To Lose Weight, Don’t Focus On Weight Loss

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Hey there, it's jj. You know how the law of attraction says that you'll attract into your life whatever you focus on? Well, this may be the exception to that rule. When you're trying to lose weight, sometimes the worst thing you can do is focus on losing the weight. You probably know how that usually goes. And even if you do drop a few pounds, it may be the wrong kind of weight. But there are six things you should focus on to get your goal weight and stay there. Hey, it's great to have you here. Thanks for joining me on this channel. My goal is to give you the best info, tools and tips about how to get healthy and feel better and lose weight. So make sure you like and subscribe to stay connected and get more like this. So there's a reason the weight loss industry is a seventy plus billion dollar a year industry. Yes, you heard me right. A lot of people want to lose weight for whatever reason, to look better, to feel better after they give birth, for their health. It goes on and on and you may be one of them. All of us want to lose weight at some point in our lives. But here's the thing. If you really want to lose weight, it's the last thing you should focus on. You know this, tell me if any of this sounds familiar. You decide you're going to try to drop a few pounds. So you cut out all the foods you think are the problem. And now you're starving yourself or working out like crazy and doing everything you can to drop the weight. But it never seems to come off. Or maybe a little comes off, but then you plateau and you gain it right back and then it brings a few of its friends too. Now believe me, you're not alone. It's not just you. And it's honestly predictable because extreme dieting is the worst way to lose weight, to really lose weight, and more importantly, to keep it from coming right back. You're going to want to focus on these three, three, three, three things. Which means you're going to focus on getting healthy and you'll drop the weight as a bonus. And trust me, it's going to happen. Now everything I'm going to share with you to get to the side benefit of weight loss is all about holding on to and building lean body mass. Lean body mass and the muscle in it is the key to losing weight and keeping it off. Now notice I did not say extreme deadlifts to build bulky big muscles. We're not talking about that. The only real way to Lose weight for good is to focus on building muscle, not just dropping pounds. Because if you try to drop pounds through diet alone, you could end up like 50% of the people that maintain their weight. Tofi. What is tofi? Tofi means thin outside, fat inside. And that could mean the beginning of a lot of health problems down the road. So why muscle, then? Well, muscle supports your metabolism, and all sorts of good things start to happen from there. Adding muscle increases your insulin sensitivity, which means better blood sugar control and better fat burning. See where I'm going with this? Muscle also burns more calories, and again, ding, ding, ding. And of course, muscle adds to your fitness and your shape, which is going to make you look even better, as if that's possible. Now, what I think of as muscle, I call muscle Metabolic Spanx makes everything held in tighter and boosts your metabolism as well. And on top of all of that, it's insulation and protection for the scaffolding of your bones. So it makes living easier. And who doesn't want that? I mean, when you have less risk of injury, more stamina, and more chest thumping, when you open that jar of pickles, I mean, life does not get any better. So muscle, muscle, muscle. Put your energy and your choices around building muscle and the weight loss. Really, we need to think of it as fat loss, which is what you're really after. It's going to take care of itself. That muscle is going to help you lose body fat. I call that a win win. So what are the things you need to do to start building that muscle to burn the body fat? All right, number one, make sure you're eating enough protein. Protein needs to come first when you're building your plate. So focus on building your plate around it at every meal. Now, the RDI here is a total joke, just like it is for our vitamin and mineral recommendations. It's the bare minimum for survival, not for optimal health optimism. I recommend that your bare minimum daily intake. This is your floor, okay? Is 1 gram per pound of ideal lean body mass. And ideal lean body mass again, is your weight less your body fat? And for most women, that should be about 80% of their total body weight. For men, about 85% of their total body weight. Now, that's the floor, right? If you're actively building muscle, if you're recovering from an illness or recovering from an injury, or if you're under stress. Okay, I think I might have just listed all of us. That minimum is going to increase to 1 gram per pound of ideal body mass. All right, now remember, the floor and then it increases. I think we've got this fear of protein when we really should have a fear of not getting enough. So protein is made up of amino acids and those are essential for building muscle. Studies have shown that increased protein intake contributes to greater strength and muscle mass gains, especially when you combine it with resistance exercise. And it's going to help you limit losing muscle as you age. You don't have to lose muscle as you age, right? You don't have to do it. And if you are a plant based eater, this does not mean you're out of luck. If you're vegan or vegetarian, you're going to want to pay extra attention to your protein intake to ensure that you're getting optimal amounts and all of those amino acids. And I recommend here that you supplement with a plant based protein powder like my Reignite Wellness, all in one plant based shake so that you can make sure that you get what you need, but you don't end up with too many carbohydrates to get to that protein level. Now, if you're eating animal protein, remember you are what you eat ate. That means that you've got to be careful about where those animal sources come from and what they're eating because you want to make sure that you are getting clean protein, right? So grass fed grass, finished beef and lamb, pasture raised poultry, wild caught fish, you know, you've been around, you know those types of things. Now when you eat this way and you use the plate as your guide, you're going to be balancing blood sugar and increasing insulin sensitivity, which are both mission critical for fast fat loss. And if you're wondering what is the plate, JJ, well, I've gone into depth in this, in other YouTube videos on this and also on how to balance your blood sugar. So make sure you check. But just a little one. The plate means you're going to lead with protein and then get lots of non starchy vegetables, healthy fats and a little bit of slow, low carbs. Again, see my other videos. Now, number two, you can't just sit there and eat protein and think you're going to all of a sudden add muscles. You got to add resistance training to your routine. Now, you knew this was going to be one of the strategies because of course you want to build muscle and therefore resistance training has to be part of your routine. Now, if you belong to a gym, awesome. Now you have to go though, all right? You can't just belong to the gym. And if you belong and you go, make sure that you're Getting in there and really pumping it out. Resistance training and high intensity interval training. But here's the good news. You don't need to belong to a gym. You can actually create a home gym pretty inexpensively and you can do it. This is what I've done with the combination of your body weight, free weights, a TRX trainer and maybe some kettlebells. This is pretty simple. But, but here's what's really important here. Again, you have to do resistance training to build muscle. But how you do it is mission critical. And it turns out that there's a specific way that's going to help you create hypertrophy more than other ways. Hypertrophy meaning building muscle. And that is working within eight to 12 repetitions and say one bicep curl, that's a rep, right? Eight to 12 repetitions, 60 second rest break and do it again for three to four sets. You don't want to do loads of repetition. Then you're working more in endurance and not as much in strength. So again, 8 to 12 is that magic hypertrophy range. And here's my rule of thumb. If you can get to 12, raise the weight. If you can't get to 8, lower the weight. Work within that range with that 60 second rest break. And I like to work multi joint as much as possible so I get more muscle activity going. Okay, number three. Now this goes hand in hand with working out. You have to give yourself time to recover. It's non negotiable. Muscle needs rest to grow. The whole purpose of recovery is to allow your muscles time to repair themselves. Because here's what happens when you exercise. When you exercise, you create these little microscopic tears in your muscle tissue. And when you rest, these cells called fibroblasts come in and repair all those tears so your muscles can heal and grow and get stronger. But if you go crazy thinking that the more you work out, the more weight you're going to lose. You just keep tearing down your muscle tissue and tearing down your muscle tissue and it never has a chance to heal, so it never has a chance to get stronger. And by the way, that just makes you way more susceptible to injury and you're not going to get the results you're looking for. There are also a few different things you can do during recovery to help turbocharge that repair process so you can come back leaner and stronger than ever. Ready? First, you gotta get good sleep. This is one of the most important things you can do to help your body fully recover physically and mentally. And the good news is that it's easier to get some deep sleep when you've been working out. You also want to make sure that you're hydrating and of course, that you're eating well. We already talked about that. And hey, while you're at it, how about a massage? Doesn't that sound good? All right, I'm back. Number four. Number four on the list of strategies to lose weight by not focusing on weight is manage your stress. I mean, you've got some, I've got some. We've all got stress. Stress is a constant. So figure out what helps you make peace with this stress and handle it. Because if you are constantly under siege, that chronic stress will do more than make you sick and old before your time. It's going to pack weight on you because it makes you catabolic. That means it makes you break down, which might sound good, except it's not breaking down what you want it to, I. E. Fat. It's breaking down your muscle. And when you're breaking down or losing your muscle, right, you're actually then raising blood sugar and storing more fat around your waist. Also, stress can make adding muscle harder, since cortisol, the hormone raised when you're stressed, is catabolic too, and it inhibits protein synthesis. And you gotta have protein synthesis to build muscle. So seriously, you got to figure this out. You got to figure out what works for you and your lifestyle. And can you agree here that you will make time for something that's just for you? Maybe it's a walk. Maybe it's an Epsom salt bath. Maybe it's meditating. I was a resistant meditator and a resistant yoga person for, literally, I don't know, ever. And this past year, I made a commitment to get to it. And oh, my gosh, the difference is insane. So find that thing that works for you. Mission critical. All right, number five. And this is where you're going to want to dig in a little bit and become your own personal health detective. Because you got to know your numbers. Now get tested to make sure that your two T's are optimal. Your two T's, your thyroid and your testosterone. And I'm not talking in range, I am not talking that. I am talking optimal for you. So starting with your thyroid, you want your TSH, or thyroid stimulating hormone to be somewhere between 0.5 and 1. But that's not the only measure. You want the complete picture of how your thyroid is functioning. So work with a functional medicine doctor and get your free T3, T4, and thyroid antibodies checked. Too, you may know your thyroid isn't where you need it to be and that it's low. If you're gaining weight, if you're cold, if you're moody, if your cholesterol is going up, if you're losing the outer third of your eyebrow, if you can't seem to put muscle on, if you're losing a little bit of your hair, if you're depressed, little yellow tinge to your hands. All of these are signs of a low functioning thyroid. And by the way, it could just be a little bit constipation too. By the way, it could just be a little bit low. And that, that can make all of the difference. And if it's low, you may need to supplement with thyroid hormone to get it where it needs to be. Your metabolism depends on your thyroid, so you have to do whatever you need to do to support it. All right, next step, the other t, testosterone. Okay, if you have low testosterone, you can also be moody and depressed and you can't think straight. But testosterone's main functions are, are to maintain healthy muscle mass, stamina and strength. It also decreases visceral body fat. So it's really important if you're trying to lose weight. So of course men have more of it, but women have it too. The problem is this. Some medical conditions and lifestyle choices and other factors can influence how much you have. But levels, of course, naturally fall with age. And for men, that normal range is about 300 to 1000 NGS per DL and optimal would be somewhere between 800 and 1100. For women, the normal range is 15 to 70, and the optimal total testosterone range is somewhere between 200 to 300. Now, you can boost your testosterone by making sure you're getting enough zinc, magnesium and vitamin D. So at the very least, take a good quality multivitamin. So you can check that box. Then good food sources would be things like ginger, oysters, fortified plant milks, fatty fish and leafy greens, and lots of fruits, vegetables and grains also contain something called geronal, Geronol gg, which also supports hormone production. Okay, Another way to raise testosterone is with high intensity interval training. I call it burst training. So take note of that, because if you only do that marathon style exercise, that can actually be counterproductive. It can lead to adrenal fatigue and, and it can lower testosterone. And here's yet another reason to get more and better sleep. Not only does more and better sleep lower stress, it also helps boost testosterone. All right, number six, get yourself a body composition scale. Now, if you're Trying to build lean muscle to drop fat. You want to know that you're actually doing it right with a regular scale. You might see in, see and feel great about losing some pounds. But again, if you're tofi, you're not necessarily healthy. And any weight you drop is just going to boomerang right back. And here's the really important thing. You could be stepping on the scale and just looking at weight. And I just had this happen with a client over three months. He's stepping on the scale, he's eating healthy, he's working out, he's doing cold plunging, he's sleeping, he. And he's like, nothing's happening. Well, turns out over the course of those three months, he lost 11 pounds of fat and he put on 10 pounds of muscle. But the scale, if you're not looking at body composition, would never tell you this. So you've got to make sure that you're using a body composition scale and also measuring your waist and hip. Because if you're losing weight but you're not losing your waist, you're probably making yourself worse, not better. Because that means you're losing muscle, not fat. You want to hold on to muscle tight, hold on to and build muscle as you're losing fat. Remember, if you're building muscle, you are going to lose the fat. So get rid of that regular scale. It's not giving you the right information. It can make you a little bit nuts by looking at it. Switch that regular scale for a body composition scale so that you can see how much of your weight is fat and how much your weight is lean body mass and then make sure you're weighing in every day. And I got to say this because I get a lot of flack around this. That scale is a biometric tool. It is not a judgy mean friend. You want it for the intel. So I love to use something like a Tanita or an in body body fat scale that's going to look at total body water and then of course give you body fat and lean body mass. Right?

Because.

Because then I can see what's going on. And as you know, if you step on the scale and you're three pounds up overnight, you did not gain three pounds. You have an inflammation response to something that didn't work for you. So you got to use the scale to be able to identify these things. Super important. Now, all of the things we've talked about to help you build lean muscle mass and drop weight are also going to help you heal your metabolism. You'll flip the switch on things that have made it hard to drop pounds, or maybe they're even making you gain weight. And those things in turn will have a ripple effect. So by focusing on building muscle, you'll also be eating better. You're going to reduce your toxic burden, you'll lower your stress, and you'll improve your sleep. And oh, did I mention you're probably going to lose some body fat too. Winner. Now, if you've enjoyed this and learned a few things along the way, please like and subscribe and join me next time for how to feel, feel great and lose weight during perimenopause. See you soon. For more info on this and other health 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.

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