Top 5 Foods to Boost Metabolism Naturally for Women Over 40

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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. Foreign.

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It's a myth that your metabolism slows down as you get older. Well, mostly a myth. A recent international study actually showed that your metabolism stays pretty stable throughout your adult life until the age of 60. So then why are you having so much trouble losing weight now that you're over 40, is it harder to lose weight? Really? Does it feel like your metabolism has come to a grinding halt? If all of this is true for you, even a little bit of it, you are not crazy. If you aren't paying attention to a few key things, your metabolism is going to slow down as you age. And there are other hidden factors that are going to make it harder for you to lose weight. However, good news, there are some key foods that you can add to your diet that are going to make a significant difference without you feeling deprived. So There was a 2021 study published in the Journal of Science that showed that your metabolism plateau after age 20 until about age 60, when it starts to slowly decline by less than 1% a year. So you can't blame the weight gain on your age. And this is good news because you can't turn back time. But you can tackle the other reasons that you have a sluggish metabolism. So, first of all, what are the signs of a slow metabolism? Well, obviously weight gain, right, and difficulty losing weight. But is your metabolism really slow? So the way you can check if your metabolism is slow is you can either do a breath test or you can get it predicted from doing a DEXA body composition or using a body composition scale. And they're going to predict it from your muscle mass because there are two big determinants of your metabolism. One of them is muscle mass and one of them is thyroid. Now, likely, if you're 40 plus, both could be an issue. So for thyroid, because we got to clear that elephant in the room, go get it checked with a good functional medicine doctor. Now, here's a couple of things to think about. If you're noticing fatigue, low energy, constipation, dry or brittle hair, dry or brittle hair, skin or nails. If you're depressed, if you're having some hair loss, if your hands felt yellow, tinge with them, if you're eating a lot of carrots, if you've got elevated LDL cholesterol, then these are things that are all symptoms of low thyroid function. Again, you want to go to a functional medicine doctor or you can go get your Own direct to consumer lab testing done, I use your lab work. We'll make sure to include that information. And you can get a really good lab panel that looks at TSH free T3 and T4, reverse T3 and thyroid antibodies. All things you need to look at to really get conclusive about if you've got low thyroid function. Do not go by the regular norms of a tsh. You need more information than that. So now let's talk about muscle mass, because there's this thing called sarcopening obesity that means that you've got not enough muscle mass for your ideal body weight. And this is super duper important because it turns out that after the age of 40, we start to lose 1% of muscle a year if we are not using it. And we've got to make sure that we're using it because muscle is everything for your metabolism. So the first thing that we're going to want to look at here for metabolism is protein. Now here's the deal. Toss the rda. The RDA will help you avoid like, you know, it's the minimum that you basically need to survive. It's not the optimal that we want to have for you really being at your best. So protein's key and critical because number one, it's the most thermic macronutrient takes about 20 to 30% of the protein you eat is used in digestion. You're not absorbing those calories, they're used to assimilate the protein. Protein, and it's slower to digest, so it's more satiating. It triggers the release, release of different peptides that tell you that you are full. So it's very satiating and it's very thermic. Two really big bonuses here. The other thing that it does is it triggers the release of something called mtor. This helps your body go through muscle protein synthesis. Mtor, or mammalian target of rapamycin, is an enzyme that acts as a protein kinase and plays an important role in cell growth and maintenance. It's involved in the regulation of cellular functions such as protein synthesis, metabolism and autophagy. Now, when you activate mtor, cells increase protein synthesis and muscle mass. But if you inhibit it, you are going to have decreased muscle growth. And you need about two and a half to three grams of leucine, which is really rich in animal protein, to trigger MTOR activation. So what's important is if you're looking to lose weight or if you're restricting calories, you got to make sure that you're holding on to muscle Mass and having optimal protein that's 0.8 grams per pound of ideal body weight or more is going to help you do that along with making sure that you are doing resistance training, lifting heavy weights, doing heavy body weight, doing stuff that's hard for your body to do along with protein is going to help you hold on to or build muscle. And muscle really is that metabolic Spanx, it holds everything in tighter, right. And boosts your metabolism. So super important. Next one is spices.

I like to say pump it up.

Then spice it up. And you're going to spice it up with, first of all, cayenne pepper. Now, I don't tend to like hot foods. My husband is like a hot food, enthusiastic, throws red pepper and hot sauces on everything. Me, I do not like it. I wish I did. Because cayenne pepper especially contains capsaicin. And capsaicin helps stimulate body heat and that means you burn more body fat. Chili peppers and any kind of capsaicin consumption helps the body, helps reduce body weight, and it's like a great little way to help fight obesity. Now, here's how I do it. Since I don't really like hot foods, I found this drink from suja called Lemon Love. That's lemon juice, a little stevia and cayenne pepper and I'll do that. So that's a great one because you get the lemon juice too. That lowers the blood sugar response. So first one is red pepper, is cayenne is capsaicin, the next one is ginger. Now, there was a study in 2017, it was a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial, which is like the gold standard, amazing for studies. It was published in the International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism and there were 50 patients with type 2 diabetes that were divided in two groups and they were received either 2,000 milligrams a day of ginger or a placebo for 10 weeks. And what they found was the ginger consumption significantly reduced serum levels of fasting blood glucose and hemoglobin A1C. So ginger is another big one. So when you get the sushi and they give you the ginger, eat it and then curcumin, which we know reduces inflammation and inflammation blocks muscle protein synthesis. So there's this thing called anabolic resistance that starts to happen as we age where muscle cells become resistant to the anabolic effects of muscle building hormones and signals. So you really want to make sure that you are blocking, lowering that inflammation so that you can hold on to and build muscle. Now, I already mentioned lemon juice, but let's talk lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Because what we know is both of these can help lower the blood sugar response to a meal. Apple cider vinegar can improve insulin function and lower blood sugar levels. And remember, lemon juice can lower the blood sugar response to a meal. So both these things are amazing and easy enough. Hey, extra virgin olive oil, a little acv. You've got a great salad dressing too, because you got to have lower insulin and good blood sugar. So your body then can use stored fat for fuel when it needs energy. Now the next one are prebiotic rich fiber foods. Think barely ripe bananas. So green bananas, but not so green you can't peel them. Garlic, sunchokes, dandelion greens, onions, leeks, oatmeal, apples, cacao, flax and jicama, the sum of them. And these prebiotics are great because they stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. And this is important because the type of bacteria you have in your gut can make the difference between you storing more calories from the food you eat as fat, which we do not want to do, or burning it off. Plus, gut bacteria also plays a big role in blood sugar balance. Now, gut bacteria ferment fiber, including resistant starch to support the production of short chain fatty acids. And these short chain fatty acids produce a fatty acid called butyrate. And butyrate can improve colon health and the balance of gut bacteria. So butyrate's super cool. I talked about this actually on Dr. Oz about, you know, the resistant starch of cold potatoes and green bananas because of producing butyrate. And butyrate being like a fat burner, it helps with suppressing appetite, it helps you burn fat better, and it promotes a healthy metabolism. Butyrate increases thermogenesis. That's how your body creates heat. So it can help you burn fat. And then two of my most favorites, coffee and green tea. I always say, you know, like, I could pretty much don't take away my drinks, I could go without eating. But I really love my coffee and my green tea. And green tea has been part of my daily routine since I lived in Japan, oh so many years ago. I got hooked on it. And I also love, I start every day with organic black coffee. I really drink green tea because of what it does for you. There's a lot of load of research on the main polyphenol in green tea. It's called egcg. I always think of egg with a C in it. And EGCG can increase fat and calorie burning. Even at rest, there was a study out of the Spain journal the Nutrition Hospitalaria, and what they found there was that 100 to 460 milligrams a day of EGCG has the strongest effect on fat loss and weight loss after 12 weeks. And by the way, since I'm talking fluids, the other one I want to talk about is water. Because mild dehydration enhances fat, storing your body basically is going into hibernation. I did a really cool episode with Dr. Rick Johnson of Nature Wants you to be Fat, talking about how dehydration causes weight gain and holding on to fat. It also causes you to raise cortisol, which of course then can spike your blood sugar and cause more belly fat. Now I always like to start with food because getting healthy starts with changing what's at the end of your fork. But there are also a few other ways to improve your metabolic health outside the kitchen, and you can learn more in this video on 6 Ways to get metabolically healthy. 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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