, the caffeine of course, that is absolutely known to do this. And theobromine can support fat burning. And dark chocolate has also been found to support insulin sensitivity. That means your cell membranes, your cells are more sensitive to insulin and so your body doesn't have to pump out as much of it to get the blood sugar lowering response. Another way that dark chocolate may help with fat storage is by helping lower cortisol. It turns out the flavonoids in chocolate may help with stress reduction. You know how they always have the picture of the person stressed out and they're eating the dark chocolate. Well, maybe there's something to it, but here's the big important thing and here's the big but the dose can make the poison. Obviously a little dark chocolate's amazing. You know, too much can be a fat and calorie bomb. And remember, even you know, too much healthy food's unhealthy. And again, I keep stressing dark chocolate, high cacao content and getting the ones that have no added sugars, ideally sweetened with allulose, monk fruit or stevia. So here's some of my favorite ways to use dark chocolate. Again, I love no sugar added dark chocolate chips, especially the mini chips. Love those mini chips. And I will put them in the morning if I do a Greek style yogurt that I've stirred my Reignite wellness bone broth protein powder in or my collagen in, in. I'll put that on top. You know, I'll make a little yogurt parfait. I'll put it on top of one of my protein loaded smoothies. If you're doing oatmeal, I can't do oatmeal. I wish I could. Hijacks my blood sugar. But if you're doing an oatmeal again with some of my protein powder stirred into it, you could use a little dark chocolate there. One of the other things that I like to do, this is usually a lunchy thing, is I will do berries with a little bit of dark chocolate chips in that as well. You could also do a little like berries, nuts and dark chocolate. Now here's another one that I super love. It's this company Called Living Ratio. They have a product called Cacao Calm. It's dark chocolate again, no sugar. With mushrooms, adaptogenic mushrooms. And I will put that in coffee. This is sort of my mocha treat. Sometimes I'll do this deliciousness with that with a little bit of coconut whipped cream. Oh my gosh, so good. And you can put a little bit of mini chocolate chips on top of that too. All right. But beyond chocolate, it's not just chocolate. When we're talking about a diet here, that's going to be a fat loss diet for us. What are the essential elements you ask of a fat loss diet for women? And first we have to really unpack how a woman's metabolism is different from a man's. Because it is. Why is that? Because of muscle versus fat. In terms of body composition, where we look at how much fat free mass you have, that's everything but fat, right? And then how much fat mass you have. Men only have 3 to 5% essential fat. That's fat they have to have on their bodies to survive. Women have 10 to 15% essential fat. So you see the difference already. Men have more muscle mass than women. And of course, the biggest way to impact your resting energy expenditure, that's how many calories you would burn during the day if you just hung out on the couch, is how much muscle you have. You've heard that muscle takes more energy than fat. It's not dramatic, but it adds up. Every pound of muscle you put on your body probably burns about another 10 calories a day. But remember, you had to build that muscle. And muscle, of course, also improves insulin sensitivity. And muscle, when it contracts, does all sorts of magical things like lowering inflammation and burning fat and building muscle. So lots of good stuff there. Bottom line is more muscle, better metabolism, and you'll have an easier time of it burning fat. So that's one way that men and women differ. There's an obvious other way, and that is hormonally. Now, if you are a woman who's still normally cycling, you probably notice that your weight shifts a little bit throughout the month. That just after, you know, day one, things start to improve. And then midpoint of your cycle, you start to. You feel like you get a little fluffy again. Then of course, you hit perimenopause and things go out the window completely. And. And not for most of us. Maybe you're one of the lucky few. But when you hit perimenopause, estrogen starts to take a nosedive. Remember, estrogen helps you build muscle and burn fat. What Also happens is estrogen is counterbalancing cortisol. Cortisol's coming up, insulin's coming up, inflammation's coming up. This all together means you are better at storing fat, worse at building muscle. And by the way, you know where you're really good at storing fat? In your visceral adipose tissue. All of that is not good news for us. Now, there's some things that can help. One of the things that can help here is creatine. Creatine is going to help you work out harder and recover better. So that can help you with holding onto our building muscle. You really want to be lifting heavy fish oil is great because it can help improve insulin sensitivity and it also can be anabolic and it can help reduce inflammation. Vitamin D is amazing here. It's a pro hormone, so it's going to help you with the, with all of your hormone production. But it also can improve insulin sensitivity and bone mineral density, important for that. And then vitamin C and DHEA and some adaptogenic herbs, things like rhodiola and ashwagandha may help here with lowering or normalizing cortisol as well. And of course, I gotta do a big shout out here for meditation. When you're getting into perimenopause, make sure that you're doing things to really take care of your adrenaline health. Boy, if I had it to do over again, I would have found Dr. Joe Dispenza back in my 40s instead of in my 50s. So how important is balance when it comes to macronutrients for fat loss? And to start the discussion of macronutrients, one thing I think is important is that I always talk about three macronutrients. But you know what the reality is? There's four. So we have protein, we have fats, we have carbs, we also have alcohol. And I need to mention that because alcohol is, is a very unique macronutrient. I think we just tend to think it just doesn't count. Oh, boy, does it count seven calories for a gram. But the reality is this is why it counts the most when you drink alcohol. When you're eating and drinking, your body has to handle that first because alcohol is a toxin to your system. So when you're drinking alcohol, first thing your body's going to do before it deals with the protein, fat and carbs is got to deal with the alcohol. And so that means that you're not burning fat if you're drinking alcohol because your body's metabolizing alcohol rather than dealing with Fat, Right. Rather than burning fat. All right, let's now dig into protein, fat and carbs. I'm going to go with carbs first. And here's the interesting thing. With carbs, you can live without them. We can live solely on a ketogenic diet, solely on protein and fat. With water. Must have water, right? But it doesn't mean it's the best thing for you. And when I talk about the best diet for fat loss, here's the reality. It's the best diet for you and we're all our own n of 1. And that's really super duper important. Anyone tell you that there's one diet for everybody and it's. This is the way. It's ridiculous. But there is the best diet for you and how you do with carbs and fat. Really, I think that's where The N of 1 comes in. So I'm just going to table it right now, but just let you know that yes, you can live without carbs. However, probably not the best thing for your adrenals or your gut microbiome. Keto can be super effective in a ketogenic diet. A true ketogenic diet, you're probably having like 50 grams or less of carbs and it's a high fat, moderate protein diet diet. There's some now kind of variations of keto with higher protein, but that's a true ketogenic diet. Now there's more like a 30% calories from protein and 70% from fat. But you have to see where you are and how you are able to maintain ketosis by testing your breath or your blood. And sometimes higher protein will throw you out of ketosis because protein can be converted to sugar as needed. A ketogenic diet can be very interesting. I first started looking at this years ago when I was doing a lot of nutrition work for controlling seizures and to quickly restore insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control. And then I got more interested in it when my own son had a traumatic brain injury and I needed to help with his brain injury, his brain healing and seizures. So this is one of the things tbi, bipolar seizures, where a ketogenic diet can be very helpful, very useful. Same with cancer. In fact, I did an amazing podcast with Dr. Annette Bosworth on a ketogenic diet and how she uses ketogenic diets regularly for cancer. So amazing there. And you can check that out at well beyond 40. We'll put that in the show notes. So ketogenic diets definitely have their places. Remember, I think of a diet as tools so this can be a great tool in the toolbox. However, I don't know if it's the best diet for someone in perimenopause. It really depends on what you're battling the most there. If you've got big blood sugar and insulin issues, then maybe it'd be great for you. But someone who's got more adrenal issues and fatigue issues, you may find that you do better with some carbs. Now, fat is interesting. It only requires. It requires very little like 0 to 3% of its calories to be used in the digestion and metabolism of fat. And we need probably 30 to 60 grams of it a day. I think 30 grams is sort of like the foundational. Remember, fats are essential, especially omega 6s. Omega 3s are essential for us. We got to get them from diet. They make up our cell membranes, they are super important for our brain function, so they do a lot of stuff in the body. However, we can make the rest of our fats from our essential fatty acids. But somewhere in the neighborhood, depending on your size, 30 grams plus a day is probably the bare bones minimum that you will want to have a day for fat. So if you are doing a fat diet, don't make it a no fat diet. Get some fat in. It is essential. Next one I'm going to talk about is protein. If you've been around my community at all, you know that I'm a big fan of protein. And that for all of us looking to age powerfully, I think that we need to make protein intake our number one priority. Which is why I say eat protein first. What does protein do where I think of fat and carbs as our fuel? Macronutrients. Protein is really our function or structure. Macronutrient, it's going to help us build muscle, it's going to help us with satiety, it's going to help us with better thermic effect of food. So it helps with structure, but it also requires a lot more energy to be digested and assimilated. That muscle protein turnover is expensive and we also know that it has better satiety. So you use about 25% of the calories from protein in the digestion and assimilation of protein. And then you also have really good satiety. It is the most satiating of the macronutrients. Protein, fat and fiber are like the satiety trifecta. But protein and fiber specifically can trigger the release of GLP1. So I always like to have people make sure that they're focusing their Diet on protein, they're getting 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight of protein. We'll throw my protein calculator in the show notes if you need it. And so that you make sure that you get that in, it's non negotiable. Then you throw in the right fats and the right carbs. And remember, we can live without carbs, but quite often if you are struggling with stress, if you're struggling with energy, if you're doing a lot of working out, you'll feel better with some carbs. I find most people, if they put kind of 100 as their baseline for carbs and 60 grams of fat as their baseline for fat, and then kind of see where they feel best after that. So your proteins in there, it's non negotiable. 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight, 60 grams of fat, 100 grams of protein or of carbohydrates. And then play around after that. And remember, with carbohydrates you're really reaching for those carbs that are as close to nature as possible, that are great sources of fiber for your gut microbiome. What happens if you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau? Losing fat and holding onto our building muscle? It's kind of like watching grass grow, you know, you should lose no more than 1% of your body weight a week. To ensure that you're getting the majority from body fat. You're tracking it by using a bioimpedance machine to make sure that your body water is going up so that you're losing what you want to lose. Remember, it's not what you weigh, it's what your weight's made up of when you hit a plateau. And you've been monitoring your body composition with a BIA machine. What I like people to do is take a week or two and just track what you're eating by measuring using a scale and track everything in an app. I like the Cronometer app, so that you can really see what's going on. Because what you might find is that maybe you are eating more than what your body needs. Because the reality is as you're losing weight, your resting energy expenditure is going to go down a bit. So you at say 170 is not going to need the same amount of calories as you at 140. Now putting on muscle, making sure that you're losing the majority of your weight from fat while you're holding onto or better than putting on muscle will help offset this but it still will be the case that you won't need as much. So once you've taken a little bit of time to see how much your body really needs to maintain where you're at, if you would like to focus on losing more weight, what I like to do is drop calories by 25% five days out of the week and then take it back to your maintenance calories two days a week and just roll through this. I learned that little trick from Dr. Bill Campbell, who runs the only physique lab in the country and is doing lots of research on menopausal women. Bless him for his work, but I find that's one that someone can stick to for the long term. But again, remember your you've got to evaluate how many calories you actually do need. And that is why I also have people making sure that they're tracking how much they move all throughout the day. Because quite often as we start to eat less, we move less, which is not what you want to do. So let's talk about what are the best foods to include in a fat loss diet. Which foods are most effective for keeping you full while you're on a calorie deficit? I already mentioned this, but I just want to drive it home that protein, fat and fiber really are the satiety trifecta. They work together really well as a team. Remember, you're going to eat protein first because it's the most thermic, but also the most satiating. Then you're going to always focus on fiber. When you're eating carbs, you're eating carbs for the fiber to fuel your gut microbiome. But also fiber and protein, slow down stomach emptying, help you feel fuller, longer fiber really helps with good blood sugar control. And then fat. Fat triggers the release of some chemicals in the brain to say, hey, you're full, I'm full, I feel good. So throw those three together and you've got again that trifecta of satiety. And then when I'm looking at fiber, I want to do a shout out to a specific type of fiber called resistant starch. Name that because it resists digestion. It undergoes fermentation in the colon and produces these short chain fatty acids, especially one called butyrate. And butyrate is really interesting because butyrate can shift the body's energy use from carbohydrates to stored fat and help increase fat burning. And studies shown that replacing 5.4% of carbohydrate intake with resistant starch can boost Fat burning. Are you ready for this? By 20 to 30% after meals. It also can decrease fat absorption in the intestine and lower fat storage in the fat cells. And preserve lean body, mastering weight loss, maintaining metabolic rate. Stay tuned, because I am putting together really cool resistant starch. I've been reformulating all of my Reignite wellness products, and I'm working on a really cool fiber product. Stay tuned. But I also, of course, supplement. Supplement. So how do you get resistant starch from food? Green bananas. Now, green bananas are yucky. They don't taste good. So here's what you do. I buy bananas and just when you're able to kind of peel them, because if they're super green, you can't even peel them. And they're super astringent, but slightly like barely ripe bananas. That's when I peel them and freeze them so I can put them in smoothies. So that's one Overnight oats, specifically because of what's happening with them as they sit in the. Whatever kind of milk you're using with them. Legumes, cooked rice, pasta or potatoes. Now, here's the thing with all of those. You want to actually cook them and eat them cooled. That's when the resistant starch gets elevated. And potato starch powder. Oh, and quinoa. So any of these things. But think of how you could cook them and cool them, because that's how they get the most resistant starch. Now, there's a couple of other foods that actually can help boost your metabolism and promote fat burning. Now, I say this, and don't think that you can do this, and just go, hey, I'm cool. I'm gonna eat donuts and do this. It's not gonna work. All right? But this falls under the category of every little bit counts. And one of the ones we know, like, loads on this one. Coffee, of course, is a thermogenic and ergogenic aid. It's great for going before you go to the gym. That's my favorite of all. And it boosts metabolism, promotes fat burning. Some spices, hot spices can do this, too. Now, it's a little bit, but, you know, every little bit counts. So things like chili peppers, these can help. One that you probably don't think about. But making sure that you stay well hydrated and water itself boosts your metabolism. It's just a little bit for a short amount of time, like 30 minutes. But every bit counts. Especially if you drink cold water, your body has to warm it up. But being dehydrated causes your body to Store fat through a process that I talked about in one of my podcasts with Dr. Rick Johnson from the book Nature Wants Us to Be Fat, where if you are dehydrated, you're raising stress hormones, you're storing more fat, breaking down liver glycogen, turning it into fat and storing it so your body has a reserve. Well, we don't want that. And then of course I already talked about it, protein. But I'm going to give a shout out to two specific things. Number one, grass fed grass finished beef because of the omega 3s and the CLA. And CLA has been found to help us with insulin sensitivity and belly fat burning. And then Omega 3s from both grass fed grass finished beef and fish has been found to of course reduce inflammation and also to be anabolic to help us build muscle. If you are cutting calories, and even if you're not cutting calories, you just trying to not eat some of the things you used to eat that weren't supporting your great health, like maybe ultra processed foods. Well, how do you control cravings while you're making this shift? Now, I already mentioned that dark chocolate can help with cravings and protein can as well. In fact, when I did my first eat protein first seven day challenge, I expected people to say, oh, I'm not hungry anymore. But I know that being satisfied and being satiated, they're two different things. You can be full and still have cravings. Everyone knows that. What I was really psyched to find out is that not only did protein help with hunger, it also helped with cravings. But remember, hunger is different than cravings. Now I also have a really cool hack for this. It turns out that just like bitter can help with cravings, sour can take your sweet tooth away. And I'm going to tell you one product I love and you can actually make this at home. But it's called Suja Lemon Lub. It's spicy lemonade. It's made with lemon juice, it's made with water, it's made with a little stevia and cayenne pepper. You literally don't want to use much. You want it to be sour. It's the sour that takes your sweet tooth away. And then of course, you've got the cayenne pepper for a little metabolic boost. And if you're doing it home, use a little allulose. Shout out to my buddies over there at RX. Sugar allulose is amazing because it triggers the release of GLP1 and it also helps lower blood sugar response to a meal and satiety. Yay. Now, there's another important thing for cravings management, but it's not a food, it's your sleep and stress management. Because one poor night of sleep elevates hunger hormones and then that energy crash that you have can lead to sugar cravings. So here's your best hack to offset this. Turns out one of the great things you can do for sleep deprivation is creatine. And I'm going to shout out ma chiotine that I formulate specifically for fabulous women like you. And that is creatine HCl, that is seven times more absorbed than monohydrate combined with magnesium, taurine. Amazing. So that can totally support if you are going through a little sleep deprivation, stress. That can be helpful. Now, stress. You know, there's this term stress eating. It's there for a reason. Because when you're stressed, it can impact your serotonin. I always think of serotonin craving sweets and dopamine getting hungry. So it can make you lower your serotonin and dopamine. Now you're hungry and craving. And I always say, and it's not for salmon. And by the way, when you are stressed and your serotonin and dopamine are lowered and your cortisol's up, so you're craving like the sweet, sugary carby things and your cortisol's up, which makes it easier for you to store it around your belly. Like it's a total triple whammy. Is that triple whammy? I think that's a double whammy. Anyway, it's not good. And so again, I talked about things you can do for stress earlier. This really is one that you want to get a handle on. So the takeaway here is if you find that you're having cravings, let's try to identify the why so we can then use the right technique or strategy to fix it. All right, let's talk about what role portion control plays in fat loss. And I already mentioned that too much healthy food is unhealthy. Otherwise, if that was not the case, I would be mainlining dark chocolate all day. It is really easy to overeat on ultra processed foods. Here's what's wild. With ultra processed foods, not only do they have a lower thermic effect, so I talked about how protein, 25% of the calories from protein are used in the digestion and assimilation of protein. Not so with ultra processed foods. Really, really low thermic effect. I don't even think they have much of a Thermic effect of food. But the other thing is they drive more hunger, more cravings. In fact, what the research has shown is that people who eat ultra processed foods tend to eat 500 calories more a day. Wow. The good thing with eating more healthy food is it's unlikely unless you're eating something like salted nuts. Those are kind of to me, a no, no. And along these lines, know your trigger foods for me. Trigger food for me is crunchy salted almond butter. Do not give it to me if you see me, because now people have heard me talk about this and they'll be at a conference, go, I brought you this. I'm like, don't bring me this. I don't want this. Right. But know your trigger foods. I know I can have a little dark chocolate and walk away. But if you're one of those people that goes, if I have a little of this, I'm going to want more and more and more, then it's not your thing. Don't have it. So too much healthy foods, unhealthy, know your trigger foods. But we're really generally, especially if you eat protein first, highly unlikely. What are you gonna do? Go pig out on wild salmon and cauliflower rice? Even if you did, it'd be hard to do a lot of damage there. So I find this happens most with ultra processed foods. But where I really like people to start, I already mentioned this was, is to do an audit where you are recording everything you're eating and look at a couple different things on your tracking app. Look at how much protein you're getting in to ensure you're getting what you need, that 1 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. Check how much leucine you're getting and especially at your morning and evening meals, make sure you're getting 3 grams or more of leucine. If you're getting, and I think for most of us, especially women, I would rather see you at about 40 grams of protein, maybe even 50. If you are eating more plant based at a meal, you might think that sounds like a lot. But as you start to do this, you'll see it is not that hard to do. I regularly get in, gosh, 50, 60 grams of protein in a meal. I know I'm showing off. And then fiber. 30 grams is sort of your baseline, your floor for fiber each day. I'd love to see 50, but let's start where we start. Bump it up slowly. And then how many overall calories are you getting in? Because if you're getting in more calories than you need. It's got to go somewhere. Now it's harder for you to store protein as fat. You can do it, but it's not your body's preferred thing to do. Easier to store fat as fat. And then the next stage, after carbs go into your muscles, is to turn those into fat. But it's like the hardest to do protein. But if you eat too much calories, it's got to go somewhere, right? So that's where you really want to look is like, what the heck am I doing? What am I eating? Honestly, when you start to really track what you're doing and you start to really get a feel for portions, it makes you so much better at gauging things when you go out. Here's what you do when you go out. Number one, ask your server what is the size of the protein? So if you're having a steak, they'll know. They know how, what the size is because they weigh and measure all of their proteins. Trust me, they're all. They're already determined, so you can find that out. So here's my typical way I eat when I go out. Salad dressing, if I have it, is extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. And I make sure it's extra virgin olive oil, not some olive oil, crappy blend with canola oil. Then I make sure they have not turned my salad into a sundae by putting in croutons, glazed nuts, dried fruit, fruit, or any of that kind of stuff. So if I'm having a salad dressings on the side, I ask for double veggies. Generally, I don't have starch unless they have something that's not crappy. So if they happen to have some lentils or maybe a couple roasted fingerling potatoes or something like that, I'll go for it. But most of the time, that's where they really go overboard, let's be honest, like a loaded baked potato or something like that. But it's, to me, a great opportunity to get some amazing vegetables. Double veggies. And then beware of these words. Glazed, crispy, creamy, right? Fried, so crunchy. Because a lot of that stuff means I deep fried this. So always ask questions. Always, always, always be that person at the restaurant. I always warn them. I go, hey, I'm gonna be a little high maintenance. Okay, Just let them know right up front. Now, can you lose fat without being restrictive with the foods that you love? Here's the thing. Not if you love like ultra processed foods. If you love like, I don't know, I'm trying to think because I don't really eat any of this stuff, but if you love ultra processed foods and desserts and margaritas. Yeah. No, you're not gonna be able to lose fat without being restrictive. It is way easier to learn to love new foods, protein, minimally processed carbs, you know, eat as close to nature as possible. This will make it way easier. And I really think that if you focus on eating protein first, then adding in a lot of non starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit, especially berries, and use some healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil is not hard. And track so that you can see how to work in these foods and then you'll see like, you know, then you can make your decision. If you want to have a little something, if you want to have like a pizza pizza or something else, work it in. Everything counts, right? It's not like you can't do these things. They just make sure that they feel fit into what you're doing. But focus on eating the good stuff first. Just like you teach your kids, eat the good stuff first. The difference with kids and adults is they actually get full. And then again, I love the five days on two days off approach that I learned from Dr. Bill Campbell. But that is not the two days or cheat days. That is the two days are what you would, you know, maintenance, maintenance calories days. So it might be a couple hundred more calories. It's not a cheat day. Don't go off the rails. I find that does so much damage. First of all, just even the concept of good or bad or cheater, that's just, you know, if there's something you want to eat, then you just account for it. Mike's Pies in Tampa makes this gluten free key lime pie that is out of this world and that's kind of our big dessert that we'll get. Whenever we're doing a family like Easter celebration or Thanksgiving, we get Mike's Pie. And so I will account for that. And I also know that I don't need to eat like a fourth of Mike's pie. I can eat a 16th of it and be just as happy. And I can use some no sugar added coconut whip and be beyond happy. So again, once you go through all this stuff, you'll see how to work these things in and you're creating your own n of one fat loss diet. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are Built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook and my website jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast@subscribetojay.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode. Want to listen to the show ad free? Head over to subscribetojay.com and start your ad free experience today. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided or on the show is solely at your own risk.

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