What to Eat, When to Eat and Why for Bone Health

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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.

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One of the most important things to think about if you want to age well. And by that, I mean if you want to live not only a long life, but you also want to be healthy and active. I mean, who doesn't want that, right? Well, to make sure that that happens, you have to start paying attention to your bones. Now, I'm betting that you haven't been thinking about your bones at all. And most people don't give their bones any love till it's too late. But that doesn't have to be you. You can get a jump on your healthy future right now with these strategies I'm about to share. Hey, it's jj. Have you ever heard that quote that says, to succeed in life, you need three a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone? That's pretty good, right? And there's some truth in there. Bones are that important. So let me welcome you to another episode in the series on what to eat, when to eat, and why. And in these videos, we're focusing on addressing different health issues by improving what's at the end of your fork. And today, we're talking bone health. Now, I'm going to start with the why. Why you need your bones to be strong and healthy. Now, you may intuitively know you do, but you probably take them for granted, or you may not think there's much you can do about it. Well, there is. And having strong and healthy bones gets more and more important as we age. And of course, our bones help us stand and move, but they also protect our vital organs and store nutrients and minerals that keep us alive. And if we don't take care of them, our risk of frailty and fractures shoots up as we age. And frankly, that scares me. I've heard and seen some really scary stories around people breaking their hip. And then that's just it. Now, you've heard of aging gracefully, and I want you just to, like, blast that out. We want to age powerfully. And you know what you need to age powerfully? Strong bones. So I'm going to give you a few more reasons to make your bone health a priority before we get into some pretty easy ways to do it. So you may not know that bone is living tissue, and it's constantly being broken down and replaced. From about the age of 25 to around 50, bone density stays pretty stable, meaning it builds up and breaks down in equal amounts. But after 50, bone breakdown outpaces bone formation, and bone loss usually accelerates and that's when you start to hear about osteopenia and osteoporosis. And for women, this is even more true around menopause. So age is a risk factor, but so is being underweight or under muscled. And some meds, medications can weaken bones, too. Now, the estimate is that more than 200 million people have osteoporosis. And that is a crazy number. According to the recent statistics from the International osteoporosis Foundation worldwide, one in three women over the age of 50 and one in five men will have fractures related to osteoporosis in their lifetime. And here's what's really challenging. There's no signs of osteoporosis until you break that bone. That'll get your attention right now, osteoporosis causes bones to become so weak and so brittle that a fall or even something crazy like just bending over or coughing can cause a fracture. Now, basically, if you don't take care of your bones, they can't take care of you. And that means that even the simplest things like carrying your groceries can become really hard, are actually dangerous. So let's talk what. So to make sure that never happens to you, there are things that you should do right now, no matter what your age, to prevent your bones from getting weak. First, we're going to talk about what to eat. For strong bones, eating foods that are rich in calcium and vitamin D is really important. But please don't just default to dairy here. Now, if you've read the Virgin Diet, you know dairy is one of my seven hi fi high inflammatory foods and is acidic. So by eating it, you may be inviting more problems than you're solving. Besides, there are foods that have a lot more calcium than dairy does. Almonds, kale, bok choy and legumes are all great sources of calcium. But it's not enough just to eat foods high in calcium because you need vitamin D to make calcium as bioavailable as possible so your body can actually use it to help your bones. So you got to make sure your vitamin D level is where it needs to be. And if you're going through menopause, this is especially important. Now, I've looked at a lot of vitamin D tests, and it's rare that I ever see someone in the ideal range without supplementation. A lot of people are low in vitamin D, and you want to get yours tested. And the test you want to get is the 25 hydroxy vitamin D test. You'll want your levels to be between 50 to 80 NGML. And if it's not there, you're going to want to supplement with D3 and vitamins K1 and K2 because vitamin K works synergistically with D to ensure that your calcium gets absorbed and then it goes to the right places in your body. Now also with that calcium, you need protein for healthy and strong bones. So things like grass fed and finished beef, pastured chicken, turkey, wild fish, and my favorite of course, I love breaking my fast every day with a smoothie and I'll use my clean paleo protein with collagen powder. Collagen, by the way, is a protein that's known to support both health, bone health, and you can also get that collagen by drinking bone broth. So you want to make sure that you're getting protein because protein makes up about 50% of the volume of bone. Now there was a study done in 2018 that followed more than 2900 seniors over 23 years. And researchers found that the people who ate the most protein were 30% less likely to become functionally impaired than those who ate the least amount. That is huge. And in another study in 2017, researchers followed nearly 2,000 older adults over six years. And the people who consumed the least amount of protein were almost twice as likely to have difficulty walking or climbing the stairs as those who ate the most. All right, so let's talk about how much protein you should eat. And I gotta say too, not only are you eating it, one of the challenges as we age is we don't digest it well, so we can't use it well. So also always consider using enzymes, especially betaine, to help you digest your protein. But let's talk about how much protein you should have. One of the things I really want you to do is to get yourself a body composition scale. So this isn't just getting on and finding what your weight is. This is, this scale will tell you what your weight is made up of. How much of your body is fat, you might think, you know, you don't unless you test and how much is lean body mass. We want to make sure that we're holding onto and building lean body mass. And protein is super important for this. And so I base your protein needs on that. I want you to get at least a gram per pound of lean body mass. So if you are a 150 pound woman and your body fat is 20%, that means that you have 120 pounds of lean body mass. That means you need 120 grams of protein per day as your Floor as the least amount divided into three meals. That means you're getting 40 grams of protein at each meal or maybe you get 30 and then you get 40 and 50. So again, 120 would be your minimum there. Now this is a 150 pound woman. You're probably going to want to eat more about a gram per pound of whatever your ideal body weight is. So I'm assuming this 150 pound woman at 20% body fat, which would be great is that's her ideal. So maybe she's eating 150 grams of protein a day. The floor was 120, she's going for 150 and then she's really working on putting on muscle. Let's say that 150 pound woman actually has 30% body fat or 40% body fat. She needs to drop some fat, but what she really needs to do is put on some muscle. Then I'm going to have her add about 1 1/2 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight. So again, you got to make sure you're getting enough protein and you're dividing between your meals. Do not fear protein, fear not getting enough and fear not digesting it. I think we've become protein phobic in this country and we're suffering the consequences. And I say not on my watch. Now, beyond protein, you also want to focus on foods high in magnesium, omega 3 and zinc. These all are critical for supporting healthy bones. So what does this look like? Fish? Now, bonus points for you if you will eat sardines. I wish I could say I did. I do have a great recipe for it in one of my cookbooks. But sardines are fantastic for you because you can eat the bones. So if you can do that, a plus. Also nuts and flax seeds and fish and beans and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage and okra. Because we want to make sure you're getting deep green leafies because of the vitamin K in them. Now I've got to push out here just a little word of caution. So some of the deep green leafies, like spinach, and you can really kind of taste this with spinach. They contain oxalates and the oxalates can interfere with calcium absorption. So, like, don't go, okay, I'm going to do my deep green leafies and I'm going to have like 5 cups of spinach every single day. You know, one of the big important things that we do in health, in your diet, in what to eat, is we eat seasonal, local, organic and we rotate so don't eat the same things all the time, but get a lot of different deep green leafies and cruciferous vegetables. Super important. Another big benefit from eating your deep green leafies and cruciferous vegetables is they help you maintain a good acid alkaline balance. Now why is this important? Well, if you've got a super acidic diet, you're eating a lot of animal protein, you're drinking your coffee, you're having your teas, it could be acidic. And if you're more acidic, your body is actually going to have to buffer you back to a good acid alkaline balance. You know what it does, it can leach some calcium from your bones to maintain this balance. So we don't want that to happen. The easiest solution to this, eat more deep green leafies. Eat those non starchy vegetables, especially the cruciferous ones. And you know, I always say I want you to eat minimum 5 servings of non starchy vegetables a day. That's your floor and 10 is your kind of goal post. And that's one of the reasons why. All right, now the next one. This is going to sound a little weird, but eggshells are a great source of calcium too. Now if you are not egg intolerant, you can hard boil your eggs or soft boil your eggs and you're eating pastured eggs, right? And then you grind up the shells into a powder and you can throw the powder into your smoothie and apparently you won't even taste it. A full disclosure, this sounds awful to me, so I've not done it. However, I think it's much easier just to take a supplement, right? I do it the easy way. So I have a product called Complete Bone Support, which pretty much says it all. It's a complete bone support. It's a vitamin and mineral blend formulated to support bone strength and health. So includes all of the minerals we just talked about, calcium, magnesium and zinc. And also in forms that are well chelated, easy for your body to absorb. That's really important. And then vitamins D and K, all of the things we're talking about here that you need in one supplement so you don't have to grind up eggshells and put them in your smoothie. Although bonus points if you do. And if you don't take mine, find a good one you like that has all those ingredients to support your bone tissue. But really important here to know when you're taking minerals. Minerals are rocks, they are not easy to absorb. So make sure that you're getting minerals that are, well, chelated that means they are attached to amino acids. Your body can absorb them well. Okay. The other one that you might want to think about that I'm super keen on is something called Annatto E tocotrienols. This like is the greatest thing. We actually did a trial with a group of women using annatto E, GG and COQ10 and DIM for hormonal support through menopause. Annatto E is this really amazing supplement and I love it for 40 plus year old women because it's cardiovascular protective and brain protective. But it's also can be really good for bone health. So check that one out too. Now, in addition to these power foods and supplements, let me mention, and I got to write that regular exercise. And when I say regular exercise, I'm talking weight training and resistance training. Body weight training is super duper important. You want to load your spine, you want to axial load your spine, push your weights overhead, do squats. This is really important. Also things like hiking or jogging or climbing stairs, things that have a little bit of impact are really important for your bones. They're essential for keeping your bones strong and healthy. Okay, when, so when should you start eating with the focus on your bone health? All right, this is pretty easy right now. The sooner you start, the better. Believe it or not, even if you're not perimenopausal, even if you're in your 20s, your risk can still be high. But of course it's especially important for women heading into going through or following menopause. It's non negotiable for you. Got it? Now once this like you start to lose bone and it gets away from you, it is really hard to shift back and then you might end up having to take some horrible medication. And I just don't want to see that happening to anybody. Okay, so start now. So now you know why you have to eat for your bones and you have to eat right. And whatever you do, I want you to avoid these like low calorie starvation diets. You want to be really careful. If dieting has become your hobby, because rapid weight loss and losing a lot of weight can negatively impact your bone density. Now if you're going slow and using diet like I teach as a therapeutic tool to figure out things about your body, what works, what doesn't, really design that eating plan that will work for you for a lifetime, then that weight loss over time is not going to hurt your bone mineral density as much, especially if you're combining it with high intensity resistance and weight bearing exercise. And of course Getting in the protein and the collagen that you need, super critical. Adding muscle is going to help support your bones and it also helps slow bone loss, which of course is going to lower your risk of fractures and osteoporosis. So again, I cannot stress it enough. Look into strength or resistance exercises you can easily do at home. And by the way, you could totally do this at home. You can start with just some free weights. And I love using a TRX trainer. And there's loads on YouTube where you can see how to use a TRX trainer or hire personal trainer to come over and just design your workout routine for you. But it's easy enough to get into that routine of doing resistance training. Walking is not enough here. You've got to do some resistance training. And again, it can be using a TRX trainer inexpensive. You could even use water bottles as your weights. You can use some of your body weight, but you got to get going on this. I've spent a load of time in my career helping people strength train and build muscle for better health, so I know what a difference this can make. And by the way, muscle not only helps protect your bones, right? And lifting weights not only helps with improving bone mineral density, but muscle, of course, I call it the Metabolic Spanx. It's going to help with blood sugar balance, it helps boost your metabolism. So it's huge for living a long, healthy life. And again, I want you to stop thinking about, oh, I'm going to live powerfully. I want you to move from or live gracefully. I want you to start thinking, I'm living powerfully, I'm aging powerfully. Right? And muscle is the key to that. Now, if you want to know more about this, you can click the link below to get your free menopause guide. And hopefully you don't have a bone to pick with any of that. I know I had to do it. Okay, Boo. Now, even with that groan, I'm still going to ask you to like and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode on what to eat, when to eat, and why. For stress and anxiety, that's going to be a big one. I'll see you there. For more info on this and other health topics I cover or to raise 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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