The 5 Most Important Habits for Fat Loss Over 40 (Do This Daily)

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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 insane, insatiable.

Curiosity and love of science to keep.

Asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information I uncover with as many.

People as I can. And that's why I created the well.

Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify.

The science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from.

Personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to.

Healthy aging and prescriptive fitness.

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 jj, Virgin here. Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me. Travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things and suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. 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 on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of year reset could be a real goal. This time. Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use the code virginonarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

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What if there were some small, simple shifts you could do that could make a big difference in your ability to burn fat and hold on to muscle? Well, I've got five science based hacks that are easy to implement and aren't going to cost a bunch of money either. Now the first one is my mantra and that is eat protein first. Why do I say eat protein first? Well, I know that if you eat it first, you've got it in. And it's so important to do that for a variety of reasons. Number one, we know that people who eat protein first tend to make better food choices overall. Number two, protein has the highest thermic effect of food as compared to the other macronutrients, fat and carbohydrates. You expend about 20 to 30% of the calories in protein in just the digestion and assimilation. Contrast that to carbs 5 to 10% or fat 0 to 3%. So digestion takes up about 10% of your overall calories a day. So while it's not a lot, it makes a difference. It also makes a difference in both satiety and satisfaction. Those amino acids in protein that help make hormones, hormones and neurotransmitters can also help you feel more satisfied. And we know from the protein leverage hypothesis that if you're not getting enough protein, you tend to overeat until you get there. So eating enough from the start helps solve that. Plus, protein is more satiating. It slows down stomach emptying so you feel fuller longer. It can also help with blood sugar control and also it helps with detoxification. Now, we don't talk about this much, but one of the things that happens as you're losing fat is you're freeing up toxins. Toxins are stored in your fat and you want to make sure that as you're freeing them up, you're also getting them out. And you need the amino acids from protein to grab onto those toxins so that you can then prep them so they can be excreted now, if all you did was just start to eat protein first, it's going to help you eat less overall, which of course will help you lose weight because you need to get into a little caloric restriction in order to lose weight. And my seven day challenge shows you how easy it is to do this one simple thing. And again, I always like to focus with those big rocks, right? So if you go to jjvirgin.com 7day that will give you a protein calculator, figure out how much protein you need, and then a very simple plan you can follow to do a challenge for seven days so you can prove it to yourself. All right, the next one, walking after your evening meal. And I especially emphasize after your evening meal. Now I want you to walk more all throughout the day. 8,000 steps is kind of that minimum baseline goal is really 12,000 or more. But I want you to put some of that movement after your evening meal, because when you do that, you're going to have a couple great things that happen. Number one, it's going to improve your digestion. Number two, it's going to lower your blood sugar response to the meal. And number three, it's going to help you sleep better. So that's like the trifle perfecta. So let's try to get in even a couple thousand steps after your evening meal, even if it means if the weather's bad, you're walking around the house a bunch, whatever you need to do. Next up is getting hydrated. And I want you to drink fluids in between your meals and especially before your meals. In fact, one of the things you can do if you're a little hungry is have a big glass of water, especially a little lemon juice in it. That can help lower the blood sugar response to the meal and put a little fiber in that too. But what I want you to think of is drinking half your weight in ounces per day and then adding in a half to one ounce per minute of exercise. Now, this is super duper important for helping you lose fat and helping you detoxify too. So the process of burning fat is called lipolysis. And the first step of this process is hydrolysis, which occurs when water molecules interact with triglycerides fats to create glycerol and fatty acids. There was a mini review in 2016 that found the increased water intake led to increased lipolysis and a loss of fat in animal studies. We also know that water can lower hunger. There was a 2014 study where 50 overweight women drank 500 milliliters of water 30 minutes before breakfast, lunch and dinner, in addition to their regular water consumption. And this went on for eight consecutive weeks. Here's what happened. The participants experienced a reduction in body weight, body fat and body mass index. And they also reported appetite suppression. All they did was add water. But wait, there's more. Water also boosts metabolism. There's research indicating that drinking water might stimulate the body's metabolism and energy expenditure, contributing to weight management. This is known as water induced thermogenesis. And it's been observed with increases in metabolic rate following the intake of 500 milliliters water by as much as 30% for 20 to 30 minutes. There was a study with 14 healthy, normal weight people. There were seven men, seven women. And researchers wanted to see what would happen when the participants drank a glass of water. They did. It was about a 17 ounce glance of water. And what they found was that when you drink that much water, your body burns calories faster. And again, it was about 30% increase in metabolism for 20 to 30 minutes. Now, on the flip side, if you are dehydrated, even mildly dehydrated, it can actually cause fat gain. I Learned this from Dr. Rick Johnson, where he showed me that mild dehydration can actually cause your body to take fructose in the liver, glucose in the liver, rather, turn it into fructose and store it as fat in an effort to conserve fluid, conserve water. So if you need it for later, like a camel, you have something to pull from. Because remember, if you're storing fat, when you burn fat, you're freeing up water. So we want to make sure that we are staying hydrated, because even mild dehydration also raises stress hormones. Next step. Sorry about this, but you got to limit the alcohol because alcohol also impairs fat metabolism. Metabolism. And here's why. When you drink alcohol, this is the first thing that your body metabolizes. Your liver is going to metabolize alcohol before everything else. So that means that when you consume it, your body now is prioritized, processing the alcohol over fat, over carbs, over protein. And while your body's processing alcohol, it's not going to be efficiently burning fat for energy. So now you're basically blocking your body's ability to utilize stored fat for fuel. Plus, we all know this alcohol can stimulate appetite and lead to overeating. And another pearl from Dr. Rick Johnson. He shows how alcohol will lower ATP production. That's our energy production, or lower ATP, which lowers our energy production, which then of course also drives hunger. We know that it Lowers inhibitions. We know it makes you more likely to indulge in high calorie, unhealthy foods. And what's that all mean?

Well, now you're eating more and you've.

Got impaired fat metabolism. That's the double whammy for weight gain. Plus, alcohol can also affect hormone levels related to appetite regulation. It can increase ghrelin levels, and that's a hormone that stimulates hunger. And we also, it also can decrease leptin levels. That's one that signals fullness. This hormonal imbalance can lead to more food intake, which then of course would lead to weight gain. Now, when I think about alcohol, I also think about sleep because quite often people have alcohol to help them sleep. And while alcohol can help you feel drowsy and may help you fall asleep initially, it completely messes up the quality of your sleep. It can lead to more frequent awakenings all throughout the night. It also reduces the time spent in restorative REM sleep. Now, poor sleep contributes to weight gain, makes you more insulin resistant and interferes with your body's ability to burn fat effectively. So got to make sure that you are sleeping well. And, and it's another reason to skip the alcohol. So final one, and this is a biggie, and it is tracking. I just started working with a new client and the first thing that I had this client do before anything else, I said, all I want you to do is track. I don't want you to do anything, no instructions, just start tracking. I know that just tracking changes the game. There was a fascinating study in the Diabetes Prevention Program that discovered this. Over a 12 month period, participants were split into, into three groups based on how often they log their food. There were the rare trackers, there were the inconsistent trackers, and then there were the consistent trackers. Now here's the deal. Only those who were consistently tracking their meals and doing so more so on like two thirds of the day, which I'd say consistent to me is every day. But those are the only people that saw significant weight loss. They averaged 10 pounds consistently over the year versus the rare. And the inconsistent trackers had this roller coaster experience. They lost less weight during the holidays and they lost a little more in the summer. But the big message here is for consistent and long term weight loss, regular food tracking isn't just helpful, it's crucial. And it's not just about tracking, you know, tracking on the good days. And that's the really important thing. So that's why I start with. And I'm starting right now with this client is just tracking what you do. Just the first thing I had to do is track what you're eating. Just be curious and let's see how many calories you need during the day and where they're coming from. Then the next thing that I'll have him do is how much protein are you eating and let's get you into that ideal range overall and each meal. And then I start looking at non starchy vegetables. And so again most of this is adding before I take away because the reality is if you're adding in the good stuff, you push out the bad stuff. All right, now you know that you need to track, you need to eat your protein first, you got to stay well hydrated and of course pump out the alcohol and get some sleep.

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.

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Don'T miss a single episode episode@subscribetojay.com See you next time.

Hey JJ here.

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