What & When Should I Eat with JJ Virgin – Encore Presentation

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The following is an encore presentation of what and When Should I Eat with JJ Virgin.

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 Love 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 a bonus episode. And I say bonus episode because I have decided to add in some of my own episodes. Used to be when this podcast just started out, it was just me. And then I thought, you know, I have so many awesome friends out there, I'm going to bring them on in. But you know, I have some things to say and quite often I'll get on my Facebook or Instagram, bop on there and go and do a rant. And I thought I might as well be doing some downloads over here too. And what I'm going to do and you'll find these bonus episodes are the things I get asked about the most that I got something to say about, I'm going to be saying about here. And so today we are going to be talking about something super important. We talk all the time on this show and on my Facebook page and on Instagram about what you should eat. And of course that is super important. One of the fastest ways to change your health is to change what's at the end of your fork. But equally important, I'm going to say that that's pretty crazy, but it's very important. Well, kind of on the fringe of whether it's equal or not, but it's pretty darn close is when you eat it so today we're going to talk about a couple things that, you know, if you've been around my community, I can get on a rant about. We'll talk snacking. Should you, shouldn't you? And also if you want to fast or do intermittent fasting, what's the best way to walk into that? Should you really be eating breakfast? Oh, my gosh, the wars continue on that. And when is the absolute worst, worsty, worst, worst time to eat? We'll do all of those things. But before we dive into that, I want to do a shout out. And I have been shouting out to people, leaving these awesome, awesome reviews on the podcast and I super appreciate helps a ton. You know, people don't know, not everybody knows who I am and they go there and they go, who the heck's this gal? And then they see your awesome review and they go, I'm going to listen in. And that helps me with my big impact crazy goal of helping a billion people get healthy. And that's why I brought my friends in to help share some amazing information. But it's got to be shared. So when you leave a great review, when you subscribe, when you share it with your, it helps a ton. So I'm doing shout outs every week for people doing that for us. So this one. And by the way, the whole team reads these too. We love them. So this title is open up your world. Five stars from Doggy Money from the USA. Love the variety and intelligence JJ's podcasts are done with. I always take away a golden nugget. I always try to put something I learn into my daily life. I share it with my friends and family. Thank you, JJ and team for how much you enrich my life. And that doggy money is honestly the point makes me ridiculously happy. Because here's the deal. My I think my unique ability in the world is to take stuff that sometimes can get a little bit complicated or, you know, big words, you don't know what the heck to do with it, and take it into simple, actionable, bite sized pieces. And so the most important thing for me is that when you listen to this, you find something you can take action with because that's what makes the difference, right? Knowledge is not power unless you put it into action. Alrighty. Welcome to today's podcast and it's me, J.J. here, getting on a rant about eating by the clock. I talk a lot by eating by the plate. And in both the virgin diet and the sugar impact diet, I have you eating by the plate, which is really the trifecta of healthy fats, clean protein and fiber from non starchy vegetables, lots of them, and a little bit of slow, low carbs. But beyond just eating by the plate, you also want to eat by the clock. And this really came to pass early on. I actually used to go around the country and teach this course to doctors called Overcoming Weight Loss Resistance. And part of what I had in that course and this, it was all about all the things that could get in the way of you losing weight or cause you to gain weight. And one of the things I had in that course is, is the recommendation. I shudder now at this, but I just thank, I'm so thankful someone challenged me on it, made me think. And you know, quite often we can get stuck in a paradigm just because we've always done it. So this is the case with this. I was teaching people to have breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack and dinner. Now, thankfully, I hadn't gone even further to add the snack after dinner that I've seen out there in some of these popular diets. But still, that was bad enough. And, and one of the doctors questioned me and I'm like, at the time, it was when I was doing Dr. Phil's weight loss challenges, I think I was, you know, my second year of doing those, and the doctor was like, why are you having people eat all day long? And I'm thinking, well, it's in the book Dr. Phil wrote. I'm like, I don't know. And it made me realize that I didn't grow up eating that way. We didn't used to eat this way. And then all of a sudden when we started lowering the fat in our meals because we all became so fat phobic, thinking fat was what was making us fat. The end result was we pulled the fat out, we ate a lot more carbs and sugar, and we were hungry all the time. So we had to have breakfast, lunch and snack. But the reality is, when you are eating fat, fiber and protein, that trifecta for satiety, appetite control and blood sugar balance, you should be able to go four to six hours without eating again. And today we're talking about meal timing and intermittent fasting and fasting. If you do want to move into doing some intermittent fasting, and hopefully after today's talk, you will want to, you definitely want to make sure that before you step into that, you've gotten yourself to the point where you can go four to six hours between meals. Otherwise you're never going to last for a 12 to 16 hour overnight fast or a couple days of a water fast. So that's the first thing is we have to make sure. And so I like to in all that I do think about adding before I take away because I found early on in health and weight loss that if I pulled out food and didn't give people other better options or start with that, boy, people could actually get themselves in far much more trouble. So first thing that I want you to think of is start to make sure that each of your meals has clean, lean protein, grass fed beef, wild salmon, pastured chicken and pork and healthy fats. You can get those from things like wild fish, ghee, avocado, olive oil, raw nuts and seeds. I like to actually dehydrate those. Better to digest lots of non starchy vegetables, little bits of slow low carbs, things like if you're, if you're not paleo using some legumes if you are maybe some wild rice or cold potatoes for the resistant starch. Bottom line, when you put these things together, the protein and the fiber slow down stomach emptying. That's going to help you feel fuller, longer. The fat helps release some, some chemicals to the brain to tell you you're full. The whole result is that you've got better satiety, better appetite control and your blood sugar is more balanced. So that is step one. Step two, start drinking more fluids in between meals. So I get up in the morning and I have a cup or two of bulletproof beans and we'll put in the show notes how to get those bulletproof beans. I don't actually make it the whole bulletproof way, I just have the beans. And so I do those because they're mycotoxin free. So I get up in the morning and I have that and I'll have breakfast somewhere between one and two hours later. And it really has to do with sometimes even three hours later because I usually get up around six. So sometimes sometime between 7:30 and 9, I'll do my morning smoothie. And when I have, it really has to do with like how am I feeling, how hungry am I? And here's what I would tell you. Drink a bunch of fluid first and wait for it. You know, the first sign of hunger often isn't hunger at all, it's thirst. And we have just this crappy thirst mechanism. So the first sign of hunger, don't do anything, just drink more fluids. Okay, Have a glass of water, have some hot water with lemon. Sometimes I'll do a, like I love these lemon cayenne stevia, sweetened suja lemonades. So fluids and I will load up on the fluids first thing in the morning. And I also load up on the fluids in between meals. I did a segment on Dr. Oz where we showed you could boost your calorie burning by as much as 300 calories a day just by making sure that you're getting more water. You know, Even mild dehydration, 1%, 2% dehydration can raise cortisol and start to shut down fat burning. So really important to get enough fluids in and especially water, pure spring water, super duper important. But you really want to focus on getting the majority of that in between meals. I say stop drinking about 30 minutes before meal. Start again, you know, 30 to 60 minutes after meal. You don't want to dilute the stomach enzymes. You might digestion have its own chance. But we want to have a lot of fluids in between meals. And again, because quite often you're not hungry, you're just thirsty. And here's something I want you to think about in terms of hunger. Here's a great one. Ready? Ready. Hunger equals younger. One of the things that we know is that when you eat less, less often and you go first of all, you know, when you create some caloric restriction with great nutrition, optimal nutrition, it is anti aging, it improves longevity. It's the only thing we actually know that improves longevity. And then if you do go those longer periods between meals, especially the 14 to 16 hour overnight intermittent fast, you activate something called autophagy. And that's where your body goes in and starts getting rid of the bad cells, getting them out, get them out. And it's always better out than in. So first thing the plate. Second thing, fluids. And especially before bed. If you're hungry before bed, do not go in the kitchen. That is the single worst time ever to eat. I mentioned that there was like the worst time. It's at night. You really want to make sure that you've stopped eating three to four hours before bed. Because when you're eating, you raise something called, you suppress something called ghrelin. And you actually want ghrelin or ghrelin said both ways. You want that high at night that triggers the release of growth hormone. So you also don't want to eat right before bed because just bio, just mechanically, it can cause some esophageal reflux just from lying down with still food in your stomach. So this is a no, no. Three to four hours before bed. Shut the kitchen. You're probably not hungry anyway. You're probably just Bored, sniffing around. Get out of there. Go get in the bathtub, Stay there. That's always my suggestion. Because you can't eat if you're in the bathtub. I would think, I mean, I guess you could, but wouldn't that be a weird thing? So now you've stopped eating four hours, three to four hours before bed. You eat somewhere between an hour, two hours, three hours in the morning. I find most time I need to eat within two hours of waking up. Sometimes on the weekend I'll go a later and I'm convinced that your ability, like I tend to be hungrier in the morning, not hungry at night, and I'll see people who are just the opposite. And I'm convinced that probably is something to do with our circadian rhythm, our own clock. There are people who are night owls and there's people who are early birds. I'm an early bird. And I think for a lot of the night owls, they're probably more night eaters than morning. But regardless, stop eating three to four hours before bed. Do not stay up later, though. That is not, oh, I ate late. I'm going to stay up till 2. No, don't do that. And quite often you can shut down your evening hunger pangs just by having a glass of water. So there's an easy solution to that as well. All right, so we've got eat by the plate with that trifecta. Start doing all the fluids in between meals, start stretching out your meal time. So we're eating within one to three hours of waking up. We're stopping eating three to four hours before bed and you're going to eat every four to six hours. So let's say I got up at six and had breakfast at eight. I might have lunch around one and then I'll have dinner around, say, six, and then I'll go to bed at ten. See how that works? Easy. Super easy. Easy peasy. Now, in a perfect world too, you would go to the gym, workout, come home, have your meal, and then at night we'll have a meal and then we'll go and take the dog for a walk. You know, pretty easy walk. She's six pounds. We're not going 10 miles. But I especially like on my hard workouts to try to come home and eat within the hour after the workout. When I can do that. Super awesome. I've been also trying, I haven't been super successful, full disclosure. But I'm working on it. So I'm going to say it here because then that makes me more. It holds Me accountable. So mention this when you see me in a Facebook or Instagram live is getting up and doing a little high intensity interval training in the morning before I eat anything, super fasted. Okay, so now what I want you to do during the week, your goal is to get to do a 12 hour fast. So that means that if you eat dinner at six, you don't eat breakfast before six in the morning. You can see how easy that is because reality is if you have dinner at 6, you're probably not eating breakfast till 7 or 8. And ideally, if we can do a 12 to 14 hour fast on most days, that's really the goal. But here's what I want you to do. And I actually have this in my power plant cleanse program. I have a couple days of what I of my power plant cleanse days. And on those days I have you skip a meal, have two meals, have a late breakfast, lunch, you know, kind of a brunch and an earlier dinner. And that works better for me. Some people might go, oh, you know what, I'm better just having lunch and not having breakfast. I find, and especially for a lot of women, we do better just having a little bit later breakfast, say maybe about 10, and then I'll have dinner around 4. And I'm totally cool with that. I do, I can easily skip dinner. I can't skip breakfast. So see how you feel there. Because here's the one rule I know. There's no rule. It's really, you want to have that 16 hour fast, but you have to find out what works best for you. And again, by the time you start to do that, you've already added the right meal in. You've already put the fluids in between meals, you've already kicked the snacks out. And why are we kicking the snacks out? Because let's think about what happens when you eat. When you eat, you raise blood sugar. When you raise blood sugar, you raise insulin. Insulin comes up to bring blood sugar back down. If you have breakfast at 8 and then you have a snack at 10, your insulin really hasn't had time to come all the way back down. It's slow acting. And so then you eat again and you push blood sugar back up and insulin gets bumped up a little higher and then you bring blood sugar back down. And then now it's noon and you eat again and insulin's never had time to come down. Can you see the problem? You're keeping insulin up all day long. Pro inflammatory can make you a little bit insulin resistant. Your receptors start to have Trouble hearing it. And basically makes it hard for you to burn off fat. Because when you're more insulin resistant, when insulin's around all the time, your body gets bad at burning off fat. Well, we want to create some really good metabolic flexibility. We want your body good to burn fat, to burn carbs, and if necessary, to burn protein. And so that's what we're teaching you how to do, is get back to that, to be able to go. And one of the signs of that, one of the signs that you're a fat burner, not a sugar burner, that you can do both, switch it around, is to be able to go four to six hours between meals. Another sign is that when you're losing weight, you're losing your waste. If you are losing weight but you're not losing fat, you're not losing your waist, you're actually making yourself worse, not better. So that is super duper important to do. Once you're able to do that again. Now you can start to look at, hey, do I want to try to do a water fast for a day or a couple of days, or maybe I want to do a, you know, bone broth fast for a couple of days. So, and that's what actually, when I got my colonoscopy, that was how I did it. I did it as a bone broth fast. But I move into those by first. Again, I'm going to repeat it. First, eat by the plate. Second, add in the fluids. Third, bump out the snacks. Fourth, start to make sure that you're getting the 12 hour fast, but start to try to move it into 14 hours and then move it into two meals and one snack if you absolutely need to. And getting that 16 hour overnight fast. All right, and again, why is this so important? Well, what do we know about this? Number one, intermittent fasting can help balance your blood sugar, can actually help improve insulin sensitivity, and it can help you with better blood sugar control and can also help you start to get more metabolically flexible. And it can also help with autophagy, getting rid of some of those bad cells. There's some great things here that can happen. Just make sure. I remember when all this first started coming out about intermittent fasting. And I'm like, really? I don't buy it. I was on the Today show with David Chinchenko, who wrote Eat this, not that. And then he wrote this eight hour diet. And I was doing my sugar impact diet, he was doing the eight hour diet. And his whole thing was, now you could eat the not, you know, eat this not that. Now you could eat the not that. But only during eight hours. I'm like, that is ridiculous. So you can eat this, but. But make sure you're still eating the healthy stuff within those eight hours. It's not a license to go pig out and eat the wrong stuff. I mean, you and I both know that's silly.

Silly.

So, anyway, that is it. Now, after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. If you want to ask me a question, pop on over to Instagram JJ Virgin or Facebook JJ Virgin Official and you can DM me. You can pop into one of my posts or jump on one of my lives. That's the most fun of All. So this one comes from Joanie and she says, I know, I know you say not to snack, but what if I'm hungry? So here's the deal. This is why I love food journals. They are really the key. Because when you're keeping a food journal, let's say that you had breakfast at 8 and all of a sudden at 10 you're starving, look back and say, did I eat what I was supposed to eat at 8 o' clock or was there something missing that is the reason that I'm hungry so soon afterwards? Now, could be too that you're just under a ton of stress. Could be that you didn't sleep well the night before. By the way, one poor night of sleep. And you're more insulin resist resistant, your ghrelin's elevated so you are hungrier. But you want to put all of this stuff together to figure it out. Because remember, you are your own body detective. So the more you know, the better you can do. So that's the first thing is make sure you're keeping that food journal super important. Second thing is sometimes you will be hungry. So I never leave the house without emergency food. And that is honestly why I made my JJ virgin bars. And I always have a couple with me wherever I am because you never know. Sometimes I get stuck on planes during weird times and I don't want to eat a whole meal, but I'm hungry and I know when I get to the hotel, you know, if I, I don't want to eat late, so I'll just have a bar. So I carry my JJ virgin bars with me, both my fiber bars and my all in one bars. And I will tell you, I tend to do the chewy paleo brownie bar the most because of the collagen and the bone broth protein in there. You could also carry some nuts with you. That's an easy peasy way. You can carry some vital choice salmon jerky. I wouldn't open that on a plane, however, because everyone will know you. It's sort of like you just, you know, open some fish on a plane. But that's what I would tell you to do, is keep some stuff with you. But here's the thing. You get hungry, here's your first thing you do. Sit with it and have some water, have some water, have a, have some kind of a drink, maybe some coffee, some green tea and see what that does. Because I find so often we're not really hungry. Okay? And remember, hunger equals younger. So we are going to wait it out a bit and see if you can. No, you're not going to die. All right, so the more you can train your body, not freak out because you're a little bit hungry to reframe that as a good thing, the better. Alrighty. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in today. And remember, if you haven't yet subscribe, share it with pals and I would so appreciate it and love to give you a shout out for that review. See you next week.

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