Three Hidden Energy Vampires and How to Defeat Them
I’m exposing the truth about midlife energy crashes that so many of us face—and it’s not just about getting older! From those “healthy” morning smoothies that spike your blood sugar to the late-night screen time stealing your deep sleep, these energy vampires are sabotaging your vitality. As women in perimenopause, those 3am wake-ups aren’t random, they’re hormonal landmines like dropping progesterone levels that need addressing. I’ve spent years helping women reclaim their energy through simple but powerful adjustments: protein-loaded breakfasts that stabilize blood sugar, strategic movement that builds your “metabolic battery,” and key supplements like creatine and electrolytes that specifically support women’s biochemistry. The changes I’ve seen in my clients are nothing short of remarkable, tripling their energy in just 14 days using these exact protocols.
What you’ll learn:
- Why your morning smoothie might be your biggest energy saboteur and how to transform it into a power breakfast
- The surprising connection between late-night screen time and poor sleep quality (and the simple red light hack that boosts melatonin by 200%)
- How to identify and address the hormonal landmines of perimenopause that cause energy crashes
- The critical nutrients women need for optimal energy production after 40
- Why “metabolic Spanx” (muscle) is your secret weapon for sustained energy and fat burning
- How to structure your strength training for maximum energy benefits
- The hydration strategy that eliminates night cramps and boosts daytime energy
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Resources Mentioned in this episode
Get 60 FREE delicious, protein-packed shake recipes in my Eat Protein First Smoothie Guide
Reignite Wellness™ Plant-Based & Paleo-Inspired All-In-One Shakes
Purity Coffee: Use code VIRGIN for 20% off your first purchase
Reignite Wellness™ Magnesium Body Calm
Check out my favorite Qualia products
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If you’re chugging caffeine just to function, listen close. Your exhaustion isn’t about aging. It’s about these three sabotaging habits. Now I’m gonna 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 two 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 gonna help you fall asleep and. Here’s a great thing. Swap your blue lights at night for red light bulbs and do this around 8:00 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 ’em with these. Phillips HU bulbs. These are amazing ’cause I can control them from my phone. So right around eight o’clock at night, it’s my power down hour.
That’s what Dr. Michael Bruce 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 3:00 AM wake up. 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 up, 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 outta 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. I. 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 do not settle for A TSH. That’s a 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.
’cause low estrogen can lead to a decline in a TP production, and then you’re gonna have. General all day long fatigue. And this is where a dose, by the way, or two of my shein, 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 wanna 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. Now, if any of this, or all of this is sounding familiar, like you’re experiencing this drop in energy or you’re curious to keep learning about it, I want you to stay tuned because I have another video that I’m gonna share with you on this topic.
So let’s talk next. About how to support better energy. Okay, so I mentioned my protein loaded smoothie. Now you’re gonna wanna 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 gonna help boost your ketones and will help support focus as well.
I just love this trifecta of protein. Fat and fiber. It’s gonna 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 wanna 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 9:00 AM ’cause 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 Trine, 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 or raw. Meter fish or two pounds of cooked meter 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 Tourin work really well with creatine to help you produce and recycle a TP 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 one to two 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 two 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 gonna give you one more nutrient that I love and that is NAD plus. Now, likely you’ve been hearing about it. I remember when I first heard about NAD, my friends were going and getting these crazy four 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 plus. It has these precursors and it’s been shown clinically to raise NAD plus 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 wanna 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 pushups, 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 pushups, 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 pushups before you start the workday. Then maybe some overhead presses during your lunch break and maybe some dips in the afternoon break Then. Tuesday, you could do lunches while brewing your coffee squats during your lunch break, and step up in the afternoon, then Wednesday, bent over, rose in the morning, pull-ups or a flex arm, hang at lunch and upright rose 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 pushups, when you’re doing bent over rows, you’re getting that core in. But if you wanna add some in. Add ’em 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 wanna make sure you’re hydrating all throughout the day, at least half your weight and fluid ounces.
And what I want you to put in there is one to three servings of electrolytes. Now my water bottle that you see right here has electro replenish or electrolytes. My ine creatine trifecta. Creatine, HCL. Toine 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 two to three 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. I never had ’em since. I will not go anywhere now without my electrolytes. So as promised, I’ve added a video here on the screen that I think you’re gonna enjoy.
Plus, I’ve included some helpful links in the description to help you get started. So be sure to check those out too. And don’t forget to hit the notification bell so you don’t miss the next video.
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