Why Belly Fat Won’t Budge After 40 | LIVE Q&A with JJ Virgin

Welcome to my YouTube Live for June 3rd. Today we are talking all about belly fat. It is one of the biggest frustrations I hear for women 40+, which we're going to dive into what the heck it is, why do you get it, and then what do we do about it, and all the different things that can be influencing it, driving it, impacting it. Things like menopause, uh, of course the hormones within menopause, insulin, sleep, stress, thyroid issues, GLP-1 medications, muscle loss, and all the crazy weird things floating around online that you should do about it. Now, if you feel like you've been doing all the things, all the right things, and you're not alone and you're not crazy. So again, this is your chance to ask me anything. I've got some pre-submitted questions. Thank you so much. We grab questions from Instagram, from TikTok, from Facebook, from YouTube. So thank you for the ones that you pre-submitted. I'll also be taking them live, so go ahead and drop them into the chat. And if you are not yet in my Facebook group, the JJ Virgin Lifestyle Community, go ahead and jump in there too, because that's where we also grab a bunch of questions. So as we're getting started, what I would love to just kind of unpack first, I think is really important, is What the heck is belly fat? Because there's really two different things here that we're looking at. We're looking at subcutaneous fat, you know, the pinch, the, the inches you can pinch, and then the other fat which is called visceral adipose tissue. And this is the fat that's in your organs, that's in your abdominal cavity, that wraps around your organs like your pancreas and wreaks a lot of havoc. It is different than the subcutaneous fat. The reality is we have three different places that fat really stores in our body. It stores subcutaneous. This is— we don't like it, but it's not going to be dangerous like the visceral adipose tissue is dangerous, that deep abdominal fat. And then we also have fat within the muscle. So today we're really going to address that visceral adipose tissue. And if you go, you know what, all of a sudden I feel like something has shifted, As my hormones have shifted, literally my mom called this shifting sands. She goes, my butt went into my gut. And what is happening here, and why do you feel like you are getting more visceral adipose tissue as your hormones are shifting? You're not crazy. It is actually happening. So when estrogen dumps down, you start to get more insulin resistant. Cortisol can also go up. Same with as progesterone goes down. Plus you're not means you're not— you're higher insulin and/or higher cortisol both cause more abdominal fat gain. Both, both cause more visceral adipose tissue. So that's one of the things that you're seeing going on is that while your weight may not have changed, what your weight's made up of has changed, and where your fat was located has shifted. Like all of a sudden you don't have the fat in your arms and legs like you used to, but but you've got it in your belly. Now this is problematic. Not only do you not like it, but it doesn't like you either because this is more metabolically active. Think of it like an endocrine organ, like a hormonal organ. And what it does there is it releases inflammatory compounds and it is associated— increased visceral adipose tissue is associated with insulin resistance, prediabetes, and diabetes. Elevated triglycerides, elevated ApoB, low HDL, fatty liver disease, more inflammation, cognitive decline and dementia. So we want to get rid of this. Now here's good news. It's actually easier to burn. And that's what I'm going to be talking about is the fact that this is actually easier to burn off than regular fat. And how can you target it? Because there are ways that you can target it. So that's cool. But first off, how do we know what we have? Well, my favorite way to do that is to go get a DEXA scan because it's going to give you that what they call android fat. Independent of that, here's what you can do at home. I really love the PATH bioimpedance scale. We will show through this— if you're watching this in the show notes, we will put this— if you're watching this later, we will put in the show notes all about the PATH scale. That is my favorite bioimpedance scale of all of them. It is the one by far I've found to be the most accurate. And we have a special offer on that. So we will put it into the links and we'll put it too— if team, if you can put it into the chat on YouTube Live, that would be amazing. I know I'm throwing you a curveball, but the other thing that you put with that, and I actually love this because PATH gives you a Bluetooth tape measure as well, is you'll get a little report of where your fat's located with the Bioimpedance machine, but really your best proxy for that visceral adipose tissue is your waist measurement. And I like to say, if you are losing weight without losing your waist, you're actually making yourself worse, not better. How much visceral adipose tissue is safe to have? What they say is that you don't want to have more than 10% of your overall body fat coming from visceral adipose tissue. The reality is you want as close to zero as possible for that visceral adipose tissue. You want as little as possible, and you can get down to zero, by the way. So you want to have as little as possible. Now, there are specific things that you can do to target it. Turns out that cold water, ice baths, ugh, help target it. Now, the great news for women is we don't have to go crazy cold like the men do. 52 degrees, 55 degrees for like 2 minutes, shiver response can help. That browns that white fat. Lowering your fructose intake. No, this doesn't mean stop eating fruit. It means stop with the fruit juice, stop with the dried fruit, stop with the ultra-processed foods. Those really impact, um, your visceral adipose tissue. Become more insulin sensitive. Lift weights. Of course you knew I was going to work that in. Sleep well. Handle your stress well. One of the things I like to do to handle stress well is high-intensity interval training. And in fact, high-intensity interval training has been found to be way more effective for targeting this— targeting visceral adipose tissue than regular steady-state cardio. So those are a couple of things that can help with this. Now, I have a lot of questions kind of related to weight, related to belly fat, so I'm going to dig into these, and then the team is going to be throwing up more questions as they come. So feel feel free to drop them in if you do. And I'm going to do some around GLP-1. And, um, one of them was, what does microdosing GLP-1s even look like in real life? Now, my girlfriend Dr. Tina Moore, who I've had on Well Beyond 40, she's really the one who created that term and the idea of microdosing GLP-1s. And if you listen to what she said about this, it's going to become completely misconstrued. It was not for weight loss, it was for insulin activity, lowering inflammation, etc. My personal feeling on GLP-1s is if you are using them to help assist with fat loss— notice I did not say weight loss— what you'll want to make sure is that you are optimizing protein. And I believe that if you're going to be on a GLP-1, you should be taking essential amino acids with before your morning and evening meals. And you'll be monitoring and tracking your body composition to ensure you're holding on to muscle unless you have a lot of weight to lose, in which case you're going to lose some fat-free mass too, but still minimal. And then you use GLP-1s to the dose you need to, to turn the dial down on your food noise, but not to shut your appetite off. For microdosing, this is like a fraction of even the starting dose of a GLP-1, and it's really to dial down the inflammation and the insulin sensitivity. And dial up the insulin sensitivity. Next question was, what do you think about the new weight loss drugs like Ozempic? Should I try them? This is from Curious Carol. It depends what your goals are and what your needs are. What I think is that these, you know, kind of over-the-phone mills are probably not the thing to do. What I'd really look at is what are your goals? Are you looking at a GLP-1 for inflammation and insulin sensitivity? Are you looking for it to with shutting your food noise down some. Work with a really good practitioner who knows how to use these correctly. I am the chief metabolic health officer for a chain of metabolic health and wellness centers who use GLP-1s in conjunction with assessing your muscle quality and your body composition and putting you on a protein-first, muscle-first program. And so that could be a place where you could get some help. It's called Lindora. And they will do a metabolic assessment on you to see where things are to start. And then, how can I prevent muscle loss while on GLP-1 weight loss medications? asks Mindy from TikTok. This is the question of the hour, and here's the thing: a poorly designed diet where you really restrict calories causes muscle loss. It's not the GLP-1 causing the muscle loss, it's the Too much GLP-1 shutting off all your appetite so that you're making poor choices is the problem. So what you want to do again is make sure that whoever you're working with is dosing this just to the, to the lowest amount that you need, and that you are tracking your protein intake and augmenting it by doing some essential aminos before your breakfast and before your dinner. And I have a product called Amino Power Powder that is based on the NIH protocol for sarcopenia. It's a leucine-enriched one. That's the type of thing that you wanna do so that you're triggering muscle protein synthesis. The other thing I love alongside that is a product called Myos. They have a product called Yoked. It's fertilized egg yolk protein that boosts muscle protein synthesis as well. All right. I know this is a question on a different subject, but how fast can or does fiber lower LDL cholesterol and blood sugar? So, um, it can, and it can also raise HDL. So it's more— from what I've seen with fiber, it's more that it supports better HDL. Um, and then as far as the blood sugar goes, it can support that as well. So here's the big thing with blood sugar. I really love a CGM. One of the continuous glucose monitors you wear on your arm. Realize that blood sugar is a lagging indicator to poor insulin sensitivity. Why do we have poor insulin sensitivity? You know, ultra-processed food diet, stress, poor sleep, low muscle mass, poor vitamin D status. All those things are issues there. And then when you have those things, when you're more insulin resistant, it's harder for your body to get the blood— like, it's hard for your body to get the sugar out of the blood and store it, right? So sugar will ride high. So what happens first? The first thing that starts to happen is not your blood sugar going high. The first thing that starts to happen is your insulin working overtime to keep your blood sugar normal. Over time, your insulin receptors start to get resistant to the insulin, And so you'll start to have your insulin receptor— insulin, you'll have more and more and more insulin to get the same effect. So you'll still see normal blood sugar but elevated insulin. Then over time, it just stops working, and then you'll see blood sugar starting to ride high. That's prediabetes. And then by the time it starts to really ride up, your pancreas is burnt out. You can't do the work here. It can't do the work. So what can help here? Well, when you have fiber and protein, protein plus fiber, you are going to have a slower stomach emptying. You're going to have a lower blood sugar effect from the meal. Couple this, make sure that you're eating— I always like to say eat protein first, follow with fiber. And this is where we want to get 10 grams of fiber at each meal, right? Super important. Um, I really love— I did a— just made a high protein granola cereal. It's flippin' amazing. It's 10 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber, so it's an easy thing to put with a, you know, on a thick smoothie or on some Greek-style yogurt and give you that 10 grams of fiber that you need. You can also do like maybe some lentils with rice or some wild rice with dinner. So look at all the different ways you can incorporate more fiber into what you're doing because it will help stabilize things. And again, the magic bullet there is protein plus fiber. Okay, I have a headline of Internal Obstacles and Menopause. Is there anything women can do to avoid weight gain during menopause? And this is from my buddy Dr. Jane Morgan. Hmm, yes, I think the very first thing is to explore whether hormone replacement therapy is right for you. And I heard a great explanation the other day from I forget which physician it was really. It's not about finding out whether it's right for you. It's just seeing if you're one of the people that can't do it, because otherwise you should do it for what it does for your brain, for your bones, and for your heart. So what's going on during menopause that's causing that weight gain? And the average woman is gaining about 5 pounds. But the problem is we've got to look at what your weight's made up of, because it's not just that you gained 5 pounds, it's that Things shifted. You're losing muscle, so maybe now you've got higher body fat and more, more pounds from fat than you did before. Your fat has shifted, now it's more visceral, so things have changed. Testosterone started a slow decline in your early 30s. Likely testosterone and thyroid are the first things you might want to be looking at. You're going to need some support with testosterone and thyroid, both critical for building muscle, and You really can't balance your hormones if your thyroid's not working well. So those are the first ones to ensure that they are where they need to be. You can listen to my interview with Dr. Kelly Casperson on Well Beyond 40 on testosterone. I've had 2 interviews with her now. She's amazing. And then estrogen starts to go down and makes you more insulin resistant, makes you more inflamed. That makes it harder to lift weights. It also makes it harder to recover. And progesterone is going to impact your sleep. So what do we need to do here to offset this? Again, Hormones are always my first choice, coupled with you're eating protein first. We have a great challenge, the Eat Protein First Challenge, that guides you through this. It's free at jjvirgin.com/proteinfirst. You're eating protein first, you're getting optimal protein throughout the day, 30 to 40 grams at each meal, especially breakfast and dinner, 100 grams or more overall, 0.7 grams or more per pound of target body weight. If you're not quite getting there, you're doing some essential aminos before the meals, especially breakfast and dinner to support it. You're doing this because the protein's more satiating, it's more thermic. You burn more calories in digestion from protein than the other macros. And it's also more satisfying. It helps you make the neurotransmitters that tell you, hey, like, you don't need to eat. Plus it's gonna help with muscle building. And then of course, the other thing you can be doing is lifting weights to help maintain or build muscle and improve that insulin sensitivity. We burn fat first in our muscles. And then add in some high-intensity interval training. This is especially good for that visceral adipose tissue. And up your NEAT, how much you're just moving around each day. You can change your overall total daily energy expenditure as much as, you know, 500 to 2,000 more calories a day just by how much you move each day. It's that big of a deal. What do I do about the extra fat between the breast and the armpit? There's really no way to spot reduce. Now, you can target visceral adipose tissue with those techniques I talked about, but overall fat, it's genetic where it lays down. And one of the things that I've seen is if people do any kind of liposuction, or there's that other, um, thing that's like a laser one, that if you get rid of fat cells in one area, then you'll just get more fat in another area. So just be aware of that. Is if you've got an area where you tend to have fatty deposits, get as lean as possible. If you are still in a healthy, normal body composition, let's say your body fat's 20%, you still have these weird fat pockets that won't go away, that's when I would go talk to a surgeon potentially to see if there's something that can be done, if it's something weird and outstanding. But But if not, it's really about getting lean. Now, while you can't spot reduce, you can spot tone. So what you can do here, and that's this area right here, is you can do seated cable rows, you can do pulldowns, you can do pull-ups, and all these, you can see it the minute I do that, it strengthens right here. So while I can't get rid of the fat, I can build my metabolic Spanx, my muscle, to hold everything in tighter. Do I have to count calories to lose weight, or is there a better way? So what I want you to do is lose fat and hold on to or build muscle. And the process to do that is to first identify your body composition so you can make sure you're tracking what matters and you're making sure that as you lose weight, you're losing fat, not muscle, because that'll devastate your metabolism. I have found for a lot of people that if we focus on eating protein first and get good protein in, then we focus with following up with fiber, 10 grams or more at each meal, and you're getting in your servings of non-starchy vegetables, and you're getting in your hydration, and you're getting in your non-exercise activity, moving all throughout the day, and doing your resistance training twice a week, quite often people are just full and fine. Where you're going to need to start really looking at calories is if you are doing all the things and you're not losing weight. That's when I want to see— first, I'm gonna— what I call the elephant in the room: are we overeating? Because it turns out that even with registered dietitians, this is their business, we tend to overestimate— underestimate what we're eating by 30%, up to 40%. And so I was talking to one of our team members, and she was asking me what I'd done 'Cause I decided at age 59 that I was gonna get in the best shape of my life for 60. And so I went and did a bunch of stuff. It shows what was the big thing that shifted? Because I dropped 10 pounds and 4% body fat. And I basically, I said, I realized that the biggest thing that I did was I started to track my food. I started to use a food scale and track what I was doing. And that made all the difference. So I would encourage you I think everyone should do a macro audit, should be tracking what they're eating for at least 2 weeks to find out what is your maintenance calories, how many calories do you actually need to eat each day. And you have to use a food scale to do this. Labels lie. Weigh things in and really see where it is and see how many calories am I actually eating, how many coming from protein, how many come from fat, how much fiber am I getting in, um, how many carbs am I getting in, right? And then Just by the mere nature of tracking, you actually tend to make better choices, but you might make some shifts. Okay. Does menopause make it impossible to lose weight? I feel like nothing works now. Nope, it does not. It just makes it hard, and your margin for error is basically zero. So it totally sucks. What can you do to improve that? Again, you still need to do all the things, and I highly emphasize creatine here because And that's my Sheeting product, my creatine, HCL, taurine, and magnesium, because it's going to help you work out harder, recover better, have better focus, better mood. So it's, it's really good for all of this. But remember, you're offsetting these hormone shifting. Once you get through menopause, it's way easier, and that's what the research shows. But first of all, make sure your thyroid's where it needs to be. So make sure your thyroid's optimized. I've done multiple multiple interviews on Well Beyond 40 on thyroid with McCall McPherson, with Amy Horniman, with Heather Stone. So check those because what you'll find is that what a traditional allopathic doctor is saying is normal and what the functional practitioners are saying are very different. I was hypothyroid at just 2.5 TSH, which is totally normal range, and that's when all the hypothyroid symptoms hit me. So check that piece out. And then, because if your thyroid's a little low, it's going to make things really hard. But again, this is where you consider working with a menopause specialist to get some support. And if necessary, this is where you can use small doses of GLP-1s to help you get through the first piece of it. Okay, from Ask Dr. Bonnie in the live chat: What are your thoughts on Uh, oh, Errohonia, Zorona Red or Violet laser for fat emptying from the adipocyte while doing increased protein weightlifting and detoxing off seed oils and pro-inflammatory grub. Um, I have not seen the results from them personally. Here's what I love that you just said. So when you're dropping body fat, you are freeing up toxins. So I love the fact you said detoxing off because one of the things we have to think about when we are doing when we're starting to lose body fat is really getting our detox pathways working well. It's actually one of the things that we put together in my new book as the bonus to start with was a detox. And we do it powered by protein because you need protein, the amino acids from it, to go through detox. So I don't know how that, how, how that Zorona laser works. It is in some of the Lindora centers, but I am not sure. I haven't seen any of the studies on them to see. Can stress really stop me from losing weight? What can I do about it? It can make it really hard. How does that happen? Well, when, when you are chronically stressed— now acute stress quite often dumps your appetite, raises your metabolic rate, and burns fat. Chronic stress though can cause more fat deposition around your waist. Can make you crave more carbs, can make your blood sugar run higher, which could lead to insulin resistance. So what can you do about it? You gotta identify the stress situations and figure them out. Unfortunately, I wish, I wish there was an easier way to do it, but it's really figuring out what the source is. Can you do anything about it? Now, I, when I was publishing The Virgin Diet, my son was the victim of a hit and run, literally left for dead in the street, and I launch that book, Bedside with Him in a Coma. I couldn't change the situation. All I could change was the way that I responded to it. What you'll learn about stress is really it's how you respond to it. And so I do all sorts of stuff on a regular basis to help my body handle stress because I just have a lot in my life. And I think most of us do. I don't think I'm unique or special there. And so what can you do to help you handle stress? I will tell you what I love, my latest find. Um, and I've tried a bunch of these things and thought they were lame. So there's these things called vagus nerve stimulators, uh, and I have tried a couple different things that are supposed to help with this nervous system regulation. Never did anything. And Tal Pulsed. This thing sits right here. I wish I had it downstairs. And you turn it on, and I do it every night before I go to sleep, and it just like, it just takes me down. It's amazing. I also had to do a deposition, and I did it right before that, and yeah. So try that. We can throw that into— I think we probably have a code for Pulsetto. I'm like obsessed. Okay. From @GrannyTX Roadrunner in the live chat. What should the percentage of macros of carbs and fat be? I know the amount of protein. Well, here's the thing. It actually, all the research shows it doesn't really matter. Now there are some genetics, like my husband has these genetics where he does better low carb. I have the genetics where it doesn't matter. So what I like to do is say, you wanna get your pro— first dial your protein in. So think 0.7 grams per pound of target body weight. If you are doing big caloric restriction, take it up to a gram. Then you're gonna wanna get at least 60 grams of fat. And 30 is like the minimum, minimum, but I always say go 60 and then probably 100 grams of carbs. And then what you do after that really depends. If I'm doing heavy workouts, I might up my carbs a little bit. If I'm not, I keep 'em low. I might up my fat a little bit. It's really for you to play around and see how you feel best. You might feel best with a little higher carbs, lower fat. You might feel better with higher fat, lower carbs. Is a thyroid issue making it hard for me to lose weight? What should I do? asked Maya T on Instagram. Get your thyroid fixed. So if you've got a thyroid issue, yes, it can, and you need to find out if it's an autoimmune thyroid issue. JJ Virgin diet is really good for helping with that because it's pulling out gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, peanuts. Um, so I would go through that program and I would be working with a really good thyroid doctor. Again, I had Heather Stone, Amy Horniman, and McCall McPherson on Well Beyond 40. McCall McPherson has a virtual thyroid clinic called Modern Thyroid Clinic. So I would get help for sure because If your thyroid gland is not making enough thyroid and you've tried the lifestyle stuff to support it and it's not there, you know, you're going to need to get a doctor to support you with thyroid hormone. Is it bad for my metabolism if I skip breakfast? asks The Intermittent Shin. I don't know if I said that right. It's really interesting when you look at the research. I really like the work of Dr. Deanna Minich. I had her on Well Beyond 40 recently, and her whole thing is, is timing your meals around your circadian rhythm. Dr. Satchin Panda from Circadian Code talks about this as well— eating most of your calories and majority of it during the light, right? And so I think we're better off eating within an hour or two of waking up, stop eating 2 to 4 hours before bed, eat, you know, 3 meals now. Is it bad for your metabolism if you skip breakfast? What we've seen with breakfast skippers is they tend to eat more later in the day, which isn't so great. But if you're eating the same amount of calories and you're doing things that you're active in the morning, then you're probably gonna be fine. It's really, the biggest thing that we know about intermittent fasting is that it can be great for blood sugar, autophagy, insulin sensitivity, but for most people looking at fat loss, It doesn't really matter. It's more about overall calories. And if this helps you restrict them, then it's a win. I just think we have to have some individual preference and see what works for you. How do I get rid of belly fat after menopause? Nothing seems to work. Linda C, 50, on Instagram. So again, there's subcutaneous and there's deep visceral adipose tissue. Subcutaneous is just losing overall fat. We can't spot reduce on that. And the visceral adipose tissue, HIIT training, cold water immersion, getting down the fructose, the ultra-processed foods way down, getting more insulin sensitive, managing cortisol, so good sleep, resistance training, stress management techniques are all critical there. And then of course consider hormone replacement therapy. Do I really need 8 hours of sleep? How does sleep affect weight loss? Oh my gosh, so my buddy Dr. Michael Bruce, who is the sleep doctor who has written a couple sleep books, they did a research study. I think it was Glamour magazine did this little pilot, and they took 8 people and put them on a sleep program and didn't have them change anything, and they all lost weight. Does sleeping more help you lose weight? What do we know about one poor night of sleep? We know that the average person needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night. I think that the way to tell how much sleep you need is you go on vacation where you don't have to go to bed or get up a certain time, and you see what rhythm you fall into. I know that left to my own devices, I go to bed around 9, 10 o'clock at night, and I get up around 6:30, 7:00. And I feel best when I've got, when I do that and get about 8 hours of sleep. So one night, poor night of sleep, you're hungrier, your ghrelin's higher, and you're more insulin resistant. What does that mean? That means that you are not only hungrier, but you're also better at storing fat. And you're not hungry for salmon, right? So it's definitely a problem and definitely can get in the way of you gaining weight, make it hard to lose weight. How do I overcome a weight loss plateau? I've been stuck for weeks. Okay, this is Journey to Fit on Facebook. So there are a variety of different ways to overcome a weight loss plateau. I'm assuming that you've tracked your food and you know where you're at there and that you are tracking your NEAT and getting in those steps every single day. That's a big modifiable one. You could add in— we have the 10 Minutes to Win It Challenge, jjvirgin.com/snackchallenge, free. You could start adding in little bursts of movement throughout the day as well. But one of the ways I really love to break a plateau is a short, what's called a protein-sparing modified fast. So if you truly are at a plateau, you don't have— you're sleeping well, stress is not an issue, you've looked at your toxic burden, that's not a problem, your thyroid's working well, your hormones are balanced, your gut microbiome's dialed, you're eating at maintenance or below in your calories, and if you're trying to lose weight, you're slightly below, your NEAT's where it needs to be, you're doing your resistance training, you're doing your HIIT training. If you're doing all that stuff, then, and only then, because I would look at all that stuff first. Because remember, even if your gut microbiome is messed up, that can make you store more calories as fat. Rather than, than burn them off, right? Assuming all that stuff looks good, then what you can do is a protein-sparing modified fast combined with a lot of NEAT. So what that would look like is somewhere between 600 to 1,000 calories a day. You eat about 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per pound of target body weight a day. Generally, it's about 1.5 grams. You eat super lean, you get very little fat, very little carbs. You're basically eating non-starchy vegetables, you're getting very lean protein sources, and that's it. And you do that for 5 days, and each day you walk a couple of hours a day. That's it. And that likely will break it. Not fun, not pleasant, but it will break it. But again, I want to look at all those other things first. So make sure that you've really looked at all those other things, starting with how much are you actually eating. Do I need lab work at 52 postmenopausal to reduce belly fat? Um, well, it would be nice to know if you're insulin resistant and if your inflammation's high. And so again, what I'd want to know is you're postmenopausal, are you or are you not on HRT? So that's the first part. Either which way, I'd want to know what your fasting insulin is, because if your insulin's high, it's going to make it really hard for you to lose fat. So we'd want to get that fixed too. That might be something like berberine, vitamin D, it might be metformin, it might be a GLP-1. And then, um, if you aren't doing hormones, really looking at where those are and making a decision, talking to a really great provider. What's the fastest way to lose belly fat? You know, it's really not about fast, it's about sustainable. So, because fast weight loss is not fast fat loss. Generally, you can lose about half a pound, half to 1% of your body weight in fat a week. So if you are 140, you know, that's 0.7 to 1.4 pounds of fat. So it's really not going to be fast, but that's what you want to do because you want to make sure you're holding on to muscle. Super important. And monitoring your waist as you do it. But again, I talked about the different things you can do to target that belly fat. So that's important. Now, before we jump into the next questions, and thank you for playing, amazing. If you have been wanting to add in creatine or you're curious, you're creatine curious about it, We have a great deal going on right now on chiatine at reignitewellness.com. So when you add chiatine stick packs to your cart and your cart total is $125 or more, you get a free stainless steel water bottle. It's super cute, plus free shipping. You don't need a code. It all just happens like magic. So this is definitely the time to try that. Okay. What's the best breakfast for weight loss? I've heard you say smoothies. There is no best breakfast for weight loss. What you really want to focus on, on weight, on breakfast, is starting with 30 to 40 grams of protein. I find I feel better when I don't eat a lot of— don't nail a lot of carbs in the morning, but I get fiber and I get some healthy fats. My morning breakfast tends to be either a smoothie that I make, a really thick smoothie, and I'll top it with some of my granola. So I kind of eat it with a spoon, or I do some Greek-style yogurt and stir, stir in some of my protein powder and top it with granola. So I'm doing some fiber again. I like that 10 grams of HIIT fiber. I'm doing 30 to 40 grams of protein. I tend to get 50 grams of protein in the morning, but again, I'm 140 pounds. I eat 160 to 180 grams of protein a day. I feel better that way. I always have. And then, um, what was I gonna say? And then, uh, getting in a little bit of healthy fat. So when I get the granola, I get some of that too. Okay. And I've been eating full-fat Greek-style yogurt with some protein powder stirred in. What do you think of apple cider vinegar for weight loss? This was acvgal TikTok. Um, so here's the thing for apple cider vinegar. I don't look at it for weight loss. I look at it more for blood sugar balance. That's where I would think about using it, is more for helping support better blood sugar. How do you feel about cheat days? Will a cheat day ruin my progress? asked Balanced Life at Facebook. I hate cheat days because I think a cheat day turns into a cheat week, turns into a mess. And I think it's diet mentality, and I can't stand the way that, that, that whole thought process. What if We just said, you know what, it's just like I was recently in Switzerland. Now the Swiss are known for their fondue. I don't know about you, but like, I think the last time I had fondue was when I was like 10. I don't know. So I was like, oh well, when in Switzerland. So I'm gonna have something like— literally we had cheese fondue with bread dredged through it. But we're gonna have those things. And it didn't turn into a cheat day that was a cheat week that was a cheat forever. It was just a thing we had. What if you ate healthy 90% of the time and then you could have those other things and it wouldn't matter? Now, if you're really focusing on a fat loss phase or you're trying to work on an autoimmune disease or an elimination diet, then you're gonna be 100%. But on the other times, just go for a B+ and let's get outta that diet mentality. Okay. From the live chat, Claudia, Maria Schmidt 148, what exactly is the role of creatine in fat loss and insulin resistance? It's indirect. So what creatine does is it helps your body regenerate ATP. This is our energy currency. And so creatine, our body makes about a gram a day, but it's a very methylation-heavy process. It takes a lot of these B vitamins to make the creatine from these 3 amino acids arginine, methionine, and glycine. Then we need to get about a gram a day or more from our food, be a pound of cooked— of raw or rare meat, or 2 pounds of cooked. Most people are not getting this. Personally, I love to— like, I think we're better off supplementing and supplementing more than what we need, because if we don't have to produce it ourselves, then we save those— that methylation for other more important things. What creatine does is allows you to work out harder and recover better. This is huge. And so if you can work out harder and recover better, you will be able to put on more muscle. If you can put on more muscle, muscle is going to— it's the fastest way for you to become more insulin sensitive, and we burn fat in our muscle. Do detoxes or cleanses really work, or are they a waste? Ask the green juice guru. It depends. Those juice cleanses are stupid, ridiculous, make no sense. But a cleanse in general, I think, can be a really interesting idea, but probably not for the reason that people think. If you really have a high toxic burden, you want to work with a functional medicine practitioner to run you through the test. I really love Vibrant Wellness's Total Toxicity Test. And to see what your toxins are and what you need to do about them. I think we should be doing sauna a couple days a week. In fact, when I'm home, I'm in it every single day because that is allowing me to get rid of these toxins. We are bombarded by them all the time. Now, I like a focused cleanse or detox program. To me, I'd love to see people doing that, you know, once a quarter, because what it does is it takes a moment in time, like let's say say a week, 10 days, 2 weeks, where you're going to focus on making some new shifts into your diet. Maybe you start adding in more cruciferous vegetables, maybe you kick out something that you've got a bad habit with, um, and then once you get through the cleanse, you carry that on moving forward. Maybe you've upped your protein. So that's where I think it can be great. But a real detox, because you have to get rid of some heavy metals that you've accumulated or some phthalates or whatever these things are. There's the, there's the detox of just getting your pathways, making sure they're working well by eating the right types of things and supporting phase 1, phase 2. And then there is the, I've got to detox because I've got serious stuff going on. My son had this going on with him. That really is something you work with a practitioner on. I've been hearing about carb cycling. Would you share the pros and cons? I don't really know that there's any Cons. So carb cycling, I think, makes— I don't think it's necessary, but if you are going to do it, the way that I do it is if I'm doing more, a harder workout, especially longer workout, more cardio intensive, I might up my carbs that day. And then other days where I'm doing less, I drop them down. I just do it by how I feel. So, um, you know, I don't know that there's any real pros or cons, and I feel like on the grand scheme of things that are important for your health, it's a minor, minor league, not major. Okay, ask Dr. Bonnie in the live chat, are 3 to 4 eggs cooked in ghee for breakfast okay? So the challenge you're going to have with 3 to 4 eggs cooked in ghee is that you are only— you're not going to get enough protein. So you want to get like, probably if you're 40 plus you're better off getting more like 40 grams of protein at breakfast, but minimally 30. And 4 eggs is probably about— it might get you right to 30. It might. So you might be okay, but 3 won't. So I— what I do instead is I do 2 eggs and some egg whites, and then I'll either stir some protein powder in my coffee. I That's one way to hack it, right? Or you could use like some feta or goat cheese in there. So something like that. Okay. From Donna4895 in the live chat, when taking Qualia, does it interfere with those other products being absorbed? Which Qualia product are we talking about? Synolytics. Okay. So when you do the Synolytic with Qualia, honestly, your very best thing, I wouldn't worry about things like D3, K2, or omegas. But I would take the rest of it out. Now, talking to— I've spent a lot of time talking to the Qualia guys, and I'm going to go back out there with them in about 2 weeks. And the way they created the Synalytic— here's their process. Their process is you do the Synalytic with a low protein diet for 2 days. You, you don't take NAD, you don't take Joint Health. So those are the 2 products that they have you taking. Joint Health NAD and probably not their new vitamin C either. Then you take a washout day, you go back to eating normally and take all your supplements, and then you do the stem cell product for 4 days independent of that, just with Synalytic. Um, in a perfect world, I would take just the 2 Synalytics 2 days a month and not take anything else, with the exception I would be okay with doing things like magnesium sleep candy And no, yeah, enzymes would be okay, but you're also eating less protein, so you probably don't need them. And then D3, K2, fish oil. But I would watch out for things like Their Joint Health, Their NAD+, Mitopuris, Urolithin A. I would, I'd keep those out. It's not that it's interfering, it's not an absorption thing, it's that you don't want to support the cells when the synoligs are going in there scavenging. That's what it is. Okay, Claudia Maria Schmidt 1481 in the live chat: I still have a large supply of monocréatine at home. It's a donation. Can I safely use it for switching to chiatine, which I do find more attractive? It's so funny. You want to know what's funny about that, Claudia? So I was— I had marketed— I'd made my own creatine monohydrate, and then as I started to learn about HCL, I was like, oh. And then I went to the plant and saw them making it, and then I saw the research behind it, and then I stopped taking monohydrate and I started taking HCL and I didn't want to touch the monohydrate. And so I was trying to get my husband to use it. He's like, I'm not using that. I want to use the chiotine, right? And so that was, that happened at our house. I had all this monohydrate. I gave it to my ex-husband. So you can use it. You just have to use more of it. So that's the bummer. And you might have some fluid retention. Now a little hack. It's just an interesting hack because you'll get higher absorption of creatine monohydrate if you do it in high doses. Hot. But the problem with it is if you don't drink it fast enough, it will move to— it will go from creatine to creatinine. So if you can drink a hot beverage fast, then put it in hot beverage. Why you say potatoes are a weight loss hack? I thought they're full of carbs. Car— we got to get over this whole carb fear thing. Sarah1980, you can eat a higher carb— you can eat a great protein diet with higher carbs, lower fat, or higher fat, lower carbs. It's the overall calories there that are going to cause the issue, as long as you're not overly if you're not insulin resistant. The interesting thing with potatoes— and I did go on Dr. Oz years ago and talked about them as nature's diet pill. Why? Potatoes, slight green bananas, cooled potatoes, cooled rice, slightly green bananas are all rich in something called resistant starch. It's called that because it resists digestion. It goes to the colon where it makes butyric acid. Butyric acid helps you burn fat. There you go. And it also is very satiating. But you think about how much and it's cooled, cooled potatoes. From Kim 544 in the live chat, how do you feel about nuts and seeds to add fiber and protein to a grains and egg breakfast bowl as it relates to reducing belly fat? You're not going to get really, you know, this whole idea that nuts and seeds are high in protein is ridiculous. Like, it's ridiculous. It drives me crazy. So thank you for letting me rant on this. Nuts and seeds are 85 to 90% fat. If they're high in fat, they cannot be high in protein. So they're mainly fat with a little protein, just like grains are mainly carbs with a little protein. So if you are trying to get more protein into your egg breakfast bowl, um, you might want to look instead at doing some lentils with the eggs breakfast bowl and then maybe sprinkling on some goat cheese or feta cheese onto there, or stirring some bone broth protein powder into your coffee. Doesn't eating fat make you gain fat? Why increase fats in the diet? Could we retire this concept? Jenny D from TikTok. Come on, that's the oldest misinformation in the book. Why do we eat fat? We eat fat, we need fat. You need at least 30 grams of fat every day in your diet. We have essential fatty acids Omega-3, Omega-6. You will die without them. You will store fat either from carbs, protein, or carbs, fat, or protein if you eat too much. You'll gain a lot less from protein. You'll gain more from fat, and you know, the most from fat, then from carbs, then from protein. But too much of anything and you will gain weight, and some of it will be fat. Right? So when you eat fat, your body is going to use it for all sorts of processes, like keeping your cell membranes fluid. 70% of your brain is fat. So we need fat, okay? Don't fear the fat. From deconks866 in the live chat, what are the long-term side effects of GLP-1s? Right now they have studies out 10+ years without any issues. The real side effects are the use is poor use of GLP-1s done incorrectly. Now there's a couple other issues. So one of them would be muscle loss because you're using too high of a dose and you're not doing the right thing with your diet and exercise. You should never go on any kind of caloric restriction without prioritizing protein, eating enough of it, adding those amino acids in, and doing resistance training. Hands down, full stop. The one issue that I don't hear being talked about that I think is an issue with GLP-1s is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So what happens when you use a GLP-1 is it slows stomach emptying. Protein and fiber help slow stomach emptying, but they don't make it so it just sits there. If you make it just sit there, it can ferment, it can feed the gut, the bacteria now are in the small intestine where they're not supposed to be, and you will get bloating and feel crappy. Um, so that is the one issue that I think is going to become a bigger issue is the potential for SIBO. From Sally Patrick in the live chat, where can I find your autoimmune diet? It's actually the Virgin Diet, so on Amazon, the Virgin Diet. What's the one thing I should cut out of my diet first to lose weight? I want you to think, what's the one thing I cut on my diet first to help me build muscle and create a great metabolism so that I'll burn fat and hold on to muscle? And that would be ultra-processed foods, hands down. How much water should I drink a day for weight loss? Um, how much water should you drink a day to make sure that you're staying well hydrated, that your cortisol— you're not stressing out your, your, um, body, that you're not converting your liver glycogen into belly fat? That is, you start with about half your weight in water. And the way you can really tell if you're where you need to be is by weighing yourself and watching your total body water on the bioimpedance scale. If it goes— if your weight goes down and your total body water goes down, you're dehydrated. So really, that's the best way to test. But generally, it's half your weight in body— half your body weight in ounces, and then add for, you know, about a half ounce for every minute of real exercise. And if you're in a sauna, then I, I add it like for every minute of sauna, I add another half ounce too. Is it true that eating after 8 PM causes weight gain? It depends on your total calories. The research has shown that if you're eating— there's research has shown both. The research— there has been research showing that people eat later at night tend to gain more weight than if they ate the same calories spread out, but I think that was a rat study. But here's what I would say about eating after 8. Number 1, you want to have 2 to 4 hours before bed because it takes you like 5 or 6 hours to digest. If you eat, let's say, at 10 o'clock and then you go to bed, you're not even getting into now, you know, your body doing restoration stuff until like 2 or 3 in the morning. Your insulin's low and you're going to wake up with high fasting blood sugar. So it's really hard on your body, and you also can't raise growth hormone well. I think the bigger problem with eating after 8 is what you're eating after 8, because what I found with most people after 8 is they're not sitting down to Brussels sprouts and salmon. They're eating the evil twin food. You know what I'm talking about. Can I eat fruit if I'm trying to lose weight, or is fructose bad? DJ Kwan, you can eat fruit. It's the fruit juice. It's the, it's the unwrapping the fruit and turning it into a soda. Fruit juice. It's the turning it into syrup, like jams, syrups, the jammy stuff at the bottom of the yogurts. It's the dried fruit, turning it into candy. Eat real fruit, frozen or fresh. Have 2 servings of it a day. Focus on things that are more low sugar impact. I talk about this in the Sugar Impact Diet. And don't eat things that have unwrapped the fructose and are just using high fructose corn syrup or straight fructose or straight agave. These are all super high in fructose, especially straight crystalline fructose. Apple juice concentrate, agave— those are the things that are the problem. It's not the whole fruit. In fact, the research is pretty clear that eating a couple pieces of fruit a day is really good, especially berries. I do 2 cups of berries a day, every day. What is your opinion on alcohol? Can I have wine still lose weight? @winelover on Instagram. So I was actually going to write The Winemaker's Diet years ago because I helped a winemaker lose 40 pounds drinking wine every single day. It was his job. He makes wine. He does tastings every day. He drinks a couple glasses of wine every day and got ripped and lean. Can you do it? You can do it. Here's what I would say. You know, it's funny, I was just showing my husband, cuz I drink red wine, and I was just showing my husband another thing came out now saying, oh no, moderate red wine intake is good for your health. I'm like, oh my gosh, people must be crazy. But every time I go to Europe, I'm watching everybody drinking wine every day. And I'm like, huh. I drink a glass of red wine almost every day. And, but I drink clean. I drink old world red wine. I don't drink California wines, US wines. I don't drink the big heavy sugar, high residual sugar wines. I drink clean lab-tested wines. I learned about this from Dry Farm Wine. Can you do it? Your body doesn't burn fat well. Now here's the thing with drinking alcohol. When you drink alcohol, that's your body's first job— detoxify that, right? It's a toxin. So fat burning shuts down, everything else shuts down, and your body's focusing on dealing with the wine. So in a perfect world, is it the greatest thing for weight loss? No. But if it helps you calm down, you have a glass, you don't do anything else, it stops you from eating other stuff, you maybe it's going to be helpful. So it's kind of like you got to gauge it for yourself, what makes sense and what your risk factors are for other things like breast cancer. From Donna 4895 in the live chat: recommendations to lower my hemoglobin A1C and LDL. I'm just over the normal range, age 65, postmenopausal. Depends. Hormone replacement therapy would be the first thing that would help with your LDL. And I would not just look at LDL. I'd be looking at LDL particle size. I'd be looking at Lp. I'd be looking at hs-CRP, and I would be looking at ApoB. That's what I'd want to see here to really see if there's an issue, along with triglycerides and HDL. So you got to look at the whole picture to see your risk factor there. And then you might want to look at, you know, hemoglobin A1c. You want to look at fasting insulin. And so The best way to fix fasting insulin: resistance train, good sleep, fish oil, vitamin D, high-intensity interval training, right? And then LDL, like, the biggest thing I've seen there is, you know, balancing your hormones is bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Okay, any tips for cravings during PMS or menopause? Protein is one of the biggest things I've seen to help with cravings. Protein. Ask Dr. Bonnie in the chat, do you eat dark chocolate? Heck yeah, every day. And here's what I just found out in Switzerland. I was like so super duper excited about this. In Switzerland, um, they eat 25 pounds of chocolate per person a year. I was like, game on. So what did we bring back from Switzerland? A lot of chocolate. But I eat chocolate every day. I make a point of it. So I tend to eat not a ton, you know, an ounce or less every day. But I try to eat dark chocolate every single day. It's part of my— I eat berries every day, dark chocolate every day. So I eat a fermented food of some sort every day. God, I wish wine counted. So that's what I try to do every single day. Yes, without fail. All right. We still have more questions, but I know I'm coming back in to do another one of these soon. So team, I'm gonna stop right where it says tracking body fat percentage and exercise for fat loss. We'll come back and do those again. I just wanna give you some of the biggest takeaways from today. Here's the thing, belly fat after 40, this is not your fault. You are not being weak. Okay? This is not like a willpower calories problem. This is a hormonal shifting sands, problem. It's, it's your estrogen going down, it's your progesterone going down, it's insulin coming up, it's stress, it's poor sleep, all the things. But that doesn't mean that you can't do something about it. It's not about you then going, okay, I'm gonna go harder. It's like, let's get smarter, let's get strategic. Okay, so you got to focus on building muscle first, get that protein dialed in, follow up with fiber, Get that sleep going, stress resilience. Remember the Pulsetto I talked about? Stabilize your blood sugar and work with your body and your biology. Don't fight it, right? All right. If this was helpful, be sure to subscribe and share the live with a friend who needs it, who has these questions too. I'd love to see your biggest takeaway in the chat or questions for the next one. The next one is, oh, it is like next week. Is that next week, guys? It is next week, June 11th, 4:00 PM Eastern, and the link is going to be in the description as well. So I'll see you at the next one. Submit your questions, feel free to submit them here, submit them in my Facebook JJ Virgin Lifestyle Community, Instagram, TikTok. We find them everywhere. We'll put them in this document. Of course, it's always best to have you on live. And team, next week on the live, I'd love to do a giveaway or two. So let's do that too. All right, see ya.