How to Create Your Own Customized Eating Plan with Chalene Johnson

Hey JJ Here.

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This show is about you, not about me. I want to help you find practical, real world ways to dial in your health and mindset so you can finally lose that weight and feel strong and energized. Stop settling for less than your personal best. It's time to find out how to look and feel better than ever. And I'll be right here with you the whole way. I have such a treat for you today. I have someone who I've known for years and I have huge respect for and it turns out that we independently have been like kind of playing around with the same concept which we're going to be talking about today, which is really all about taking personal responsibility for your diet, really how you dial in what's right for you and how to know that. And plus, we're going to be kind of pulling back the curtain on the whole fitness and nutrition industry. What are some of the challenges with it? So I have the perfect person to be doing this. I have Chalene Johnson with me and I just have so much fun with her every time I'm with her. And I'm very excited to be sharing this with you. So if you have not heard of Chalene, and I'm sure you have, she's the New York Times bestselling author of Push. She's a lifestyle and business expert, motivational speaker, podcast host, and she and her husband Brett are the founders of Smart Life Movement. Now you may know her from her Beachbody infomercial. She's done so many fitness videos over the years. She also does has online academies membership site, sold out seminars. But what's really exciting Fun and new is that she has put together the one three one Method and her new book, the one three one Method book. And I am just like, I didn't know what was really going on with it till we started talking on this podcast and I'm just kind of flabbergasted because I have found my soul sister. That's all I have to say. You'll, you'll get it when you start to hear this podcast. And I want to let you know she has put together the most awesome, amazing gift for you at JJvirgin.com forward/chalene, c h A L E N E. You are going to want to grab this. I'll let her tell you all about it. But if you like to eat, if you like recipes, if you like cooking, but you want it easy, she has got you covered. So you're going to want to grab that now. I am crazy about this title of this review. So every week, every podcast, because we do them twice a week now, I do a shout out to someone who's left review and this title just kills me. So here's the title and this is from Andy Schultz. My dog's chiropractor changed my life. Okay. Like, how could you not want to? I was like, looked at this. I went, huh? And it's a five star review in Apple podcasts. Says Face to face with my dog's chiropractor. I found out about JJ and the Virgin diet. My knees were in terrible pain with arthritis and my brain fog interrupted my thoughts. Throughout our conversation and his adjustments, she strongly suggested I go gluten free, get your book and read it, not just look at the diet. I've been following the guidelines for a couple of months and feel immensely better. I'm only 57 and have osteoporosis and osteopenia. I've just discovered a podcast and one directly about bone health. Thank you, JJ for my 11 pound weight loss, clear head, better health and a new outlook on life. And I'm looking forward to seeing my next bone density test results too. Awesome. I love that and I love that title and I just so appreciate you leaving a review. And by the way, I'd love to shout you out too. So all you have to do is jump on over to itunes while you're there. Of course, be sure to subscribe and I would love to shout you out as my favorite review of the week. All right, Chalene, it's about time you.

Got on the show.

So great to be here. Thank you so much, jj.

I know. Well, I thought. I thought you'd actually had already been on a couple times, so I don't.

Know quite how I talk. We were like. Were we talking on a podcast or were we just talking?

Oh, my gosh. Anyway, I'm happy you're here. For everyone. We are going to be. We're going to be bringing up some controversial stuff. But let's not start there. Let's. Even though it's very tempting to, let's kind of go back a bit. Like, how long have you been at the whole fitness, health, nutrition thing?

Oh, that's a good question. Quite by accident. 25 years. 25 years. You know what's so funny?

I don't know if you know this, so I know you got your start way back then, and then you started doing some stuff with Beachbody, and one of the founders of Beachbody actually was my college boyfriend's roommate.

Oh, really?

I mean, it's just so. I like my memories of him. John.

Oh, John. He's so fun.

It's so funny. So I was like, I was watching this whole thing going, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe what these guys are building. It's so cool. But prior, did you get your start with Beachbody, or were you doing some things before then?

Yeah, we initially, my husband and I started a certification company in 1998, I believe, and we started certifying fitness instructors. So I started in fitness at age 18. Started teaching fitness classes as a hobby. You know, I was planning on going to law school.

Well, but it wasn't like I saw that you went off to study law. But I started teaching when I was. I started teaching calisthenics because I'm a little older than you. And there was. There was no aerobics. No, there wasn't even aerobics yet.

Oh, my gosh.

First it was calisthenics, and there was jazzercise. Then came aerobics and leg warmers. And I think you were probably post leg warmers, were you? Which is.

Well, not leg warmers were just about that time. But it's interesting you mentioned jazzercise, because that's really what I built my first business, looking at their model. I started teaching fitness classes and realizing, like, this is a losing proposition. You spend several hours creating these workouts with perfectly timed music and sound effects and, you know, well choreographed moves and the appropriate warmup and the appropriate cooldown. You'd spend hours and hours and hours and you'd make minimum wage for an hour and, you know, and you had.

To buy your own Music and everything else, and your workout clothes and everything else. Like, total, total.

It's definitely a labor of love. No one does that initially to make money. And so I just was like, okay, I've got this really cool. I've done all the work and the class is really popular. It's resonating with people. I should just offer this to sell it to other fitness instructors. And it took off by word of mouth and eventually just in our local area, and then it started to spread into, you know, surrounding states. And by the time we had sold our. Our first business, we had 60,000 fitness instructors across the globe and something like, I don't know, 20 different countries. And we had certified hundreds of thousands of instructors. And we created an apparel line that caught the attention of infomercial companies because at our height was about the time, I'm sure your listeners will recall the Taebo craze. So all the infomercial companies were on the hunt for the next fitness program that they could bring to consumers.

All right, so they found you?

Yeah, they found me. And you know, by the way, I never had intended to be in fitness. I hadn't studied fitness or nutrition. I just used it to keep myself in shape and solved a problem for people. And because it wasn't because I was super knowledgeable that I was successful, I think I was successful because I could relate to people.

I almost wonder, though, is that, were you successful in what you were able to do because you weren't coming from, you know, this place? Like, I was in graduate school and fitness and everything was fitness, fitness, fitness. And you came from the outside and looked at it much more of a, how do I solve this problem on a much bigger scale where the rest of us were, like, in the weeds?

I think that might be true because I definitely. There was definitely a silliness to my workouts where it's like, oh, we can't take it so seriously, you know, oh, so we did eight counts on the right and seven on the left. No one's gonna die, you know, and so it did. It just really resonated with people. But I always kind of felt like an imposter, you know, so when I had, especially when I had incredible success.

You'Re like, is there going to. I'll tell you, everyone feels that way, though. Charlene. I remember when I was on Dr. Phil, I kept waiting for them to. When I drive up to a lot, I kept going, someone is going to tell me, like, get off this lot right now, missy. You know, like, you don't Know what you're doing for sure. Right. So I think it's pretty common, us feeling that way. So you, like, had this whole breakout thing. You had such a fun approach to, you know, like, great personality. Then like, when did you start getting into the nutrition side of things?

Well, you know, it kind of relates to that imposter syndrome. So I, I didn't know much about diet and nutrition. I repeated what I heard everyone else say, you know, as I think most today influencers do. It's my, my issue with fitness influencers, of which I was one.

But don't you think, don't you think, and I'm sorry, I just jumped in here, I'm like, don't you think that what I saw back when I was a personal trainer was 0 nutrition know back then and I was reading Shape magazine to try to get some nutrition knowledge and was that the minute you're a fitness person, they assume that you must know nutrition, Right?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And thank you for making me feel a little better about that. But I also feel like it's almost an excuse because I had a responsibility. So the very first program I ever created, I remember sitting down with the lead nutritionist and him saying, so what's the nutrition program that you have people losing all this? You know, I had this big book of before and afters for people who've been doing my workouts. And he said, what's the nutrition plan you have?

I'm following.

And I said, I don't, I don't have one. And he said, well, we need to create one. What, what are your ideals? What, what do you believe? You know, what, what is it you're teaching people? I'm like, I guess I better figure that out. And literally, I just kind of regurgitated what I was hearing and reading on magazines what I was hearing other better known fitness and health and nutrition people saying. But I never, I never understood the responsibility I had to look into it, to educate myself, to look at research, to ask who says and why? Why do we believe this is true? And so I got really caught up in that myself. And meanwhile I was. Because I, I always felt like, gosh, I, you know, I'm 5:2. If I gained 2 pounds, it looks like 20. I never felt like I was supposed to be there. I didn't have the abs of these tall, statuesque, beautiful bodied, super lean, so lean you can see their outline of their liver. I didn't have that physique. And I was so afraid of gaining even a pound, like I was happy with my body. I never had body issues until I started doing consumer videos, because that's a pretty horrific experience. And I was so paranoid that if I gained five pounds, I would be without a job, I would be without influence. People would find out that I just slowly just trying to maintain, started eating less and eating less and eating less and exercising more and exercising more and exercising more to the point where, you know, I was exercising, like, probably three hours a day. Very small amount of food. Any protein bar, protein shake, protein cookie packaged. You know, if it said low fat, high protein, I was buying it. And when was this?

When was this?

Oh, geez. All the way up until probably 2000. And I would say probably 2011. And it was at that time, I was about to film a new fitness infomercial, and my husband got a call from the producer. I was like, why are they calling you? I mean, I'm the one, like, working on the choreographer. What are they calling you for? He came home and just said, this is really uncomfortable for me to tell you, but they would like for you to lose some weight and to get leaner for your next program. And, I mean, I can. It still makes my face turn red. Like, I was. I was like, oh, you remember your fear of driving into the parking lot at Dr. Phil and them stopping you? That was. I just had got stopped in the parking lot. That's what it felt like. And I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I felt like, oh, now everyone knows. And also, meanwhile, I also knew I was living a lie, because here I am selling these programs to people and saying, you can get these results in 30 minutes a day. Now, I wasn't lying about them. I believed other people could do it. I just thought, that's just not true for me. Like, I. If I worked out for 30 minutes a day or eight, followed this meal plan, I gained £20. Could I. Because I destroyed my metabolism.

I know. I was just going to ask you, at what point did. All of a sudden you go, something's got to change here, because this isn't working?

It was that. It was that video series, like, and. And people always try to figure out which one it is. Don't bother. But I'll tell you this. I lost, like, oh, I think just five, six pounds enough. And that. You know, again, when you're short, that looks like you're five two, barely.

You're always wearing those big, huge. I remember. Yeah. Something. A video together where we stuck you in your big, high shoes on an Apple box. You know, I know. J.J. it's so true. I know the positive. Like, if I lose five pounds, you can't tell. You lose five pounds and like, people are like something sizes. Yeah.

So when you're doing these videos, you, um. And. And I want to just preface this by saying I didn't have to do anything. It was suggested that I do that. No one, you know, held me down and said, you've got to do this. But because my metabolism was thrashed because I was already eating very little and I thought I was eating clean, I had no choice but to exercise more. So I upped my workouts to like four hours a day. And do you want to. This is. I have to be honest, because there's no other thing to be. But to prepare for that video. I ate sugar free jello. I drank diet Coke and I ate air popcorn.

Oh, yeah, Maybe with some butter buds.

Yeah.

I still remember.

Alba77 and like, diet sodas, diet jello diet. All of a sudden you realize you just spent, like, I don't know how much money and there's no actual real food.

Right.

You know what's crazy? I look back at the time when I was working out. Like, I would work out four to six hours a day. Eat. I was eating almost no f, all fat free. And I am leaner, fitter, healthier now than, you know, working out a quarter of whatever used to work out and ditto.

And I can verify that because I.

Just saw you saw each other, and you looked fabulous.

Thank you.

So I think this is an important thing for anyone listening going, oh, my gosh, I've done that too. Is like, you can totally damage your metabolism and you can turn it around. But that whole idea that your body's a bank account, you need to do more working out, eating less.

Oh, my gosh.

It does not work because your body is not a bank account. So, all right, you had this epiphany. So what the heck did you do?

Well, shortly after I finished filming that, I was destroyed. I. I went to the doctor thinking there was something wrong with me. I couldn't think. I had. My stomach was bloated. I, like, could gain a pound. Just. I could gain £5 just by looking at healthy food. And so I went to the doctor and he said, well, you know, hate to break it to you, but this is called you're entering menopause. I'm like, I just. I don't think that's it. So I went and had a nutrition panel done, I had my hormone levels tested, and I had my brain scanned And I went to the Amen clinic as well, and I basically got a failing health grade. And even though I looked leaner than I'd ever been, I was smaller people. I was getting praised like crazy in social media, which is just the BS cycle of all this. And it just kills me that there's so many people, you know, hashtag goals over people's bodies on. In social media, and you just don't know how unhealthy they are. I mean, I was on a fast track for, first of all, autoimmune disease and Alzheimer's and osteoporosis.

I mean, that's. This is why we have to be so, like, we really need to look at health in such a different way. And I saw it back when I was. I used to. When I was a personal trainer, train people down at Gold's Gym in Venice. And what people would do to get to these crazy, unrealistic bodies was I was like, oh, you know, and that's the other thing. It's like, we've got to show what real bodies look like. Real women's bodies have body fat. It's. If you don't have body fat, you're not a woman. You know, that's part of what we have. We have curves. It's a good thing. Pretty.

And I hope it changes.

Gosh, it has to happen.

I sat there, it was like, literally that day. It wasn't a gradual thing. It was like that the day I got my results. I don't cry. I'm. You know, I'm always a happy person. I went and sat in my car and I cried and cried and cried because I. The thought of my children having to take care of my personal hygiene. Like, them. Me being in a state of dementia and not being able to care for myself, like, 20 years earlier than I should have because of things I did, I did in the name of health. Just. It was them. It was like they became my why. And the very next day, I. I gave up most of my fitness classes. And I said, okay, guys, I'm stepping away from the business. I'm going to. If I've done this to me and I'm a health and fitness expert, what have I led the others who followed me? Where have I led them? So let me heal myself, Let me get the answers, and then I'm gonna share what I find out, no matter who it pisses off.

So what did you find out?

A lot. You know, first of all, I had to learn about my metabolism. If I could summarize it I would say this. I learned that no one thing works for all of us.

Oh, amen. Amen. I am so sick of. You know, I do an event every year and what I'm really proud of is I bring five doctors and health experts together and we've got plant based keto, paleo, you know, intermittent fat. They all together and they all get along. They all together and it's like the idea that there's one size fits all diet just is the most. It's like it's the most ridiculous concept ever. Or that there's one diet that's going to work for you for your whole life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, exactly. And that was the part that was hard for me to understand because I'm like, but wait, but this does work for a lot. Fill in the blank. This particular way of eating does work for a lot of people for a long period of time. So what's going on there? And then it was just through doing my research and really understanding that we were meant to cycle. Like we, for whatever reason, we've accepted that for a really long time when it comes to fitness. But if you just look at biologically how we were designed and you think about nutritional availability of resources, you know, our ancestors didn't have the same available resources and nutrients in the summer that they did in the winter. And their diets changed. And we were meant to cycle. Everything happens in cycles. Everything happens in phases, phases, phases of the moon, phases of our hormones, cycles of life, cycles of plants. Like, and why. So why aren't we doing that? Marketing. So it was a couple things. It was learning that our epigenetics, you know, your age, how much you exercise, your metabolic flexibility and just how your body works.

Oh, I'm getting the biggest girl crush on you. You're saying all my favorite words.

You had this figured out long before everybody else else.

And I got so, I got so like, everybody thought I was crazy. Well, I was just, I was just a trainer. And I went, wow, I'm making people work out a ton and starving. I mean, it's not working. So what, what's going on? You know, I mean, it's just, that's like when you really pay attention. Just like you were looking at this going, oh, this doesn't work. And you know, then as you start to dig into it and go, all right, just like what you said, metabolic flexibility. We would never like. I still remember that I was teaching this class to doctors and I teaching them to have breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, dinner, and then A snack. And one of them came and goes, why are you. Why, why? Why all that? And I go, it was because I was on Dr. Phil at the time, and it was in his book. And I go, oh, my gosh, I'm getting my nutrition advice from like, hello, you know, and then let's really look. Just like you said a thousand years ago, there was no breakfast snack, lunch snack, dinner snack. You know, I just saw this thing they had. They queried, like, 10 top nutritionists about what snack they have after d. And literally when I was saying, you know, I gotta fuel myself for the night, I'm like, what are you doing at night? Like, are you going out to a nightclub all night? Because unless you're doing that, I don't know what you're. What are you fueling for?

But as you know, we are hungry because we've been. The way that we've been consuming our food. The amount. What, not the amount of calories, but the types of food that we're eating have an effect on our hunger. And so we're walking around with broken hunger hormones. And so, you know, for me, it was really like, okay, okay. So here's the challenge, JJ And I know, you know, this is that the majority of the population has been brainwashed to believe that they are not smart enough to figure out how to do what works for them. They can't be trusted. They're going to fail.

Yes, they better.

Just tell me.

Everyone is plaguing. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to eat. Tell me what to eat. So the struggle in creating the one through one method was that. And we really did struggle for the first year when we started testing this. We tested it eventually with a thousand, two thousand, then 25,000 people until we could. Could figure out how to get people, how to give them the structure that they need to create their own approach. Because even if you give people all the information, it's still too scary to create their own approach. They think they're gonna get it wrong because that's their only experience, because people fail on diet. So they think, well, if I create my own, that means I'm left to my own devices.

What if you're failing on a diet? Because diets aren't actually meant to be. See, I believe we need two different words for diet. This is where the main problem comes in. You know, Eskimos have, like, I don't know, a hundred words for snow. I think we have this short term therapeutic thing that we do that we learn Something like, which foods work for you, when should you eat? And then we have the way we eat. And the way we eat will change, you know, depending on what's going on. Just like you said, your epigenetics and your goals. But, you know, you find out these things, you go, oh, you know what? I do better when I don't have gluten, or I do better when I eat breakfast, or I do better doing a Sunday fast, you know, and you just learn this stuff about you. Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's forever. What if you get, like, you get a brain injury? Hey, you're going to have to shift some things while you're healing from that, or you have surgery or you're under traumatic, you know, a massive stress. So I know it's. It is a wrestle.

It's your own approach, it's your own method. And so what I do in the book is try to teach people. Well, we do teach people how they're creating their own structure, so good. Their method.

Yay.

You know, and, and I think that's really. If I can just talk to any other fitness nutrition, fitness influencer, nutrition influencer, social media influencer. Who's listening is. I just wish we would stop being so dogmatic and like waving a flag for a particular style of eating because, you know, 10 years from now, you're going to be waving a different flag. So why don't we just say this is what we know right now and based on my personal experience, this is what I'm recommending as opposed to just, just people hanging the flag out front that they're keto or their paleo or they're. And fighting with plant based and fighting with each other. Like, let's just. How about we all learn a little bit more about our bodies than what we learned in high school, understand how it works and understand how to tweak it and adjust it just the same way a doctor adjusts medication. We can do that with our food.

Yep. Amen. And then you learn how to connect the dots and you actually pay attention to how you feel when you're eating right and go, yeah. You know, motivating. Yeah. Because then all of a sudden you're not going to go do that silly thing because you know how it made you feel and you're smart and you learn to trust yourself. So I am like, I knew we were going to be on the same page with all this stuff. And I think that is the big takeaway here is you are putting the power back into, into everyone's hands. We've got to take personal responsibility for our health. And we're smart. We really are. We're smart.

You can do it with grace and there's no failing. You know, you're on a continuum, a journey. It's not a. That's another thing I wish we would take out of our, our language is I'm on a diet or off a diet or I failed or I messed up. You know, well, I was, can I start this after my vacation? It's like, start what? It's health. Can you start health after your vacation? No. You need to be healthy every day.

Day.

It's a continuum. You're going to have days that are better than others. It's like parenting. You don't go, oh man, I really messed up parenting. So I'm going to parent. I'm going to start parenting these kids again after vacation.

Yeah, I'll just take a break for a while. We'll just leave them at home. We're going to go out. You know, clearly you're alive.

You got to take care of your kids. You got to take care of you and stop thinking of it as a all or nothing fail or succeed. It's just a journey. And a journey we're all able to get better at.

Well, I am super excited because first off, I love everything I'm hearing. I'm so there with you. This is where I'm hoping within the next five years. It's actually what my final when I do find like my, my literary agent keeps going, when's the next book? I got, I got one more. And it's all around really one more. I only it's like, that's it, one more. But it's all around this concept and I love this. I love that you've written this book, the one three one Method. And what I'm super excited about because I know that our community loves recipes and I love the way you've approached cooking too. Just like you have with, with your program in that you've got kind of something for everybody in your cooking collective. So we are giving away the most awesome, cool thing this is. So when you told me about it offline, I'm like, you're giving this, like you're giving this to everybody. And so you're going to be able to get this@jjvirgin.com Chalene and that is spelled C H A A L E N E C H A L E N E Chalene and it is. I'm gonna let you tell about it, but just you, you people who cook and like to eat. Oh, my goodness.

This really should be a TV program. I mean, it's really great. It's, it's a, it's like a cooking academy, if you will. But you've got three different chefs. Brett, who's my husband, and I am not responsible for anything he says on camera. He is a loose cannon. You've been warned. Then there's Erin, and she's just, just, you know, a celebrity chef. She's been creating recipes for many of the top nutrition programs that you've seen online. And she's a mom of three. And then Ashley is a young mom who, who all of her recipes are, you know, crock pot based, will last you the whole week. And they all have a different style, they all have a little different approach to their nutrition. So there's tons of really cool, easy to follow recipes, and they're guiding you through them on video. So they're, they're time saving. They've got tons of tips in there, even like, prep tips and different gadgets to use in the kitchen. And they're super entertaining and easy to make. Recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

You said the important thing. Easy. I.

Easy.

I have not yet met anyone who says, you know what, jj, could you get some really complicated recipes that are going to take you all day in the kitchen? That would be awesome.

Thank you so much.

That just never happens. So that's fantastic. I love it. So again, you can get that at jjvirgin.com forward/chalene. And that's C H A L E, N E. And oh, my gosh, thank you so much. We are bringing you back on.

We.

I want to go. I, I really want to go deeper in this because what, what you don't know is that I've actually been messing with this. Now, this has been my last year and a half of messing with and messing with and messing with, and I'm like, going, oh, my gosh, someone on the same page.

I've been dipped into fasting.

I, yes, Fasting. Intermittent fasting. I, I by our buddy. Do you know, do you know Dr. Joe Mercola?

No. Oh, yeah. Wait, Dr. Mercola. Yes.

So Joe. Oh, Joe is a sweetheart. You, you gotta know him and put him on your podcast. He wrote a book, Keto Fast, and it is the most genius thing about fasting. All the latest because he's an obsessive researcher. So I think some of the most exciting things once you are metabolically flexible. Because if you are not metabolically flexible and you try this, you're going to fail and then you're going to beat yourself up. And we don't do that. And every. You got to realize if you try something and it doesn't work, then you got to go back and go, why didn't it. Why didn't this work? Did this not work? Because maybe this isn't the right thing for me or maybe I'm not metabolically flexible or may, you know, so. So there's all sorts of things. That's just information. It's just a problem if you keep repeating it over and over again and not learning. But the first, like, these things are information and they're really important. So anyway, yeah, we will. Let's like, let's go do some more deep diving on this. It will be super fun. In the meanwhile, get the cooking collective she is giving you. That's so cool. And thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been awesome.

It's been my honor. I love you, jj.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. You know, I love to talk about figuring out which foods work for you and which foods don't. So I had someone jump on the other day and said, I keep hearing about gluten and dairy and all the problems with them, but how do I really know if they're bad for me or not? And, you know, I love the question. And there's a variety of different ways that you can know, and I'm going to tell you a couple of the different ones. Now, you heard the interview today, and I'm sure you kind of gathered from that that we are on that page of like. Like, I think that you should use your own body as your own personal chemistry lab and test foods yourself. So what I really like to have people do is pull out the foods that are the most likely culprits of food intolerance, and those are gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, peanuts, and then sugar and artificial sweeteners because they actually can create food intolerance by creating leaky gut. I like you to pull those foods out, give your body a little detox and reset, and then go back and connect the dots and try each food one by one and see how you feel. Because ultimately, that's the most powerful thing at all. And. And we talked today about getting disconnected from your body. Where you're, like, going, you keep doing the same thing, even though it doesn't make you feel good. Your body's not working well. You can't think straight. And that's why I want you to really say, gosh, how do I feel when I eat these things? How do I feel? You know, how's my energy? How's my belly fat? That. How's my focus? How's my inflammation? Because if someone says, oh, no, this is totally fine for you to eat, it looks fine on the testing, but you eat it and you feel crappy. Well, hello. Don't eat it. And so I personally like to do that. Now, if you've got outlier foods that you don't work for you, this is where testing can come into play. And there's a couple different ways you can look at testing. Obviously, there's genetic testing for things like, like gluten, celiac disease, fructose and lactose intolerance. Then there's food sensitivity testing. Now, you can't look at gluten that way, but you can look at wheat that way. And Then you can look at all the different food proteins that way. Then there's other types of gluten intolerance testing, so you can look at all that. And I really especially like this for looking at if you go through and you pull out the most basic foods that people tend to be intolerant to and you're not feeling remarkably better, then it's time to then go to the next level and really see if you've got outlier foods you may not know about. Or maybe you have something going on with your gut microbiome that you need to heal. Right? Dig deeper and that's an important thing. If you're not feeling better as you start to make some shifts, or if something you're doing is making you feel worse, use that information. That's not a, oh, you fail. That's a, oh, here's really valuable information that's going to help you figure out what you need to do. So your body is communicating to it. You listen to it and have your body, you know, have that information mean something. Figure out what, what you should do with it. All right, cool. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I want to remind you again to go to jjvirgin.com forward/chalene to grab that crazy, amazing gift she's given you all her cooking collective. I love the whole, like, when she explained to me, I'm like, okay, so how much is that? That she's like, oh, no, it's free. I'm like, what? So super excited about all that. And I am going to dive in and go do a fun Instagram with Chalene. And that's why I really hope you are dialed into my Instagram @jj virgin and my Facebook @jj virgin official so that you can check out all these fun lives. All right, see ya.

That's all for this episode of the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show, which marks another step towards a healthier body and mind. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show and we'll talk to you next week.

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 reading. 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 readnextpodcast.com to find out more.