This Should Always Be the First Thing You Put On Your Plate

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Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. In each episode, I put the power of health in your hands and share ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, detox, and lots more so you can look and feel better fast. If you'd rather watch the video, hey, I did put on my makeup and do my hair, so check it out on my YouTube channel.

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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. Most people look at a plate as nothing more than a place to put food. But it's so much more than that, and it's really an amazing tool, one of the most important ones you have to help you get healthy, in fact. But to use it right and to make it a huge needle mover for your weight and your health, there's One thing you should always, always do first. Hey, it's jj. This channel is all about you and ways to help you get and stay healthy. So like, and subscribe and we'll travel on this journey together. So obviously, when you're building your plate, what you put on it and how much matters, but where you start matters too. In fact, where you start matters most because it can have a serious impact on your waistline and for your energy and, and how well you age. So you want to start first with protein. When you start with protein and make sure it's the first thing on your mind and on your plate, some amazing things happen, and I'm going to go.

Through each of them.

So let's start with a quick refresher. Proteins are made of amino acids. Amino acids are what you need to keep your body running. There's sometimes even precursors to hormones. You need protein to repair your body, and it also helps you build muscle, which is mission critical for your metabolism. Now, most people believe that your metabolism slows down as you age, and that's one of the major reasons that you gain weight as you age. But guess what? There was a study in 2021 using data from more than 6,400 people across 29 countries that showed your metabolism doesn't really drop between the ages of 20 and 60. Now, you may feel like it does, but it doesn't. There's something else causing weight gain as we age, and it's not just one thing. What's really happening is a whole toxic soup of things. We have more disrupted sleep, hormonal changes, age related muscle loss. And on top of that, we just start moving less. Right now, if you remember what you learned in physics now, I know it was a while ago, it's that an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. When you're not active, you're not building muscle. That loss of muscle is called sarcopenia, and it hits our bodies hard. Between age 30 and 60, we lose 3 to 8% of muscle mass each decade. And by the way, after 60, it just speeds up. And of course, that loss can lead to functional decline and increase the risk of disability and fractures. Basically, it just makes you frail. And that means that everything you do well, it's just harder to do. It's harder to lift those groceries. It's harder going upstairs, it's harder going downstairs. It's harder opening jars. All of these normal things that we take for granted, that we can do with ease, they just get Gradually harder. And you know when they get gradually harder, you're not even aware. Plus, muscle burns more calories than fat. So losing muscle causes us to burn fewer calories. And if we're burning fewer calories and keeping everything the same, we're gaining fat. And by the way, you can't just cut calories to fix that, because when you do that, that makes your body go into this starvation mode that slows down your metabolism to compensate. And it can also make you catabolic, where you lose more musc and you'll start to gain even more fat. And remember too talking catabolic, if you're under any stress at all, and who the heck isn't, or you're catabolic from other things which can happen, like if you're over training or injured, especially if you're doing loads of cardio like running and cycling, because you're trying to lose weight, you can forget about even maintaining muscle. You're actually breaking down muscle. Now. If you drop weight quickly and you're not getting enough protein, then the weight you're losing is likely muscle. Little fat, but likely more muscle. And losing muscle works against you in so many ways, including for additional weight loss, because you need muscle revving your metabolism and improving your insulin sensitivity for that. I call muscles our metabolic spanx because they hold everything in tighter while burning more calories and they make us look better. So let's not forget that either. Right? So with that said, the goal is to have a healthy, stable weight without sacrificing your muscle and bone health. And nutritionally, what do you need to make sure that happens? Well, you gotta have protein, so we're gonna put protein first, literally and figuratively. As far as macros go, protein, fat and carbs, protein is number one. You know, we can live without carbs, so they bring up the rear, but we can't live without protein or without fat or without water. So when you're building your plate, you want to prioritize protein and then build everything else around it. If weight loss is your goal, protein helps in a couple of different ways. First, it can help with satiety. It's better at signaling that you're full and satisfied than either fat or carbs are. Studies show that gives you that feeling of full in a single meal and more fullness over a 24 hour period. So eating more protein helps you control hunger. And another way it helps with weight loss is that it's more thermic. Your body actually burns calories as it breaks down food in a process called thermogenesis, and it burns the most calories breaking down protein. So when you're digesting protein, you're giving your metabolism a little boost too. So how much protein is enough? And is there a thing as too much? Well, yes and yes. Although I will tell you, I think protein's gotten a really bad rap and people are afraid of protein when they really should be afraid of all of those dirty, ultra processed, refined carbs. Okay, said my piece. Let's go back to protein. The floor, that's the minimum amount that you should be getting is 1 gram per pound of, of ideal lean body mass every day. I'll talk about what that is in a moment. And then the ceiling is 1.5 grams per pound of ideal body weight. That's not just your lean body mass. Okay, so what is lean body mass anyway? So your body is made up of two things, fat and everything else. And everything else is called lean body mass. Now, if you're a woman, you want your body fat range to be in the 18 to 25% range of your total weight. And really, I'd love to see it more in the 18 to 22% range. If you're athletic as a female, it's going to be more in the 15 to 20% range. For men, your body fat should be somewhere in the 10 to 18% range of your total weight. And if you're athletic, 5 to 15%, especially if you're a super athlete. Now you might want to go to that ceiling of 1.5 grams per pound of ideal body weight if the demands on your body are high, like if you're under stress, if you're trying to put on muscle, if you're injured or you're ill. But if none of that is the case, then you're probably fine doing about 1 gram per pound of lean body mass or 1 gram per pound of ideal mass body weight. Okay, so you don't need to go crazy here, but honestly, I find most people are not getting enough protein in. So you're going to figure out how much protein you should be getting by first measuring your body mass. And the best way to do that is with a body composition scale. So if you don't have one of those, I highly recommend that you get one. It's an awesome tool and it does all of these calculations for you. Besides the fact it is so cool to see your progress in these numbers right in front of your eyes. Now, my favorite one of all is a segmental scale, because first of all, when you're looking At a body composition scale, it's not just what you weigh, it's what that weight is made up of. Right? And that's where the body composition scale is going to help you segment that. But a segmental scale takes it a step further where it shows you actually how much fat is on your arms, your legs, your trunk. It's super important because visceral adiposity, that belly fat is the worst fat at all. So we want to make sure that as you're losing weight, you're losing fat, you're building muscle and you're losing your waist. Two brands that I really love, inbody and toenita. Now beyond that, I also want to make sure you're doing a waist and hip measurement weekly because again, that's another way to look at that visceral fat. Because this is the fat that's creating the problems. It's more inflammatory. Right? If you're losing weight, you're not losing your waist, you're making yourself worse, not better. Okay, let's go back to protein. So you start with counting protein grams. Now you know how to look at this for yourself. So if you're eating animal protein, the good news is it's going to give you all of the essential amino acids your body needs. But remember, you are what you eat ate, meaning it's not just you eating that cow or that chicken, it's what that cow or chicken was fed. So you've got to choose wisely. Factory cows, factory chickens are junk food. It's like eating Twinkies. You got to choose pastured beef, not corn fed cows. I want you to think of corn fed cows as like the white bread of beef. All right? Wild salmon rather than farm raised, again, I want you to think of farm raised salmon like the Twinkies of the fish family. How's that for a visual? Okay, so again, you don't want to do the factory o styled animals. This is junk food because when they do this, they shift their fatty acid profile into a pro inflammatory one. Now when you're eating animal protein, you're also likely going to get a little bit of fat with it. Most of the animal protein is 7 grams per ounce of protein. If you're eating a fattier cut like wild salmon, it might be a little bit lower in protein, higher in fat. If you're eating leaner like turkey or chicken, it'll be a little higher in protein, lower in fat. If you're eating foods like say maybe a fatty ribeye grass fed and finished or wild salmon, going to count Those fat servings in with your protein, right? And again, remember, if you're eating shellfish, chicken breast, turkey, there's not much to count. The fat's really going to be pretty negligible there. And in general, you don't want to go too heavy on like one massive single animal protein. You really want to rotate your diet. By the way, this counts for everything. Important things to think about in your diet is rotating, eating different types of things, right? So getting that variety, eating seasonal, eating local whenever possible and eating organic, super important. So we're going to rotate the grass fed beef and bison, lamb with pastured chicken or turkey or wild fish. Okay, next up. So we start there, we get the grams we need there, we count if we have some extra fats in it. Next thing you're going to do is eat your vegetables. Research shows that people will eat more. Producers tend to have more muscle mass as they age. So that's good news for you if you're a plant based eater. But you probably know you really have to focus on getting enough protein if you're a plant based eater without overdoing the fat or carbs. For example, if you are relying on beans and lentils and seeds and nuts and things like that, well, with the beans and lentils and quinoa, you're getting a load of carbs. You are going to get 6 cups of quinoa to get the protein in a chicken breast. That's way more carbs than you should have, right? So nuts and seeds, same thing. You're going to get protein along with a lot of fat. So the common ground is that no matter what you're eating, no matter what your eating preference is, you got to make sure you're getting enough protein at every meal. And again, if you are doing, if you're a plant based eater, we also need to make sure you're getting a complete amino acid profile. That's why I love to make sure you start the morning with a loaded smoothie. So whenever you're breaking your fast, maybe it's 9am, maybe it's noon, I like you to break your fast with a loaded smoothie. And here's why. I know that I can get in some clean, very bioavailable protein and my protein powders, I use either a bone broth concentrate with extra added in branch chain amino acids and collagen or I use a plant based protein. With both of those I actually add in extra collagen. And then I will also use a special flax milk with extra protein in it. So I'm hitting my morning smoothies that I'm doing sometime between 9:30 and 11 and I'm getting anywhere from 40 to 50 grams of protein right there. Now the other reason this is really important is now I've got my protein, I've got my healthy fats and fiber again, I've got a satiety trifecta right there on good blood sugar bounce. So for the other meals, you're going to always build your plate around the protein. Remember, let's say we're starting with salmon. You're going to count the fat that comes with it like we talked about. Then you also have to think about the carbs. So what does that look like? Well, the next thing you're going to do, and I don't even like to think of non starchy vegetables as carbs because I want you eating as many of those as you can. 5 to 10 servings a day is the best baseline. Remember half a cup cooked, a cup of raw. So I now want you to add in your non starchy vegetables and this is where it can get a little nuanced because most likely I'm betting that you might be using a little fat in your non starchy vegetable. Like last night I had broccoli and I put grass fed ghee on it. Had a salad, I did a little olive oil. So those count in. Right? So think about it. You want to get between two to four servings of fat. So depending on what your protein source is and what you did with your veggies, you may not need to add any fat past that. Right? So protein, non starchy veggies, more fat if you need it, you probably don't. And then you can decide if you want to have up to two servings of what I call slow low carbs. And zero is fine too. I actually don't do much in the way of slow low carbs. Things like berries, squashes, wild rice, legumes, I don't do much of that during the day. I have it for my evening meal because it helps me sleep. So you're going to adjust your fat and carbs depending on your goal. If you're trying to lose weight, you might find that you do better with two to three servings of fat, not four. And keeping that slow low carb just for one or two at your evening meal. Right. If you're trying to stabilize your blood sugar, maybe you bring your fat up a little bit, lower your carbs down if you're working out heavy or you're under stress or, or you've got some good adrenal stuff going on or bad adrenal stuff going on rather. You might need a little bit more carbs. You might need some slow carbs at each meal. And again, remember, little bit of carbs at night, little bit of the slow carbs, maybe a little wild rice, maybe some lentils can be great for helping you sleep better. Just make sure that you have that meal earlier in the evening. Right? And keeping those carbs lower in the morning can help make sure you don't activate that second meal phenomenon. You don't want to do that. It is miserable. There's nothing like starting off the day and going, oh boy, now I've just set myself up to fail the whole day long. So let's make sure we start the day well. So you start with protein, then you support it with good choices on the rest of your plate. And when you do the healthy fats and slow low carbs and non starchy vegetables, remember that's the fat, fiber, protein trifecta. And it's going to help you feel fuller, longer, it's going to slow stomach emptying, it's going to keep blood sugar balance and that can help you lose weight too. Besides, all of that is going to help you fight inflammation which can cause you to lose muscle and gain fat. I think what people don't realize is inflammation is its own risk factor for obesity. So let me give you a couple examples of how you can do this so you see how easy it is. All right, first off is someone who, like me, eats everything right. The loaded smoothie that I make, I use two scoops of my Reignite Wellness Paleo protein powder. I use an extra scoop of my whole body collagen and then I use two tablespoons. Right now I'm doing some extra flaxseed. I'm doing some big hormone balancing smoothies. Right now. I use a flaxseed milk with protein added. I use some extra fiber and a little bit of a green banana. I'm getting over 40 servings right there of protein. I'm getting my healthy fat in there from the flax and flaxseeds. And I get, I have one carbohydrate serving, not even quite that with that green banana. Here's another meal. Can be 6 to 8 ounces of wild salmon, depending on your size. For me it's 8 ounces, a cup of broccoli with ghee. So I got some wild salmon, I got some healthy fats, I got some healthy fats in the Broccoli with ghee, I probably push that up to even 2 cups of broccoli with ghee and then a little bit of wild rice. If it's my evening meal, half a cup and maybe some salad, little extra virgin olive oil and vinegar and I always love to do that because that vinegar acts like an insulin sensitizer. So you see how easy that is? 40 to 50 grams of protein right there, 4 fat grams, 1 slow carb, 4 plus veggie servings because I had a salad and broccoli and again if I push that to 2 cups of broccoli, I got 4 servings of veggies right there. If I did a big salad, say two cups, I got two more servings. See how easy that is to do? All right, plant based, let's talk this. So again, one of the things I see with plant based eating is that it can be challenging to get enough of your, of your protein and also to get enough leucine. So I want you to be aware of that so that you can add to it making your shake. I really love to use, I'll use my plant based protein powder. I'll use my flaxseed milk with some pea protein in it. So right there I'm going to get at least 30 grams. Plus I'm going to do some chia seeds in there too. Tablespoons, got some more protein in that. So you see how easy that is. And some blueberries, maybe some greens right there I've got a slow, low carb, I've got some non starchy vegetables. I've got at least 35 grams of protein. If you'll do a little collagen, you can add some in. Makes it even better. And my healthy fats. So see how easy that was? 2 healthy fats right there. Now let's talk about a meal and you're going to see how this goes. And I'll show you one of my hacks that I do here in order to get the protein up. So, so let's say for this meal I'm going to do a half a cup of lentils and a half a cup of quinoa. That by the way, are two slow, low carb servings right there. And that's the max I really recommend for a meal right there. So half a cup of lentils, half cup quinoa and I'm going to add to that one and a half ounces of chopped walnuts and two teaspoons of nutritional yeast. Now see if you can handle that. I personally can't use nutritional yeast. But it's a great way to get your protein up because I'm adding 8 grams right there and then a cup or more of roasted brussels sprouts with coconut oil. So right there I'm getting 4 fat, 2 starchy carbs, at least 2 servings of non starchy vegetables, maybe a little more. Maybe I can add some more mushrooms in here as well. But I got 34 grams of protein and that was really the most I could get without exceeding my fat and carbs. So one of the things that you can do to help boost your protein levels is start to use an unsweetened protein powder. And I'll give you a little bit of a hint. I'm playing around with this right now so that I can show you different ways you can put this into sauces and sneak it in right so you can get that protein that you need. Now, the other challenge we have as we age is that over the age of 30, 35, our digestive enzymes, well, guess what, they tend to decrease. But despite that, we should be increasing the amount of protein we get to combat muscle mass. So you want to eat your protein every meal, but you also want to make sure that you do it with digestive enzymes so that you can actually digest it and use it. Makes sense, right? So you want to keep that protein up. Because we age, we tend to become what's called anabolic resistant. We tend to have a harder time building muscle. I think some of that might be because first of all, we're not using our muscles enough. But second one might be because the enzymes so don't cut the protein. Add digestive enzymes to make sure that the protein you're eating is actually getting metabolized and utilized. Now, I really like betaine, HCl and then enzymes that are specifically designed to break down the more common high fi proteins, including dairy, gluten and soy. That's what I use through Reignite Wellness. The other thing you want to pay attention to is not just increasing your protein as you age, but pairing it with other nutrient rich foods each time you eat. So in other words, you're eating by the plate at every meal. So you're going to make sure you have your protein as well as the right portions of non starchy veggies, healthy fats, and then maybe some slow, low carbs. The idea behind having protein and these other nutrient dense foods at every meal is similar to making the case for digestive enzymes that our bodies have difficulty absorbing these nutrients as we get older. So we need to Keep up a steady supply. Plus protein at every meal helps eliminate cravings and eliminate hunger. And that means you're not going to want a snack. Now, if you absolutely have to have a snack, try drinking some water, mineral water, ice cream, tea first. But if you absolutely have to, think of it as a mini meal and follow the same rules. And then finally move. Movement in general is great to help fight inflammation and burn some calories. Moving activates something called neat, which stands for non exercise activity thermogenesis. And it's the energy you burn during everything except real exercise or sports. Now, if you've heard of the blue zones, you know that people living in those places are active and lean way into their senior years, often past 100. They're doing the smaller things that constantly keep them moving all throughout the day. They're taking the stairs, they're walking the hills, they're even fidgeting. It all counts. So get yourself moving, do the neat. But you also want to add in resistance training. To put your protein to work and actually build muscle. You've got to give yourself the building blocks, but then you got to do something with it, right? Resistance training of all exercise is going to give you the best return on investment. Now, I've been doing resistance training literally since I was in my teens in my high school gym with all the football players. And I can tell you that resistance training is the best exercise for muscle building and agility. And more importantly, to give you all of the benefits of lean muscle, like balanced blood sugar, fat burning and healthy aging. You see, you don't want to age gracefully. You want to age powerfully. And by the way, you don't even need weights if you don't have them. You can use your own body weight, you can do yoga, you can do Pilates. It just has to be hard for you. You have to resist. It has to be challenging, right? So to keep yourself strong and prevent all the decline that comes with losing muscles at muscle as you age, you gotta work it. And it's never too late to start because as you get into midlife and beyond, it becomes more and more and more important. So check out my video on resistance training for some easy ways to get started. It works for me and everyone I know, and I know it will work for you. So here's to aging well, here's to aging powerfully and staying healthy for a long, long, long time. Now, don't forget to like and subscribe and leave your thoughts so I can make some future videos addressing what you'd like to know most about. And be sure to check out my video on three things you should absolutely be tracking to upgrade your health. See you soon. For more info on this and other health topics, topics I cover or to rate and review, find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojay.com thanks again for being with me this week.

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 tag 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 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.