The Amazing and Varied Health Benefits of Chocolate with JJ Virgin

Hey JJ Here. Every year around this time, I get the urge to make my home feel a little extra special. A space that feels just like the holidays. And Wayfair is my go to for that. Think cozy textures, twinkly decor, warm lighting, and all those little touches that make you want to curl up with a good book and a blanket. You'll usually find my books stacked on a great little end table I got from Wayfair, proof that function and style can coexist. Now, whether you're adding last minute hosting essentials, picking out gifts for loved ones, or refreshing your decor for the season, Wayfair makes it easy with beautiful finds, great prices and fast delivery. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Plus, with free shipping for any order over $35, that's fast delivery and a total peace of mind. It's the perfect mix of joy and order, bringing the holiday spirit in, then storing it all with ease. If you're ready to make your home feel as good as it looks, get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair Every style, every home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com hey, it's JJ here. You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners. Those brighteners don't actually clean anything. They just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family's sheets or skin. And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating and non sensitizing. I really like how simple it is and how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on your first order.

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A little bit of dark chocolate can trigger satiety hormones so that your brain goes, ah, I'm full. Maybe after a meal if you feel like, you know what, I still, I'm not feeling full and maybe I need a little something something. There you go. Little little piece of dark chocolate. Here's jj Virgin triple board certified nutrition and fitness expert and four time New York Times best selling author. It's time to Reignite wellness. Hey, Happy Sunday. From Tampa, Florida. It's JJ here and I wanted to jump on today and talk chocolate. Y did. And so if you're tuning in live awesome. I'll be answering some questions at the end and telling you about a special cool fun thing we have going on. And if you're tuning in on my podcast, I'm so happy to have you here on my Reignite Wellness podcast. Season two, all new branding and on my podcast, as you know, we do three fun things week. Number one, we do an interview with an awesome guest. And I do mean an awesome guest. I know some amazing people. Number two, we do a deep dive into something you want to know more about. And hello chocolate. Yes, I'm going to tell you today on the podcast why you want to make sure that you're getting in a little chocolate. Dark, dark, dark. Every single day I'll tell you all those health benefits and number three, we Friday Q and A. And that is where I grab questions from my Instagram and Facebook feeds. A lot of times when I'm jumping on live like I'm doing right now and I answer them. So before we dive in to the topic at hand, which is why you want to make sure you're eating a little bit of dark chocolate every day and what you need to know about that dark chocolate and the health benefits behind it, I want to do a shout outy out out. Okay, so shouting out to t. Cavender from USA gave me a five star review. She says knowledge is power. Five star, she said. I spent about 10 years going through menopause, diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid, having thyroid removed, suffered from all the poor health as a result. I wanted to give up. At the age of 58, I decided I was just old. Stop it. After a long road of searching for answers and doctor after uninformed doctor, I finally landed with a wonderful functional medicine doctor. Yay. Shout out to all the functional medicine docs. We love you all so much. Thank you for your good work. That's all coming from me, by the way. She looked over my extensive file and listened so intently. Then she spoke words that changed my life. Tracy, I believe the root of your issue is not so much thyroid as food allergies. Then she recommended your book and your elimination diet. I started immediately and wow, wow, wow, what a difference. Gluten and dairy are my enemies. Thank you JJ for doing this. Getting this info out there in such an amazing applicable format. You, along with Dr. Liseberg have given me back my life. I was going to say lease on life, but she didn't say that. But it would be so tempting with that name. And I'm a forever fan of yours. Well, thank you so much for that. I am super excited to hear that. Now I'm diving in today again to give you the health benefits of chocolate and what you should know before you take that first bite. But before we do that, I want to share another one of my favorites with you.

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All right, welcome back. Let's dive into chocolate. Let's talk chocolate. Why it's so good for you and what you want to know when you're digging into that chocolate. Like, first of all, don't just go beating any chocolate. Okay? Super important. You want to make sure that your chocolate is dark. It's at least 70% or higher. Cacao. Higher is better. I do 85%, 90%. I found some in Canada. Shout out to so much chocolatier that has 100% dark chocolate that is not funky bitter. It's super yum. The other thing is you can have a little lower cacao count. The cacao are the flavonoids that are so amazing for you and that have the health benefits I'm going to be talking about. You can do a little lower cacao count if you're getting some of the dark chocolate that is not sweetened. So if it's using say stevia or monk fruit instead of sugar, but you want to make sure if you, if it does have any sugar that you get extremely high cacao counts. So you are not getting all of the sugar and making a good thing bad. And we'll talk a little bit about the end, what you can do with all this dark chocolate. But remember, dark chocolate is fermented. It is my favorite fermented food. So if you've been having trouble choking down the sauerkraut. There you go. Dark chocolate. Okay, so why should we be eating dark chocolate? First off, how much? These studies were like 1 to 2 ounces. So don't become a piggy pig with this stuff. It's not like go eat loads of dark chocolate. It's eat a little bit every day. And it's good for a whole lot of reasons. First off, it's good for your heart. There was a study that showed that dark chocolate helps restore flexibility to the arteries and helps prevent white blood cells from sticking to the walls of the blood vessels, which are the ways those arteries can get clogged. So we. It also can reduce the risk of stroke. In fact, there was a study in Finland that found that chocolate consumption could lower the risk of suffering from a stroke by 17%. In the group that they tested. That is crazy, crazy good. So good for your heart can be good for circulation. It's also rich in minerals. It's got potassium, zinc, and selenium. So that's also awesome. And it's got smyrin in there, too. So we like that. It's good for your skin. By the way, this was interesting. I did a. Gosh, I did a TV show on things that you should be eating for your skin. And I did not know this when I did this, but in doing the research on what food you should eat for your skin and really to protect it from the sun, since I'm out here in Florida, it turns out that dark chocolate can in those flavonoids. That's why we want to do high cacao count, right? That dark chocolate can also protect your skin against sun damage. Now, I'd still do a shout out like I love my girlfriend Kara Golden's hint sunscreen and shout out to sun love over at Annemarie Gianni. And what we'll do is we'll put all of these cool things in the show notes@jjvirgin.com forward/dark chocolate. We will put in. We'll put in my dark chocolate avocado mousse recipe. That just rocks it. It is so super yummy. And we'll put in the links to my girlfriend Kara's sunscreen and of course, Ann Marie Gianni's amazing sun love protection. So you've got all that. Now here's the best news. Ready? Are you ready for this? It can help you lose weight. I'm like, what? Dark chocolate can help you lose weight now? Not if you go and eat a whole bar of it. You got to keep it cool, right? But what this study, this neuroscientist found was that a little bit of dark chocolate, okay, Talking an ounce, maybe two, can trigger satiety hormones so that your brain goes, ah, I'm full. So could be a little bit of a good thing. Maybe after a meal if you feel like, you know what? I still, I'm not feeling full and maybe I need a little something Something. There you go. Little, little piece of dark chocolate. And again, I tend to do a lot with Lily's dark chocolate. My buddy Dave from Bulletproof has dark chocolate with no sugar. We'll put a link to that in the show notes too. Again, we'll put that all@jj virgin.com forward/dark chocolate. And I'm going to give you some ways that I like to use dark chocolate. Some fun things I've cooked up at the end too. Next one. It may prevent diabetes. Cacao has been shown to help with insulin sensitivity. So if you're more insulin sensitive, your body doesn't have to produce as much insulin to lower the blood sugar response, the blood sugar that happens from eating. So this is a good thing. Next one. It's good for the brain, it can help reduce memory loss and it also is there's anti inflammatory qualities. Dark chocolate. In fact, it's been found to be beneficial in treating brain injuries. Now I did not know that when I was working with Grant initially on his traumatic brain injury. Didn't know that one. But it has been found to help with brain injuries and it can also boost your mood. In fact, it's been found to lower the risk of depression and pretty significantly, which is crazy. And then also it's, it contains something called phenylethylamine, which is the same chemical that your brain releases when you're in love. So it can give you those feel good endorphins as well. All right. I don't think I really, really need to convince you that you need to eat dark chocolate. I'm pretty sure, like, okay, sign me up. I'm all good with that. But what I'm going to do after the break is I'm going to share with you some of the things that I like, do with dark chocolate, some of the great things to do with it that you can use it for so that you can make sure that you get that one to two ounces of dark chocolate, high cacao content into your diet. So stay with me.

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Cafe Bustelo esta. All right, welcome back. So this is where I give you my top takeaways. So I just told you why you need to be eating dark chocolate. I'm sure you really didn't need a whole lot of convincing prior to this. Like, but this is the way we rationalize our habits somehow I've managed to rationalize in life that. And, and it's. I found the study so it's backed up that red wine is good for you. I was just with the gal who does all the events for Casamigos. So we're going to do a podcast on tequila and why tequila is important part of your diet. Of course, with all these moderation. Right. And coffee is good for you. And now, of course, chocolate. So now you know all my favorite food groups. And dark chocolate is amazing. But here's the important things. Remember again, dark, not milk. And hopefully you've done the virgin diet and figured out if you have issues with dairy or not. If not, remember, you can get that. We'll put it in the show notes@jjvirgin.com forward/dark chocolate. But you can go and do a seven day challenge that gets you started on the virgin diet. So we'll put the links into that where you can go for free. And you want to make sure it's dark. You want to make sure it's 70% or higher cacao content. Higher is better because then you have more flavonoids. You also want to, if at all possible, get the ones that have no sugar added. So there's ones out there like my buddy Dave has the bulletproof chocolate bars with no sugar added. There's also Lily's dark dark chocolate that has no sugar added. And there was another one I just spotted that was had monk fruit. I was like, that is so awesome. So there's a lot out there. If you are fortunate enough to be in Canada or you're going to Canada, seek out Soma Chocolatier. And I've also seen this over, not this brand, but I've seen the same style over at San Francisco at the wharf. 100. Chocolate that doesn't taste bitter. It's absolutely sensational. Used to be that 100% chocolate was like that baking chocolate and it tasted rotten. This doesn't. So that's the first thing you want to do. So you've got this. Now what, what should you do with it? Well, the first thing you can do is just like have an ounce or two and we travel with this so that we can have a little bit after a meal. The other thing I like to do is you can make a mole sauce with it. You can make an amazing, amazing pudding with this. A mousse, dark chocolate, avocado mousse. We'll put this in the show notes, but it's basically pretty simple. You can use my sweetener, the virgin Sprinkles, avocado, coconut cream, and then dark chocolate. And it's that simple. And it's so amazing to do. One of the other things I like to do is milk dark, is melt dark chocolate, then use a little bit of so delicious ice cream. And I will take the dark chocolate and a little bit of salted nuts and mix them together, and then I'll put that over ice cream and it kind of forms an immediate hard shell. It is incredible. Tim loves, loves, loves that you can get dark chocolate chocolate chips and throw them on top of your oatmeal. So you could do a cherry oatmeal with a little bit of dark chocolate chips. I've got a great dark chocolate cherry chia pudding. So, I mean, there's all sorts of things that you can do, but hey, it's one of the easier desserts to do if you are having company over. And it's a lot of what we do when we do our mindshare mastermind retreats is just throw down. We literally throw down some dark chocolate after the meal. And in my cookbook, I think it's the Sugar Impact Diet Cookbook, I have a dark chocolate almond bark, salted almond bark. That is ridiculously good. It's so good. So those are just some of the easy ways. And of course, you could have some raw cacao powder, some. Some cacao powder and just make a dark chocolate mocha with that. I will tell you, the way I make my mochas is I just use some of my protein powder in there. It's so simple to do. And you can make a regular mocha or an ice mocha with that, with a little bit of bulletproof beans. So that's super easy, too. But again, one to two ounces of dark chocolate a day, it's one of those things that I like to say in. In health, it's so much nicer to add before we take away. So if we focus on adding one to two ounces of dark chocolate, it'll probably crowd out some of the other things that maybe aren't quite as healthy for you. Alrighty. I would love to shout you out on my podcast. So if you have not left or you yet, or if you have not subscribed, oh, my gosh. Come on, go over to subscribetoj.com gives you the instant link to subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, I'd love it if you leave a review and then I will shout you out to everybody. And again, we now have three podcasts. Going on a week three. And we have our interviews, we have my solos, and those, by the way, are based on topics that you ask me about. And then we do our Q&As. So you can always leave me a question on Instagram @jj virgin or you can leave me a question over on JJ Virgin Official on Facebook and I will answer them for you. Alrighty. I'll see you next time. Bye.

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