The WORST Diet Mistakes Beginners Always Make (Avoid This!) with JJ Virgin

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I'm JJ Virgin, PhD, dropout. Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author. I'm a certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer and and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven most of all by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers and sharing the information that I uncover.

With as many people as I can.

And that's where you come in. That's why I created the well beyond 40 podcasts to synthesize and simplify the science of health and 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 powerful 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.

Don't miss an episode.

Subscribe now@subscribetoj.com to start up unlocking your healthiest, most energetic self. Hey jj, Virgin here.

Okay, real talk.

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What if I told you your diet is doomed to fail and you haven't even started yet? Well, in this video I'm going to share the most devastating mistakes I see beginners make all the time. That destroys their progress from day one. Do not let this be you. So what is the first one it's not tracking or tracking incorrectly. Turns out that we underestimate how much we eat by anywhere from 25 to 40%. And by the way, they did a study where even the registered dietitians were underestimating what they eat. This is such a sticking point for me that if I'm working with a client, I will not work with them unless they will do this. I use a simple free tracking app called Cronometer, which you can grab@jjvirgin.com chronometer and here's the really important thing. You're going to be tracking everything you eat.

Now, you do not need to do.

This forever, but what I want you to do is do this for one month. It is eye opening, but it's not enough to try to eyeball it. Remember, we underestimate. You need to use a food scale. It's not enough to use cups or, or little spoons. And I'll tell you what was interesting. I was using a product and it said this many grams equals this much protein and this much calories. Well, and it said that many grams was a tablespoon. Well, I put the tablespoon on the food scale and turns out that wasn't how many grams it was. So I do everything by using a food scale. You've got to weigh it, not just measure it. And you don't need to do this forever. But this is going to really help you see what you're actually taking in. And if you really want to understand where you're at and kind of know.

How many calories you need each day.

You do this for a week or two. And then you track the average because we're not going to eat the same every single day, but you'll get an average of. Oh, average. I eat about 2,400 calories a day. This is the average I'm getting in protein. So you'll see what you need to do there. And that's by the way, the next mistake is not prioritizing protein. So when you're losing weight, and you probably heard this with the, you know, the GLP1 drugs, is that you're losing all this muscle. Well, that is not because of the drugs, that's because of a poorly designed program. Turns out in any diet that's poorly designed, you can lose, gosh, anywhere from 25 to 50% of your weight from muscle. The average is probably around 30%. But it does not have to be that way. And the way that you have it not happen, one of the ways is to make sure that you're eating the right amount of protein. I have a friend, Dr. Bill Campbell, who runs a physique lab here in Tampa at University of South Florida, and he talks about the physique athletes. The females that they eat, they tend to eat more like 1 to 1.5 grams per pound of target body weight to get to their lean muscular place. So don't fear protein. What I have people do is 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. And I just mentioned the physique athletes because you could go up higher. And I have, I have them go into my protein calculator, which you can get@jjvirgin.com proteinfirst so it's don't even have to do math. Easiest here to remember is that 1 gram per pound of target body weight. And you divide that between your meals. Here's why this is so important. Protein is the most satiating of the three macronutrients. One of the things that's going to derail you on a diet if you're trying to cut calories is getting hungry. I don't know about you, but if I'm hungry, all bets are off. So protein helps suppress ghrelin, so helps you feel fuller longer, helps you activate the hunger hormones so that you are not hungry. So it's going to help you feel both satisfied and satiated. So it's just an easy thing for you to incorporate in because you're not going to be hungry. And it also, of course, has a really good thermic effect effect on your metabolism too. In fact, we know that if all you did was take some of your calories away from carbs and fat, and moved them over to protein initially. That's in itself is going to help you lose a little weight. Now if you're listening to this going, I don't know if I can eat that much protein. Here's what you do. You eat protein first where you get my protein calculator, I also have an eat protein first free seven day challenge. You eat it first. That way you make sure that you get it in. That's the hack. The second hack is essential amino acids. If you are really not getting in enough protein, what I would have you do is supplement with my amino acid power powder because it will make sure that you get those amino acids you need. Because when we are in caloric restriction, when we're in a deficit, when we're trying to lose fat, we actually are going to need more essential amino acids, not less. You need more protein, not less. So that is a simple way to make sure that you're getting what you need. Now speaking of caloric restriction, that is another place where people can mess up is they try to do too much caloric restriction and it is not sustainable. And remember we talked about losing muscle mass. That is the key driver. One of the big things that will make you lose muscle mass is just cutting those calories way too low. Plus, you know who can do that for long. So here's what I like to do. You should be thinking of losing somewhere between 1/2 to 1% of your body weight per week because that's going to help you hold on to that muscle mass. And really what you want to do when you're losing, when you're losing weight, you really want to change your body composition. Really losing weights code for improving body composition, holding onto or building muscle while you're putting on fat. If you lose muscle, you are going to slow down your metabolism, right? This naturally happens with weight loss anyway, but it will be more dramatic if you lose more muscle. If you keep more muscle on, you're going to have a better metabolism. So when you look at caloric restriction, if you're using that app, which I shouldn't say, if you're using the app, you're weighing your food, you've figured out how much you typically eat. Then you make sure you're optimizing your protein, you're tracking it in the app, you're eating it first to make sure that you get it in if you are still not where you want to be. Because quite often just tracking makes you start to shift behaviors and then doing the protein makes you full so you're eating Less and you've got a better thermic effect from the protein. But if you still are at a place where you're not losing that 1/2 to 1% of your body weight each week, the next thing you can do is start to look at caloric restriction. But basically you want to do a very moderate caloric restriction. What I have people do is take five days a week of caloric restriction, two days a week of, of maintenance calories. So if you knew that you ate 2,000 calories a day and that maintained your weight, what you would do is on five days a week, take 25% of the calories away. So you'd eat 1500 calories a day for five days and then two days a week go back to the 2000 and rotate that and that is what you can do. And what you'll find again, if you're losing weight, you may find that you have to downshift your total calories and that's why tracking works really well. But again, the more you focus on putting on muscle, the less of that you're going to have to worry about because muscle requires more energy to be on your body. Muscle protein turnover is a very costly, costly process, which is why I don't want you doing over cardio. Now what I was told in grad school was you don't lift weights till you lose the weight. That is the most ridiculous idea, you know, advice ever. In fact, in grad school I didn't listen to that. I did my graduate project on resistance training. I was taking people to the gym because I was getting paid for results. And I saw that what they were teaching wasn't working. Because sure, cardiovascular training is going to burn more calories in the moment than resistance training will, but it's really not that significant compared to the amount of calories we burn all day long just by doing more activities of daily living, more non exercise activity. And of course we know that when you're doing resistance training, you're also adding on that muscle that improves insulin sensitivity and boosts your metabolic rate. What else do we know about cardio? If you do a lot of cardio, it can actually cause you to lose some muscle mass. In fact, there was a study that took some cardio. They, they took the people's cardio away and put the resistance training in place of it. And people had better loss of their waist circumference than just by doing the cardio. So the cardio group versus the group that their cardio got put into resistance training, the resistance training group Had a way better effect on weight loss and waist loss, which is what we want. Right. And speaking of that, you want to make sure that we are focusing not on the weight loss, but really that idea of waste loss, what that weight is made up of. Because remember, the goal here is to improve your body composition. So depending on what's going on with your body composition, your goal may be, hey, I want to make sure that I'm putting on muscle. Hey, you know, I actually don't need to lose any fat. I just need to build muscle. Or maybe I need to lose fat and just hold onto my muscle. Or maybe I need to build muscle and lose fat. Right. Could be any of those things. I had a client come to me who wanted to lose 10 pounds total normal BMI. So she would be what we called a normal weight obese, where she had high body fat, low muscle mass, and she wanted to lose 10 pounds. Really what she wanted, she just didn't know how to articulate it was she wanted to drop fat, put on muscle, and over the course of a year, it took that long to put that 10 pounds of muscle on and also to lose the 10 pounds of fat, which resulted in her dropping 7, 8% of her body. Nope, 7% of her body fat 2 inches off her waist. She went from two clothing sizes. I mean, look like an entirely different body. So again, it's not focusing on the weight, it's focusing on what that weight's made up of. And that is why you've got to make sure that you are watching the right thing. So you want to get at home a bioimpedance scale, not just a weight scale, because the weight scale is not going to tell you what's going on at home. If you're using a bioimpedance scale. And we'll put in the show notes, my favorite bioimpedance scales, which is going to tell you your total body water. Make a prediction of your skeletal muscle and a prediction of your body fat. Then you can watch the trend of it. And I say the trend of it because I want you to get on a scale every day. The scale is going to give a Bluetooth read to your phone, but you're only going to focus on it once a week and you're going to look at the trend. And what you want to see is that your total body water is improving, your body fat's going down, your muscle mass going up. And remember, putting on muscle mass is a bit like watching grass grow because you might be able to lose depending on how much fat you have to lose. Maybe you can lose a pound of fat a week, maybe two, but it may take you a month to put on a pound of muscle. So transforming your body takes time and so give yourself that time. Think about how long it took you to get here. You know, we always want to change things overnight, but we didn't get here overnight. So give yourself the time because you're really healing your metabolism here. And so you really want to focus on the things that you're doing that are going to help turn you into that healthy, lean person. Like getting stronger at the gym, getting more steps in getting that protein in. If you live like a healthy lean person, you will become one over time and you'll be able to see those small shifts, but they are small shifts in the bioimpedance scale.

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 are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast@subscribetoj.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode.

Foreign.

Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional and make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional.

Because of something you may have heard.

On the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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