Why You’re Tired All the Time (And It’s NOT Your Age!)

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I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout— sorry, Mom— turned 4-time New York Times bestselling author. I'm a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven most of all by my insatiable insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover with as many people as I can. And that's where you come in. That's why I created the Well Beyond 40 Podcast, to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to powerful aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now at subscribe2jj.com to start unlocking your healthiest, most energetic self. Wanna listen to the show ad-free?

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If you're chugging caffeine just to function, listen close. Your exhaustion isn't about aging. It's about these 3 sabotaging habits. Now I'm going to expose them and give you the exact protocol I used with clients to triple their energy in just 14 days. And by the way, if you're looking for science-based information that you can put into immediate action to support your metabolism, your energy, and age powerfully, you are in the right place. Be sure to hit subscribe for more great insights. All right, let's talk about the energy vampires. First, there are the fake energy foods. Now, first culprit, big one, that healthy morning smoothie. If it's loaded with sugar, it can spike cortisol and blood sugar. And by the way, if you're noticing that sugar crashes are worse after 40, you aren't crazy. Turns out your liver processes sugar more slowly as you age, and this could be as much as 50%. Okay, now you know I love my smoothies, but I make them in a very specific way. No juice in them, by the way. They are protein-loaded, and I've included my protein-loaded smoothie guide with over 50 awesome recipes in the show notes. So be sure to check that out. Then there are those sleep-sabotaging screens. Did you know that just 2 minutes of late-night TikToks could mean 22 minutes longer just to reach deep sleep. Now, if you're gonna swipe, swipe early and trade that late-night social for a good but not great book that's just going to help you fall asleep. And here's a great thing: swap your blue lights at night for red light bulbs and do this around 8 PM. When you do this, you can boost your melatonin production by as much as 200%. Here's what I did. I took out my bedroom light bulbs and I replaced them with these Philips Hue bulbs. These are amazing because I can control them from my phone. So right around 8 o'clock at night, it's my power down hour. That's what Dr. Michael Breus calls it. And it's really easy just to go on my phone and switch from blue light to red night light at night. There you go. Now, biggest one, hormonal landmines. Okay, if you're in perimenopause, you have probably struggled with the 3 AM wakeups. Big thing that triggers that— low progesterone. And progesterone is usually the first hormone to start to go down when perimenopause starts to happen. So watch for the middle of the night wake-ups, and if that starts to happen to you, run, don't walk, to your menopause doctor and get a little progesterone. I mean, this in itself can be a game changer. Not for just for that, by the way, for that feeling where you want to crawl out of your skin, That's low progesterone too. Then what about the afternoon crash? That can be low thyroid. Now, this can obviously go way beyond the afternoon crash. You might be noticing your energy down all day long, or maybe you're just a little colder than you used to be, or constipated, or your hair is falling out. Now, this is when you really want to dig in with a good functional medicine doc who will look at more than just thyroid TSH and will look at a comprehensive thyroid panel to see what's really going on. Please, please, please Please do not settle for a TSH that's in normal range because this is not giving you the full story, and you do not have to suffer. I know because this happened to me. Now, the other big hormone to watch for during menopause obviously is estrogen, and estrogen can really land a blow to your energy and your overall performance because low estrogen can lead to a decline in ATP production, and then you're going to have general all-day-long fatigue. And this is where a dose, by the way, or two of my Sheatine, my non-bloating creatine for women, can really come to the rescue. Now, low estrogen can also create this overall inflammation, so you feel like you don't really want to go to the gym, but when you do go to the gym, you just can't recover like you used to. And so that's that double whammy. You don't feel like working out, and when you do, you can't recover. Really rotten. So let's talk next about how to support better energy. Okay, so I mentioned my protein-loaded smoothie. Now you're going to want to make sure that you get in 40 grams of protein plus a little fiber-rich carb like blueberries to start your day. I love this because this is going to give you really great blood sugar stability, and if you add in a little bit of coconut butter or a little MCT oil, this is going to help boost your ketones and will help support focus as well. I just love this trifecta of protein, fat, and fiber. It's going to give you not only good blood sugar control, but it's really great for satiety too. Now, I mentioned earlier, I love coffee, but you want to make sure of a couple things. Number one, that you drink clean coffee or tea, of course, and that you're doing it at the right time. So what's clean coffee? That's organic, it's mycotoxin-free coffee, it's been tested this way. It's great because it can actually give you really good phytonutrients, and it's the most known ergogenic aid to help you really crush your workouts and burn fat. Now, I've been using Purity Coffee because they have this blend of caffeinated and decaf. So I like to drink a lot, so this makes sure that I don't overdo it. The other thing I want you to make sure is that you have your last cup before noon, or if you're super sensitive, maybe even 9 AM, because you don't want it to impact your sleep, and coffee has a long half-life. Now, you can find out if you are a slow or fast caffeine metabolizer from a genetics test, but I'm guessing that you probably already have a pretty good idea based on how you feel. All right, next up, make sure that you have the right nutrients on board to help you make energy. Ones that really come to mind here are creatine, magnesium, taurine, B12, and iron. These are all mission critical for energy. Now, if you're a female, likely you will benefit from creatine because it's really hard to get enough of this from diet alone. Here's what you'd have to do: you would have to eat at least a pound of rare raw meat or fish or 2 pounds of cooked meat or fish in order to get what you need. Probably not happening, right? And we women, because we have less muscle tissue, we also have less creatine stores than men because we store 95% of creatine in our muscle tissue. Next thing with creatine is that magnesium and taurine work really well with creatine to help you produce and recycle ATP. Plus, there's a little bit of creatine in your brain. It's about 5%, and that helps with mood and focus and also sleep deprivation. And that's why I recommend taking 1 to 2 doses of it daily. Now, if you're stressed, if you're working out hard, if you're sleep deprived, make sure you get the 2 doses. Now, likely if you're eating red meat regularly, you're getting B12 and iron, but it's good to get this checked when you have your annual blood test just to make absolutely sure. Quite often, if you have low thyroid function, it goes hand in hand with low iron function. I'm going to give you one more nutrient that I love, and that is NAD+. Now, likely you've been hearing about it. I remember when I first heard about NAD+, my friends were going and getting these crazy 4-hour-long NAD+ IV drips. I was like, hard no. Plus, they were like, I'm getting it, then I feel nauseous. And I'm like, oh, double hard no. But then I discovered a product called Qualia NAD+. It has these precursors, and it's been shown clinically to raise NAD+ levels by 67%. So that has been in my supplement regimen every morning ever since. And what's cool about this is you will actually feel it, which means take it in the morning. Do not take this at night. Trust me on this. Now, most importantly of all, when you move more, you have more energy. Ever notice that the less you do, the less you feel like doing? And conversely, The more you do, the more you feel like doing, and the more you do, the more you can do. Well, muscle is your metabolic battery, and you want to make sure you are keeping it fully charged. Plus, more muscle means a boosted metabolism as well. Think of it like metabolic Spanx, holding everything in tighter while burning more calories, especially from fat. Bonus! So I want you to plan to train your key muscle groups at least twice a week. What are those? That's upper body pushing, things like push-ups, overhead presses, upper body pulling, you know, like a bent-over row or a pull-up, hip and thigh hinging like squats and step-ups and lunges, and core. Although reality is, because I'm doing squats and bent-over rows and push-ups, I'm getting the core in, so I actually don't do core on its own. Now, if you can fit in more days in the week, awesome, go for it. Just don't do the same thing every day because your body needs time to recover and rebuild. Remember, you go work out hard and your body has to have a little recovery time to rebuild as well. By the way, you can also fit this in all throughout the week each day. So let me give you an example of this. You could do upper body pushing on Monday. So you could do some push-ups before you start the work day, then maybe some overhead presses during your lunch break, and maybe some dips in the afternoon break. Then Tuesday, you could do lunges while brewing your coffee, squats during your lunch break, and step-ups in the afternoon. Then Wednesday, bent-over rows in the morning, pull-ups or a flexed arm hang at lunch, and upright rows in the afternoon. And then Thursday, start it all over again. Now again, you'll notice I didn't include the core in there because think about when you're doing squats, when you're doing push-ups, when you're doing bent-over rows, you're getting that core in. But if you want to add some in, add them into the mix. One final thing is make sure you add in a great hydration boost. Get yourself a big— I'm holding one up here if you're watching this on YouTube— a big 64 ounce water bottle because remember, even mild dehydration can raise cortisol and that means more belly fat. Not on my watch. And you want to make sure you're hydrating all throughout the day, at least half your weight in fluid ounces. And what I want you to put in there is 1 to 3 servings of electrolytes. Now my water bottle that you see right here has Electro Replenisher electrolytes, my Chia Team Creatine Trifecta, creatine HCL, taurine, and magnesium, and my Amino Acid Power essential amino acids in it. So I got all my bases covered. Now, of course, you can add more hydration if you're working out, if you're in a hot, humid climate, or you're doing the sauna. I do the sauna pretty much every day when I'm home, so I always make sure that I have this on hand. And adding in the electrolytes, I'll tell you what, that has been the biggest game changer for me. I have 2 to 3 servings of electrolytes a day now, and not only has it helped with energy, but I used to get leg cramps at night that were like rocks in my calves. They would take me out. I started electrolytes, never had them since. I will not go anywhere now without my electrolytes. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook, and my website, jjvirgin.com. And make sure to follow my podcast at subscribe2jj.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll catch you on the next episode. Want to listen to the show ad-free? Head over to subscribe2jj.com and start your ad-free experience today. Hey, JJ here. And just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 Podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health-related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.