My Top Tips on How to Lose Weight Fast (And Fat Too!) | Healthy Diet | JJ Virgin

Today's show is part two of my favorite tips on how to lose weight fast, and more importantly, not just weight, but fat. And I'm betting that most of these things are things you've never heard of, or if you have, you weren't sure how to use them most effectively. But you know what? Now you will. If you missed part one, be sure to check that out, too. So you're going to have a toolbox full of tips to help you lose weight fast and break through your weight loss plateaus. And by the way, you want to lose weight fast, because we know the people who lose weight fast actually lose more weight, and that weight loss becomes permanent. All right, I left you at number six last time, and number seven is fill up with fiber. A study in nutrition reviews found increasing fiber intake could help decrease obesity. And that's because it increases satiety. It means that you are not hungry. It delays stomach emptying, and it balances blood sugar. Another thing that it does is it feeds the good bacteria in your gut and helps crush the bad guys that actually can extract more calories from the food you eat and store them as fat. So here's the deal. The average person is getting in somewhere between 5 and 14 grams of fiber a day. Not good. I want you to get 50 grams or more of fiber in a day. And one of the places I love people to get more fiber is in something called resistant starches. A great place to get good fiber, and this is you're eating these starchy carbs. Resistant starch is stuff that your body can't use as calories. And actually what it does is it helps build something called short chain fatty acids, which are really good for your health and reduce your risk of colon cancer. You get those from legumes, lentils, black beans, garbanzo beans. Now, if you're thinking, oh, jj, I'd love to eat those legumes, but my family won't like me anymore. Here's a little secret there. If you start by eating a tablespoon of legumes a day for like a week or two, your gut gets used to it, and then you won't blow your family out. All right, so there's a little important tip. If you still are having challenges, be no. Okay, go for it. But don't not eat the legumes because of that, because they are actually an amazing source of resistant starch. Some of the other ones I love, berries are a great source of fiber, especially raspberries, obviously non starchy vegetables, nuts, and seeds. I love soaking Chia seeds overnight. And then using them in my shake, I throw in a product I have from the virgin diet called extra fiber. And you can sneak this in. And by the way, you can sneak that into your shakes, into sauces. But another great tool, if you're one of those hungry ones, and by the way, genetics, your genetics can actually dictate your hunger. So you might be one of those people. Feels like I'm just a hungrier person. Could be your genes. But one of the simple tactics you can use there is take a glass of water with some fiber and have that about 30 minutes before a meal. And that can help you feel fuller, longer again because it slows down stomach emptying. So there's an easy one. Fiber is such an easy one to put into place. And it leads me into my next big one. Because remember how I told you that fiber can feed the good bacteria and especially the resistant starch can feed those short chain fatty acids. You're going to hear more and more about your microbiome. That's the bacteria in your gut. You know, we actually are more bacteria than cells, and it's all about the balance of those bacteria. If you have too many bad bacteria as opposed to good ones, you actually will extract more calories from the food you eat and store them as fat. And if you've been on antibiotics, one of the things that happens there is it's just a wasteland. It kills off any everything. So in Europe, something that's been used as an alternative to antibiotics forever are things called bacteriophages. And they're essentially viruses that infect and replicate bacteria. And they go in because that sounds kind of funky, but they kill off the bad gut bugs. This is going to become more of a really useful technique here because we're getting this widespread antibiotic resistance. So I want you to think about this if you've automatically been reaching for antibiotics when you have any kind of a bacterial infection, because there's a lot of different alternatives out there. One of the key ones now being taking these bacteriophages and of course also using probiotics and garlic and cultured foods. All of these things are key, along with fiber, to help balance out the bacteria in your gut and put the favor, the vantage, back into the good gut bacteria. All right, the next one, number nine. Oh, my gosh. This is one that is so controversial. Cheese. But I have my stand on it and that's to stop snacking. In fact, the study showed that people who snack tend to eat more overall. Now, I Know that you hear that you're supposed to snack so you can balance blood sugar, right? Bs. Okay, here's what I see. Are people snacking on brussels sprouts and salmon? No, they are not, are they? They are snacking on snack packs. Those little 100 calorie packs, carb bombs that when you eat them, raise your blood sugar, raise your insulin and tell your body to store fat. And when you eat that way, every two to three hours you've taught your body to burn sugar, not fat. So you're hungry every two to three hours and you have to have snacks. If you train your body to be a fat burner, not a sugar burner, if you eat good, high quality meals, the virgin diet way, which is the virgin diet plate, is slow, low carbs, loaded with fiber, lots of non starchy vegetables, healthy fats and clean lean protein. You should be able to go four to six hours before you need to eat again. Because you know what, your body can access stored fat for fuel. That means you're a fat burner, not a sugar burner. And this is key, right? You want to be snacking on your stored body fat. Alright, enough said. Along with that number 10, you want to optimize digestion. Now one of the key ways to do this, and I'm going to full disclosure here, I suck at this, all right? I'm really working at this. But in the old days I was a personal trainer and I would run from client to client to client. I was used to eating dashboard, dining the worst and eating on the run fast. One of the single most effective things you can do to improve your digestion is to slow down. And you know one of the best ways to slow down is to eat with slowpokes and then be the last to finish. So that is key. And put your fork down. I love this new. There's some new little fork that will like buzz you and you need to put it down. So make sure you put your fork down. There was a study that showed that people who chewed 40 chews or more per bite, which I'm like 40 chews or more? Are you kidding? Lost more weight? Well, I don't know if I could really pull that one off, but you get the general gist is be the last to finish and put your fork down in between bites and chew. And now along with that you want to also do some things to aid digestion. If you are over the age of 30, 35 or, or under stress or both. I don't really know anyone who's not under Stress chances are that you've lowered your digestive enzymes and especially the enzymes that help you digest protein and fat. You actually don't really want to help carbohydrate digestion, right? That makes blood sugar rise faster, but along with chewing, which helps because it increases surface area and allows your body to be able to really get at the food, the other thing that can help here are some enzymes to help with protein and fat digestion. In fact, if you're struggling at all with gas and bloating, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, you eat, but you still feel hungry, rosacea and acne, you should owe it to yourself to give yourself a trial of some great digestive enzymes. And another key one there is heartburn. You know, we tend to think of heartburn and taking acid blockers, but in general, people of heartburn, this is the majority of people, not everyone, tend to have heartburn because they have low stomach acid. So they eat the food, it sits in their stomach, they don't have the enzymes to break it down and starts pushing back up against their esophagus and they get esophageal reflux. All right, so this is one that you should do a trial of, unless you have a history of ulcers. I have to say that, okay, that brings me to water, because one of the things you don't want to do when you're eating is down a ton of water. You want to drink water throughout the day, but during meals bring it way down so you don't dilute those digestive enzymes. Now here's a really amazing thing. If you're hungry before bed, you want to know how to shut that one down? There was a study done at the University of Washington and this was 100% of evening dieters, like you never hear this. Eight ounces of water before bedtime shut down their hunger pangs. But there's more to water than that. It turns out that Even mild dehydration, 1 or 2% can raise stress hormones. And when stress hormones rise, blood sugar rise, insulin rises, storing fat, and you also start to lower serotonin, makes you crave sugar. Just starts a whole lot of bad. Alright, just know that even a little dehydration and the challenge is we have a really good mechanism for telling us we're hungry. Too good actually, you probably have discovered, but in terms of telling us we're thirsty, it's not so great. By the time you realize you're thirsty, you went way over time. So what I find there is one of the things I Like to say what you measure you can improve is you really need to track your water. So you want to get in somewhere. I mean, you know, there's obviously how much water you need varies on how big you are and also what kind of temperature, weather you're in and if you're exercising. But you know, a good rule is 80 to 100 ounces a day. And the best thing is to get a water bottle and track it. And ideally, you're drinking from BPA free water bottles, no phthalates for you. Right? Don't make a good thing bad. And drinking pure spring water. Okay, we talked about evening hunger pangs and drinking 8 ounces before bed. Obviously don't drink like 30 ounces before bed because you're going to mess up number 12, which is get sleep. And I got to be honest with you, if I had to pick one thing, if you said jj, one thing to help me lose weight for the long haul, that will make the biggest difference in my weight and health. Sleep. Okay, so just in terms of weight, here's the deal. Failure to get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night. By the way, how much you need is really dependent on your own physiology. And I find the best way to figure that out is to go on vacation, just let yourself sleep and see how much after a couple of days is just your normal amount of sleep. I find mine's right around eight hours. I can do seven, but after a couple days I'm not doing so well and I don't really need more than that. I might for a day or two if I haven't gotten enough sleep, but then I come back down into the eight. So find out what's right for you and make sure you get that on a regular basis. This is so critical to do because one poor night of sleep, as I started talking off into the middle of this study, found that people, even after one poor night of sleep, they were hungrier and more insulin resistant. And that failure to get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night set people up for obesity, even if they were eating right and exercising. But let's think about like that night, you don't get good sleep. Think about how you feel the next day. You're hungrier, aren't you? Because remember, one poor night of sleep, you're more insulin resistant, okay? So you can't access stored fat. Your ghrelin is higher. That means you're hungrier, your serotonin is lower, you're craving sugar and you're tired. So you want Quick fixes. And you know that this isn't new information. We've all felt that way. And the problem is it starts this really bad spiral where all of a sudden you're having more sug things, more caffeine, and all of a sudden it's nighttime and now you can't sleep again and then you're trying to do things to shut it down and then you don't sleep well and then starts the whole thing the next morning. Yikes. So if I had to pick one thing again, this would be my focus. And one of the key, key things you can do to help here is to make time for sleep and then also to look at when you should be going to sleep and then walk it back an hour. And that's when you start preparing to go to sleep and get yourself into a habit there. Get the technology off. Don't be checking emails right before bed. That doesn't work. You know it and I know it. Fires your brain back up and you're going to end up with some email that you can't do anything about that's going to keep you up all night long. But start a really nice habit. I take a hot bath, I read a good but not great book, right? You read a great book, you're up all night. You know, just enough to get me kind of like going, oh, this is okay, but I'm going to sleep. You know, get your routine, intention. Do what you're grateful for. Get a great routine. And with all of these things I've just given you now, over the course of two shows, 12 strategies you can put in place. Don't put them all in place at once. Pick one, get it in there, start working it, then grab another one. You've now got tons of tools in your toolbox, so you should never face a weight loss plateau. If you'd like a free transcript of today's show, all you need to do is text 58885 and enter weight 1 w e I g h t 1 the number one. Then your first name and another space and your email address again. That number is 58885 and you enter weight 1. Put a space, your first name, another space, and your email address. In the Virgin Diet I have, you swap seven foods for three weeks to uncover your hidden food intolerance so that you can finally lose the weight and feel better fast. Why wait? Start that three weeks today.