JJ Virgin (New York Times best-selling author) presents a quick recipe called "lemon aid" intended to reduce sugar cravings and blunt post-meal blood sugar. She instructs using lemon juice (a couple tablespoons; she mentions 4 tbsp as her preference), water, optional glutamine powder (about 1–3 g; 1/2–1 tsp), and optional fiber (chia or an "extra fiber" product). She suggests using low-impact sweeteners (stevia, xylitol, erythritol, monk fruit or a blend she made) but tapering them over time. She also claims lemon juice taken about 30 minutes before a meal lowers the blood sugar response to the meal. The clip closes with a tease for a live cast with nine more cravings strategies.
Questions this video answers
A couple tablespoons; she says she likes about 4 tablespoons.
About 30 minutes before a meal.
About 1–3 grams (roughly 1/2 to 1 teaspoon; up to 1 teaspoon).
Stevia, xylitol, erythritol, monk fruit (she also mentions a personal blend of glycine, erythritol, and stevia).
Chapters
Hey, it's JJ Virgin, New York Times best selling author of the Sugar Impact diet, the Virgin diet, and creator of the Sugar Solution online program. And on the upcoming live cast that you'll be joining me on, I'm going to be sharing my top 10 tips to crush your cravings. But I didn't want you to have to wait. So I'm going to give you one to get started with. It's my lemonade. No, not lemonade, lemon aid. And here's why. So the lemon juice does two powerful things. And who knew this little lemon juice could do this? The lemon juice. And you'll put a couple tablespoons. I like to do like, you know, four tablespoons. See, that's the magic of tv. I didn't have to cut the lemons and squeeze it out. But that's what you would do, obviously. So the lemon juice does two things. Number one, the sour taste of lemon can actually take your sweet tooth away. So there's one. And number two, lemon juice taken about 30 minutes before a meal lowers the blood sugar response to the meal. How cool is that? So that's the first step. Now the second step is to add some water, clean, pure spring water. So you could stop right there. But this would not be the powerhouse lemonade that you could have. So what we're going to do next is throw in a little glutamine powder. Now, this is optional, but, but this is one of those things that once you know how it works, why wouldn't you? And so what you're going to do is throw in like a half a teaspoon of that. And here's why. So glutamine can help take away your cravings because it tricks your body into thinking, your brain into thinking that it had some protein. So you can do a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of that, 1 to 3 grams. Obviously you're using powder. And then here's another great thing to do. You can use my extra fiber. You could use some chia seeds. But you throw this in because what this does is it gives you a little fiber. And remember, the fiber plus the water is going to help you feel fuller so you're not as hungry before your meal. So there you go, little chia. Now, you may have a sweet tooth. If you're watching this, I sense you might, and if so, and you need to have it a little bit sweeter to start. You can use stevia or xylitol or erythritol or monk fruit. I actually made a blend of glycine, erythritol and stevia and you can use just a little bit. Don't need much. And one of the things I really want you to think about here is if you are using any of those what I call the legal low sugar impact sweeteners, start to taper them down because what we really want to do is retain your retrain I can say it, your taste buds to appreciate sour and savory and spicy, right? All right, so here it is, the lemonade aid, totally delicious by the way. And again you control the degree of sourness but try to start tapering down those sweeteners so that you start to get rid of that sweet tooth. You will totally get rid of it by the way, I can promise you that. But this is the way to start. Now I've got nine more powerful strategies to help you crush your cravings coming up on the live cast and I look so forward to spending the time with you. Sam.
