Change These 5 Daily Habits for Easier Fat Loss & Health

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I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout. Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author. Yes, 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 by my insatiable curiosity.

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And 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. Hey, it's J.J. here. Now, let's be honest. The holidays are basically a financial ambush. Travel, hosting gifts, surprise holiday school things. Suddenly you're wondering how December turned into a spring spending spree. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or your phone. What really grabbed my attention is how fast those little holiday expenses pile up with Monarch. Seeing everything in one place makes it a lot harder to accidentally overspend. And honestly, I appreciate anything that keeps me from starting January with a money hangover. You'll love exploring the holiday spending category. Imagine how good it will feel to actually see what's happening before your credit card statement does that whole dramatic reveal thing. Monarch basically shows you exactly where the money is going in real time, and that level of clarity could change everything, right? Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with code Virgin.

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One of my favorite sayings is that little hinges swing big doors, meaning you don't have to overhaul your entire life in order to lose fat or get your health back on track. Making simple changes to your daily routine over time will help you hit your goals sustainably so you can lose fat and keep it off for good. The first one that I'd love you to incorporate is walking after your last meal. Now, I want you to get 8 to 12,000 steps in a day. The research is really clear on that. And if you want to do more, great, do more. But I really want you to focus on getting some of those steps in after that last meal. Because when you walk after that last meal, it's gonna lower the blood sugar response to the meal and it is also going to help you with digestion and help you sleep better. Now, I'm gonna share a little study that showed two different approaches to increasing daily steps. So let's talk about just walking more overall. And this was two different groups.

And.

And they wanted to see how these two different approaches to increasing your daily steps would impact body composition and metabolic health. And these were college students with obesity. So they had 32 participants and they divided them into three groups. They had the walking step goal group, and they were told to walk 12,000 steps every day. Then they had the walking exercise group. They were told to do 12,000 steps a day, but three days a week they were told to walk at a faster pace. And then there was the control. And they were just told to keep going with what they were doing. No step goals. So they tracked the number of steps each participant took daily for eight weeks. Now, here's what they found. The average daily steps didn't differ significantly between the first and second groups, the regular group, and the exercise group. However, the exercise group showed improvements in hip circumference, visceral fat loss, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, HDL C, fasting glucose, and triglycerols. The other group only had improvements in HDL C and of course the control group, nothing happened. Right. So what does this mean for us? That a walking exercise program with the daily step goals is going to be more effective? If you throw in some little bit of push into that walking program, and I give you a couple different ways to do that. If you do that, let's add some intensity in a couple of those days a week, it's going to be better for body composition and metabolic health than just saying, hey, I'm going to walk 12,000 steps a day. It can also help reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. So while I say get 8 to 12,000 steps in a day, ideally get some of that after dinner, now I'm going to also add in, let's up the intensity a couple days a week. And how do we up the intensity? That can be just as simple as when you go out for a walk three times, three of those times, just push it faster. Or you can do what I like to do because I live in Florida and it's flat, because you could also go, I'm going to go somewhere where it's hilly is you can increase the speed. You can add some hills, or you can add a rucking vest. A rucking vest is a weighted vest. And if you're not using one, start with five or ten pounds and then just try that, throw that on, because that's going to increase the intensity too. So that's the first one that you can do. The second one is prioritizing sleep. Holy smokes. I actually don't know how to get someone healthier if their sleep is not on track, because even one poor night of sleep, you are more insulin resistant and you are hungrier. So let me tell you about a study that analyzed the relationships between sleep characteristics and weight loss in overweight or obese women who were participating in a weight loss program. So the researchers hypothesized that women with better sleep quality and those who slept more than seven hours per night would be more likely to achieve significant weight loss. They looked at 245 women with an average age of 45.5 years and an average BMI of 33.9. Now, at the beginning of the study, over half of the participants, that's 52.7%, showed poor sleep quality. The findings showed that better subjective sleep quality increased the likelihood of weight loss success by 33%. Sleeping more than seven hours per night also positively impacted weight loss. What the study concluded was that both sleep quality and quantity may play a role in weight loss in overweight or obese women who are participating In a weight loss program, better sleep quality and longer sleep duration were associated with higher chances of successful weight loss during this period. Now I think of this, I think of something Dr. Michael Bruce, the sleep doctor, told me and he did this little program with Glamour magazine, where Glamour magazine. All they did with women who are wanting to lose weight, they didn't change anything except the instruction was that they needed to get quality sleep each night. I think it was like you had to get seven to nine hours of quality sleep a night. That was the only thing they did. And everyone in the group lost weight. That's crazy. Why is this such a big deal? Well, again, one poor night of sleep, you're more insulin resistant and you're hungrier. Your ghrelin is higher. So if you're more insulin resistant, it makes it harder for you to burn fat. If you're hungrier, well, all bets are off, right? So this is one of those things that you cannot overcome. So when I talk about all of these little hinges, if sleep is the hinge is, is not there. This is the number one hinge to work on first. So what I've included is my best rest sleep sheet. That gives you all the tools you need to get the best sleep every night. And you can download that one for free@jjvirgin.com BestRest One thing I've been really focusing on this year is hrv. And this is because I'm working on stress. Here's the thing, especially for women 40 plus, if you're heading into menopause or postmenopausal, stress is a major thing for you because your adrenal glands are going to be where you're going to be producing your estrogen and some of your DHA and testosterone as well. So your adrenal glands become super duper important as you start to make that transition into menopause. And we start to rely a lot heavier on them. So one of the ways that you can find out how your stress is doing is by monitoring your, your hrv. That's your heart rate variability. The more heart rate variability you have, the better you are at handling stress. The better your stress resistance is. In order to improve your hrv, you're going to want to find the things that work for you. We know the things that totally trash your hrv, their poor sleep, their alcohol, it's eating a high sugar diet. So these are things that really tend to destroy your hrv. And the reason that this matters is a poor hrv. Higher stress leads to more belly fat, leads to more Visceral adipose tissue. So you're gaining fat around your belly and specifically around your organs. You tend to have higher cortisol, you tend to become more insulin resistant. It tends to impact your sleep. And of course, if you're impacting your sleep, that's impacting your insulin resistance and ghrelin as well. It also tends to deplete serotonin and dopamine, make you hungrier. It tends to make your gut more permeable. So like stress has a whole bunch of challenging stuff. Plus it's catabolic. It breaks down muscle and bone. So we really got to get a handle of this one. And here's what's interesting. You can also improve heart rate variability by doing exercise. There was a study that looked at a 12 week exercise program that had both cardio and resistance exercises to see see if it can improve both heart rate variability and lung function. This was done in older obese women in South Korea and they had 20 participants who were older obese women. And I got to tell you, I just was in Korea last summer, I never saw one obese person. I was there for a week. And so I'm wondering where they even found them. Very active, very healthy population was incredible. These women, the average age was 66 years old. They had a high body mass index and a high percentage of body fat. And they split these women into two groups. One group didn't exercise, they were the control group. And the other group did cardio and resistance exercises. And they measured heart rate variability, they measured cortisol and saliva, and they measured lung function. Here's what they found. The group that did the exercise program lost weight and they lowered their body fat after 12 weeks. Of course, the control group did not. The control group had negative heart rate variability. That means it didn't improve. It went, it got worse. Poor cortisol levels and negative lung function changes. However, the exercise group improved their heart rate variability. They reduced their stress hormones, they lowered the cortisol levels, and they improved their lung function. So one of the ways that you can improve your stress is through exercise. Yet another thing that exercise does, it's amazing. And, and specifically getting in some cardio and some resistance training. So this is an important one because when we look at all the different things that can improve hrv, of course, doing regular, consistent exercise is a major important one. I know the scale comes with a lot of angst, but I am a huge advocate of weighing in every single day. I think we really need to reframe the way we think of a Scale. First of all, it's not what you weigh, it's what your weight's made up of. I believe in using a bioimpedance scale, not a regular scale. And this is a scale that looks at total body water and then says how much your body is fat, how much is lean tissue, how much is visceral adipose tissue. And then of course, measuring once a week to measure your waist and hips, comparing your waist, your height and your waist to your hips. And what we're doing with all of this is we're taking the trends over time. So I love the scales that and the tape measures that have a Bluetooth component where it goes to an app. You don't even have to pay attention to it. Just at the end of the week, look at it and take the average. Okay? Don't get obsessed with what's going on every day because our weight naturally fluctuates. Every day can go up two pounds, can go down two pounds. You can make yourself crazy with that. So we are doing a pinky promise that you are going to look at the average over a week. I'll put in the show notes, the scales and tape measures I use with this Bluetooth component to an easy app. I'm going to share a study that examined whether weighing yourself daily is better for weight loss than weighing yourself less often. And this was a researcher, a research study done in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on overweight men and women. And they divided them into two groups. One group was asked to weigh themselves daily using a special scale that sent their weight to a website. And they received weekly emails with weight loss tips. The other group weighed themselves less frequently. Now they collected data on how often each group weighed themselves, their weight changes and their weight control behaviors, things like how they were eating and their exercise. And they looked at it over six months and here's what they found. The group that weighed themselves daily lost more weight, about 13 and a half pounds on average than the group that weighed themselves less often. The daily weighers also adopted more weight control behaviors, showing they were more committed to changing their habits to lose weight. These include caloric restriction, stopping snacking, getting rid of all that ultra processed food, moving more and adding in, exercising, watching less TV and going out to restaurants less. What does this tell us? This study suggests that weighing yourself daily can be a great tool for weight weight loss because it not only helps with losing more weight, but it helps you do the right habits. And that's why I like to say what you measure and monitor, you can improve. Because now You've got daily metrics to see. So super important one. And again, remember, you are looking at the scale as a biometric tool, not as a mean judgy friend. Okay, next one. And this is where I start. Anyone I'm working with one on one, I start them with one. What I call a macro audit. If you're guessing about how many calories you're getting in a day, how much protein you're getting in a day, you are probably underestimating the calories you're taking in. In fact, according to a study at Cornell, normal weight people underestimate what they eat by about 20%. And overweight people underestimate what they eat by about 40%. And I've seen other sources that say it could be as much as 50%. This is crazy. So what I like to do is just start first week and I use the Chronometer app. If you go to jjbirgin.com chronometer C-R-O-N o m e t e r, we'll put it in the show notes that can get you started on the free app. I like to use this app. And all I tell you to do the first week is just be curious, not judgy. Just put everything into the app. Pay attention to when you're eating, how much you're eating. Start to use a scale so you measure what you're doing so you get it all incorrectly and just be curious and see what you eat. The first thing I like to see is what's your total daily energy expenditure, how many calories are you actually eating each day, and how many calories do you need to maintain your weight. After we've got that dialed, then we can start to go. Okay, let's start to look at how much protein you're getting in. Are you getting in enough? Let's optimize your protein to make sure you eat it first. Once we get that nailed, then we can start to make sure getting in enough non starchy vegetables. Are you getting in a little fruit? You get the idea. But it first starts with tracking because again, what you measure and monitor, you can improve. And another thing I love to have people monitor is how much they are drinking because hydration is key here. In fact, I've got a review study that shows that drinking more water can help you lose weight by helping you eat less and burn more fat. Now, the evidence for this comes from studies done on animals, mainly rodents, where they manipulated specific systems in the body related to thirst, leading to the animals drinking more and losing weight. This theory comes from the fact that people, when people are consistently dehydrated, they tend to have higher levels of a hormone called angiotensin ii, which is linked to various health problems like obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The proposed explanation for why increased hydration helps with weight loss is that it boosts the metabolism by expanding the volume of our cells. These findings from these animal studies often apply to humans as well. Human studies consistently support the idea that drinking more water can aid aid in weight loss and reduce all the risk factors for developing obesity and type 2 diabetes. A couple things we know about drinking more water is that it boosts the metabolism. You can raise your metabolism by as much as 30% for about 20 to 30 minutes after drinking water. And that if you are dehydrated, even a little bit of dehydrated, you actually raise cortisol. And remember, when you're raising cortisol, you're going to tend to store more fat around your belly. That's where you have a lot of your cortisol cortisol receptors. But we also know that when you're dehydrated, you actually take some of the glucose from the liver and turn it into fructose to store as fat. This was something I learned from Dr. Rick Johnson, who showed this would happen so that we would then have that fat stored so that we could use that fat later to free it up to get water, just like a camel does. Now, you need water to burn fat, you need water to detox. Water helps with satiety, water helps with thermogenesis. So drink water. And what I like you to do is have start with half your weight in ounces a day. That's like your baseline. And then add 1/2 to 1 ounce for every minute of real exercise. That's kind of where I start and I really like to get in a serving or 2 of electrolytes each day as well. So I use my electro replenish and I, I generally do two servings a day. Now, since you're watching this video, I know you're also looking for easier ways to lose fat in your workouts too. So you're going to want to watch this next one where I show you the top five exercises I recommend that hit all the major muscle groups to maximize your fat loss efforts. Whether you're at home or at the gym.

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 more importantly, that you're built to last.

And Check me out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and my website jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast so you don't miss a single episode@subscribetoj.com See you next time.

Foreign.

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.

And 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 on the show is solely at your own risk.

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 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 whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.