Quarantine 15 Diet Takeover Week Day 2: Alcohol
15 Dec 2025 · 4 min
Podcast episode by JJ Virgin addressing weight gain during COVID-19 (‘quarantine 15’) with a focus on alcohol’s role in inhibiting fat burning and promoting rebound hunger, sleep disruption, and insulin resistance. The episode includes multiple sponsor endorsements (Wayfair, Earth Breeze, Ray-Ban Meta, Monarch, University of Phoenix), a short demo/interaction with Meta Glasses, and a repeated announcement that JJ will cover quarantine-related weight issues over several days.
Chapters
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I've gained the quarantine 15 help. Any advice? This is JJ Virginia, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the health expert. Marcy12 from Instagram says JJ, I've gained the quarantine 15 and more and I'm really struggling to get back to my pre quarantine weight. Any advice? Hey JJ here and I am fascinated by weight loss, resistance, everything that can get in the way of you losing weight and cause you to gain weight. And I believe that with quarantine 15 there are a variety of reasons that you could be struggling. And I'm going to cover this question. I can't just answer this question in one answer, so I'm taking it over. All week you're going to be hearing me address this, so stay tuned. I'll be right back with the answer.
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Saving on your education should be a right, not a competition. At University of Phoenix, you'll get the best scholarship or savings you qualify for. Simple as that. Explore scholarship options at University of Phoenix. All right, so I read a little article this morning and it was talking about weight gain that had happened. And they did a poll of over a thousand US WebMD readers and 47% of women and 20% of men responded. They've experienced weight gain due to Covid restrictions. And then in another poll of international WebMD readers, 34% of women and 55% of men reported weight gain in quarantine. And why would that be? Well, the general feeling was lack of exercise, stress eating, and more drinking. In fact, I've got a buddy who's got a company that's adding 300. An alcohol company. 300 to 500 new customers a day. Wow. So what's the deal with alcohol and. And weight? So when alcohol is consumed, it's broken down into acetate. Acetate similar to vinegar. And here's the thing, the body is going to burn acetate before any other stored energy in the body. So if you're drinking alcohol, your body is going to use that for fuel before any excess fat. It's always going to burn that alcohol. So that's the first thing. You're not going to be fat burning if your body's got alcohol to burn off. Now, a couple other things that happen with alcohol. Number one, if you drink a little bit too much, then your inhibition goes down and you're like, yeah, just, I'll have the cake, I'll be fine. I'll start tomorrow. Right. Other thing that could happen is you get rebound hunger. That happens in the next day. So even if you just do a little bit that day, you can also get this rebound hunger. You're hungrier the next day. So, so there's another one. And also depending on how much you drink, and this is why you really have to watch this, it can impact your sleep. And if you're not sleeping well, that then keeps your ghrelin up during the day, makes you hungrier during the day, and it also makes you more insulin resistant. So you're again worse at burning off fat. All right, so boo hoo. And as I'm taping this, I'm taping this live into my Facebook community, my JJ Virgin lifestyle Community shout out gals who are on right now commenting no alcohol. No, I didn't say that I but I do want you to be careful what you drink. When this all happened I did a shout out to my buddies over at Dry Farm Wines and said send send provisions help. So that's the first thing is if you are going to drink, drink responsibly. Obviously if you have any kind of addiction problems, this is not for you and it's not something that's like your daily dose either. But if you are going to drink and there are are studies that show that small amounts of alcohol and especially clean red wines which is why I only drink and recommend dry farm wines can be beneficial. So if I'm drinking, I'm drinking wine from Dry Farm Wines and I like their big reds as they know so they send them to me, the ones that are higher in resveratrol or I will drink tequila. But no sugary mixers. None of those. So be careful. It's not just the alcohol, it's also are you combining sugar with it? Because your body will burn the alcohol, then the sugar and then finally it'll start getting into the fat. So we want to focus on not doing that. So if you are going to drink, it's not every day. It's limited to one to two drinks. You don't have any sugar with it. You stick with Dry Farm Orange or a little bit of tequila with sparkling water and maybe a spritz of I like to do a Cavita Rita we call it. It's Kavita Mojita lime and a little bit of Casa Amigos Tequila. There you go. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com foreign.
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 take 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 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 read next podcast.com to find out more.
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