Top 5 Things You Must Know Before Your Next Diet with JJ Virgin

Hey, it's J.J. 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. 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 book 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 EAs 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 the.

Holidays are all about family. But at the Chrysler Wrap up the Year sales event, it's all about you. Enjoy every mile in the most awarded minivan in America or the Chrysler Pacifica with the most standard safety features in its class, available Stow n Go seating and the available Stow and back built in vacuum. Make the most of the holidays with a great deal at the Chrysler Pacifica Wrap up the Year sales event based on Ward's small van segment. Based upon the latest available competitor information, Chrysler is a registered trademark of FCA US llc.

The longer you've been over fat, the longer you've been struggling with your weight, actually, the tougher it is. That's not new news, is it? But here's the deal. If you eat and live like a healthy, lean person, over time, you will become one.

Welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show with celebrity nutrition expert, fitness hall of famer and four time New York Times best selling author, JJ Virgin. JJ is a warrior mom whose knowledge and expertise have helped change hundreds of thousands of lives. With over 3.5 million podcast downloads and appearances on Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, the Today Show, Rachael Ray, Larry King Live.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This show is about you, not about me. I want to help you find practical, real world ways to dial in your health and mindset so you can finally lose that weight and feel strong and energized. Stop settling for less than your personal best. It's time to find out how to look and feel better than ever. And I'll be right here with you the whole way. Hey, it's JJ and welcome to today's show where today we are going to be talking about the five things you must know and do for your diet to succeed. Yep, crazy stuff out there. If you're feeling like, wow, I'm a failure. You're beating yourself up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Back up the train because here's the deal. They say it's something like when I had Emily, our awesome Emily, research the stats, it was like 80% of all diets fail. I think it's pro and they fail for a very, very specific reason, which we are going to be talking about in a moment here. So hang with me. Before we get there. We've got some other stuff to do, but we will be talking deep diving into what you want to do today before you start thinking about going on a diet. If you've been feeling like, you know, like I try, it fails, blah, blah, this is your show and you'll be able to get great show notes as always from today@jjvirgin.com success succeed. By the way, I'm also taping this live on Instagram @jj virgin and at Facebook @jj virgin official. I'll put those little my. What are those called? Those things? My names on social. I know they're called a thing and I'm having a total brain fart right now, but I'll put those in the show notes as well. And before we dive in today's show, I want to do a little shout out for rockin 50. Um, and she gave me a five star review. Says empowering an Apple podcast says I'm nearing 50 this June. You know, here's the thing. You say rocking 50 and you're not even 50 yet. Wow. But, you know, 50 is the new 30, is it not? It totally is. So I'm nearing 50 this June and I need some motivation and inspiration to stave off the growing fat around my belly. Hey, that is not happening on my watch. We can totally get through this. I feel like I'm in school learning great things on how to take care of my body. Most importantly, to focus on managing my stress levels and how to be more intentional about what I eat. Jj, you're such a positive person and I love the variety of experts you interview. By making a few changes to my routine, I feel more sustained energy throughout the day. I have one question. What are some low impact hiit workouts? I have scoliosis and jumping aggravates some back nerves. Thank you for all you do. We will put some resources for that in the show notes from my fast fitness program, especially my Exciser resource where you can find that at burst of blast fat. Because that is how you can do that. That without creating any impact or problems. Amazing. It's what I've used to get through some of my surgeries. So there you go on that. And thank you so much for that. I super appreciate it. Now, before we deep dive into this super important topic, I want to share one of my favorites with you.

Hey, jj, Virgin here. Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me, travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things, and suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of year reset could be a real goal this time. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

Ray Ban Meta glasses come with open ear audio so you can listen to your favorite music without blocking out the world around you.

Hey Meta, play Gorgeous. Here's Gorgeous by Doja Cat.

You can also ask Meta AI questions.

Hey Meta, when's Doja Cat's next concert? Doja Cat is playing at the Los Angeles Theater next Tuesday.

Sweet Ray Ban Meta glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers.

All right, welcome to today's show. Now we are going to be talking about today. I'm deep diving into diets and I'm going to be talking over the next couple months, years, forever about diets. Because here's the thing. Have you been on a diet? You're probably wagging your head and I'm recording this live right now on social media. I'd love to hear from you on social media. Have you ever been on a diet? Have you been on multiple diets? Let me see some of this. Let's see some thumbs up. I want to see some responses to this. And I'm imagining if you're listening to the podcast, you're going, yes, I've been on a diet. Of course I have. Who hasn't been on a diet? And how was that diet? If you feel like that diet failed, you are in good company. Because when I had my and everyone's going too many. When I had my researcher go through and look at what the statistics were, it was 80 plus percent of all diets fail. Now I've just recently interviewed the most Amazing Jason Fung, Dr. Jason Fung on my podcast. He said, oh no, JJ, it's more like 99%. But I think that's because we're looking at diets all wrong. And the diets that we've set up out there, which you will never catch me promoting, ever, are set up to fail. They are set up to make you worse, not better. So why do diets fail? Well, this is what I was taught 30 plus years ago that I still see out there, which I cannot believe is still the prevailing wisdom. And it's based on the wrong premise. It is this. And you've heard it before. If you want to lose weight, what do you need to do? Eat less, exercise more. Could we just go blow that sucker up? Because it's not true and it doesn't work. And in fact, what we know about that is if we do it, what happens is when you cut calories, you actually lower your basal metabolic rate. That means you burn less calories because your body goes, oh, we need to do this. If we're cutting calories, we need to conserve energy. So when you cut calories, you slow your body down. Now, if you try to do the opposite, you know what? I'll just move more. I'll do a ton. A ton, A ton of exercise. Well, all right. The problem is that your body compensates there too by getting hungrier. And so then you eat more. So your body really tries to create homeostasis and keep you where you are. Now, that does not mean that you're stuck. And here's another part of that, and this is kind of a boo hiss. The longer you've been over fat, the longer you've been struggling with your weight, actually, the tougher it is. That's not new news, is it? But here's the deal. If you eat and live critical. If you eat and live like a healthy, lean person, over time you will become one. But it cannot come from this place of, I'm going to starve myself and exercise like a fiend. Okay? Because we all know that doesn't work. You've tried it, I've tried it. All that is is going to make things worse, not better. Because, and you've heard me say this before, I'm going to say it again. Your body isn't a bank account. It's a chemistry lab. And you have to do things that support that chemistry lab. It's. You've got to get your hormones to work better. You've got to get your body to work so that your body uses stored fat for fuel. It's a fat burner, not a sugar burner. All right? And it's not storing that fat. So when you really look at, if you're trying to get Healthier if you're trying to lose weight. This is a hormone situation, not a calorie situation. All right, that makes sense. So here's where we need to start then with that. If it's a hormone situation, not a calorie situation, then we need to do the things that are going to support a better hormone response. Now here's the first thing. And nature hates a vacuum. And this was actually came from my first nutrition myth mentor who is just brilliant. And he said, you know, we need to add before we take away. And one of the biggest challenges I think we have nowadays is we have really poor quality food, all this crappy processed stuff. So the first thing I want you to think of is how do we unprocess your diet? How do we. And this isn't going to say that you'll never eat processed foods, but that you want to eat the majority of your foods are unprocessed. Foods are things like fresh fruit and vegetables, especially a little bit of fruit, a lot of vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, clean animal protein and more, you know, more of that entire animal. Right. So how do we do that? And I say that because then you'll do things like you'll have bone broth, you'll cook, you'll make a chicken, and then you'll throw the bones in a pot and cook those up. So the first thing again you want to do is you want to add before you take away. And this is great because the first thing we think of when we think of going on a diet is what deprivation. Taking things away. And the minute you take things away from me, I get naughty, misbehave and want to eat the wrong things. So we're going to unprocess your diet. We're going to eat as closest to nature as possible. And again, let's just think of, I like people to eat 5 to 10 servings of non starchy vegetables a day. So you start making sure you're getting them. You're getting in healthy fats from nuts and seeds and avocados and wild fish and grass fed beef. You're eating some, some fresh berries, you're eating clean protein, you're eating legumes and you're not drinking your sugar. All right, that's a super duper duper important one. Don't drink that sugar. So the minute you start to do that, guess what? Some stuff gets to crowd out. So you're eating more healthy stuff, you're crowding out the bad stuff. That's step one. Step two is Detoxify now. Now when you start to lose fat, one of the things that happens is we are bombarded by toxins all around us and we're eating toxins, or when we're eating food, we're getting some toxins in. When we're breathing, we're getting some toxins in. When we're drinking, we're getting some toxins in. So what we need to make sure when we're putting things on our skin so toxins are all around us. Even if we're doing our best, which we want to do is minimize exposure, we're still getting them. Now, the problem is that when you've got toxins coming in your body, if you can't get rid of them right away, stores them in your fat to protect you. And if you don't have enough nutrients on board, and those are things like sulfur rich compounds, garlic and broccoli and cabbage and onions. Shout out to my buddy, Dr. Terry Walls, who was just on a podcast, we'll link to this and talked about having cabbage. She travels with cabbage and she eats cabbage. I was like, you are my new hero. But lots of sulfur rich compounds, deep green leafies rich in chlorophyll. They can bind up heavy metals, high f bind with toxins. Lots and lots of water, water, liver supportive foods like beets. So we want to really start to focus on what you can do to help your body detoxify and get rid of toxins. Because as you're starting to lose fat, you're freeing up those toxins. And if you're not doing things to help get them out of your body, guess what? They get freed up and they go back in. And that is not a good thing. In fact, what was very interesting is the NHANES study when they were looking at obesity and diabetes. Now, we would think that when you have higher levels of obesity, you have higher levels of diabetes. What they found was that was true, but it was because of the toxins stored in the fat cells that were triggering the insulin resistance that was creating the diabetes. So super duper important. Remember I was talking about diet and hormones. It's all about the hormones. It's all about your chemistry lab. So getting your body on a regular detox program. That's why we do a group detox program over at JJ Vir with all of our community twice a year to make sure that you've got those habits in place and see and add some new ones in so that you're just doing things on a regular basis that help you detoxify well. Okay, next one super important to number three is balance your blood sugar. So big goal we want to have you do. And I talk a lot about this in the sugar impact diet. And the breakthrough carbon tolerance online program is to help you move from a sugar burner to a fat burner. And the way you do this, and you'll know you're able to do this by the way, if you can go four to six hours between eating, if you forget to eat, if you're able to burn off belly fat, that all shows that you're a fat burner, not a sugar burner. And this is super important because if you're not able to access stored fat for fuel, then you'll be hungry all the time. Then you won't be able to burn off stored body fat. And so you want to make sure that you're eating from the trifecta of fat, fiber, and protein. That's super important. We're going to talk about that actually next. But I want to also give you a couple hacks, things that can help you balance your blood sugar. One is fiber. When you're unprocessing your diet, when you're eating more whole foods, you're getting foods that are higher in fiber. And that is super important for having a better blood sugar response. It actually lowers the blood sugar response to the meal. A couple other things that do that same thing that are awesome are cinnamon and lemon juice. Now, cinnamon can help balance blood sugar naturally. And I mean, who doesn't love cinnamon? And then lemon juice lowers the blood sugar response to a meal. So there's three easy hacks to help you lower your blood sugar or more importantly, balance your blood sugar. You don't want too high, you don't want too low. You want just right. And then next. And this is also helps with balancing your blood sugar, but it also is important because helps activate what I call your satiety switch. I just. This came out of my brain the other day, and I'm like, ooh. I almost was like, I should write a book. Your satiety switch. But I just love this idea of having this satiety switch because, let's face it, when we're hungry like it is, it is super hard to be rational. Now, one thing I want to tell you about being hungry is hunger is usually a moment in time. It's a wave you. You ride. And I love what my buddy Dr. Joel Kahn said. Hunger equals younger. We have been trained to go, oh, my gosh, I'm hungry. I have to have Something, don't let yourself get hungry. No, that is really not the case. A little bit of hunger is fine and quite often you're not hungry anyway. What are you? You are thirsty, right? So when you start to feel hungry, let's make a deal. Instead of going and reaching for a snack that raises your blood sugar and raises your insulin and basically shuts the doors to your fat cells so you can't burn stored fat for fuel, instead of doing that, have a big glass of water or try some iced green tea. I always have to enunciate that well, because people thought I was saying ice cream tea. No, sadly enough, I am not iced green tea, which I love because the catechins in it help with insulin sensitivity and the theanine in it is very calming. So it's really got. It's kind of a multi purpose. Besides being yummy, it's. It's really super good for you. So water or some ice cream tea, or also with the water, you can add in some lemon juice. Again, that can help lower the blood sugar response to the meal. And the lemon juice can help take your sweet tooth away. So look at what you can do to when you start to feel hungry. That's step one.

Don't eat.

Have some stuff to drink. Have some water. You could also throw some chia seeds in that water and that can help you last longer too. Next thing is, when you do eat, this is what I want you to do, because this will activate again. That satiety switches. You're going to eat fat, fiber and protein. Here's what they do. So fiber and protein slow down stomach emptying. And when you slow down stomach emptying, you actually suppress something called ghrelin. Ghrelin, when it's up, triggers your hunger. So you want to keep that suppressed. You actually want it up high at night. This is why we don't eat and then go to bed. We give ourselves three to four hours before bed after eating. Because ghrelin at night triggers the release of growth hormone. Super important. But we want to keep it down during the day so you're not as hungry. So eating protein and fiber together slows down stomach emptying. That's super important. And then fat triggers the release of some satiety signals in the small intestine to tell your brain that you're full. So these all work together not only to balance blood sugar, because they do that too, but also to keep you feeling fuller, longer, keeping you satiated. So that is super important because then you are able to go four to Six hours between meals. It keeps your insulin down. It helps you burn stored fat for fuel. And remember we talked about diet is really a hormone problem. So if you are over fat, it's really a hormone issue. A lot of that has to do with what's going on with your cortisol and what's going on with your insulin. Now the final one, this will come as no surprise if you've been around my community, because I talk about this a lot, is to stop snacking. Stop it snacking. I, this, this I. I'll never forget. I get this big box sent to me from Frito Lay. I kid you not, I cannot make this stuff up, up. So I get this big box from Frito Lay and it's. It is inviting me, which got all these crappy snacks in there, you know, these low fat, supposedly healthy snacks. But it was just all this refined grain and stuff in there. And they invited me to join their snacking council. And I'm thinking, have you, like, done any research on me at all? If you were doing any research on me, you know that I am an anti snacker. Now here's the other thing. Do you really need three meals a day? We probably don't. We probably need a little later breakfast, an earlier dinner, and maybe like, if you need something in the day, a snack, that's where I use my JJ Virgin all in one bars or my fiber bars. But, you know, we don't probably need these three squares. And we definitely don't need three squares and then two to three meals throughout the day. Here's why. We were taught a couple years ago, about 20 years ago, plus, when we were taught that fat was evil, well, they pulled the fat out. Of course they added sugar in because you can't. They had to do something to make it taste good. And then they said, all right, we should be eating every two to three hours to keep our blood sugar stable. Well, that doesn't keep our blood sugar stable. You know what it does? It keeps our blood sugar up. And if our blood sugar is up, every time you eat, blood sugar goes up, right? Well, if your blood sugar goes up, your insulin comes up to get your blood sugar back down. Because your body doesn't want to have blood sugar up. It's sticky and inflammatory. So blood sugar's up, up. Insulin comes up, brings blood sugar back down again. And then you go, oh, I better have a snack because I feel just a little hunger. Can't be hungry. Eat a snack. Blood sugar comes up again. Insulin stays high because it cannot return to normal because you still got blood sugar around. So what happens is you keep blood sugar insulin high all day long. If insulin's higher, you can't access stored fat for fuel. You are turned into a sugar burner, not a fat burner. So this is where you never want to be. You want to stop the snacking and I want to add into that because we want to talk a little bit more about meal timing. I used to be adamant, eat within an hour of waking up. Now what I say is eat in the morning when you get hungry. That might be an hour after waking up, might be two hours, might even be three hours. On the weekends, I try to go a little longer so I can have a later breakfast, kind of a breakfast lunch brunch. I guess that's what that's called. And then I try to do an earlier dinner. So sometimes on the weekend I'll eat breakfast around 10, 11 and dinner four or five o'. Clock. So that's what I like to do on the weekends because I really like to get some time restricted eating or intermittent fasting going a couple days a week, but all week. Here's the commitment we need to make. You want to go 12 hours overnight fast, so stop eating three to four hours before bed. By the way, this is super important. That does not mean go to bed later. Nope, that's not what I'm talking about. I want you to really stay true to your bedtime. Eat dinner earlier. All right? Super important. And dinner's not your biggest meal, right? Let's go earlier for the biggest meal so that you have time to digest that throughout the day. All right? So you're going to eat later, breakfast earlier, dinner 12, 14 hour overnight fast. Eat when you're hungry, when you first feel hungry, have some water, have some ice cream, tea, have some bulletproof coffee. I just drink that black, but bulletproof coffee. You can add a little of the MCT oil in there. There you go. All right, those are the five key takeaways. I'm gonna be coming back and I will give you back those takeaways again. Make sure you have them all right there for you. So stay with me. I'll be right back. So I want to review those top takeaways so you can put them into immediate action. I also want to remind you to grab those show notes so that you can make sure that you too can put them into action. So what you'll do is you'll go to jjvirgin.com forward/cceed. I'll also include in from our listener earlier I will include in the information on HIIT training and the Exciser. So here are the five key takeaways that you're going to want to make sure that you put into action and again you can get the notes@jjvirgin.com succeed super important there. Number one first thing add before you take away. Introduce more high quality whole foods into your diet. Number two detox. Put those detox strategies in place so as you start to free up the fat and free up the toxins, your body can get rid of them. Number three balance your blood sugar so that it's easy for your body to become a fat burner, not a sugar burner. Number four activate your satiety switch by eating from the trifecta of fat, fiber and protein. And number five stop the snacking. Eat two to three meals and remember to get at least a 12 hour overnight fast. Super important. Now I want to remind you to jump on over. I love love love giving shout outs to people le a review on the show so you can do that over on iTunes JJ Virgin Lifestyle show and jump on over to itunes, leave a review and while you're there, make sure that you subscribe so you don't miss any of this goodness. All right, see you next time. Bye.

That's all for this episode of the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show, which marks another step towards a healthier body in mind. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show and we'll talk to you next week.

Foreigners 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 take 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, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.