Daily Practices That Keep You Strong and Energized

I’m sharing my daily non-negotiable habits that keep me energized, focused, and maintaining lean muscle mass—whether I’m at home or traveling (which I do about 70% of the time). From my morning gratitude practice (thanks Dr. Joe Dispenza!) to evening sleep preparation rituals, learn how I’ve crafted a portable, sustainable routine that maximizes my health and vitality. Learn why I travel with a bioimpedance scale, prioritize post-meal movement, and never skip my resistance training. Plus, get a peek into my supplement strategy that’s actually decreased over the years as I’ve optimized my nutrition.

What you’ll learn:

  • The power of habit stacking and why morning routines create the foundation for daily success
  • Strategic supplement timing and why I’ve actually reduced my supplement load over the years
  • The importance of protein-first meals and how I structure my nutrition throughout the day
  • My approach to exercise, including resistance training and why movement after meals matters
  • Key sleep preparation rituals that support healthy aging and optimal recovery

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Resources Mentioned in this episode

7-Day Eat Protein First Challenge

Shop Oura Rings

Oxiline bioimpedance scale

Nutribullet

Flavorchef bone broth

Reignite Wellness™ Collagen Peptides Powder

Dr. Joe Dispenza meditations

Dumbbells

Reignite Wellness™ Protein First Enzymes

Epsom Salt

Shop Xiser  use code jjvirgin for $30 off your next order

Join my Exercise Snack Challenge

Food Scale

Reignite Wellness™ Magnesium Body Calm

Reignite Wellness™ Plant-Based & Paleo-Inspired All-In-One Shakes

Purity Coffee use code VIRGIN for 20% off your first purchase

Check out my favorite Qualia

Download my free Resistance Training Cheat Sheet

Sunlighten Sauna use promo code JJVIRGIN when requesting pricing information for $600 off

Reignite Wellness™ Sleep Candy

Download my FREE Best Rest Sleep Cheat Sheet

Get 60 FREE delicious, protein-packed shake recipes in my Eat Protein First Smoothie Guide

Sugar Impact Diet

Try Timeline and use code JJ10 for 10% off all products

Try Sleep and Glow and use code jjvirgin for $20 off all pillows and blankets

Dry Farm Wines

Try SHEatine

Reignite Wellness Amino Power Powder

 

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Click Here To Read Transcript


What if the little habits that you did every single day could make the difference between you feeling like strong, energized, lean, or the opposite? They say habits create structure which creates freedom and I totally agree and that’s why I’m going to give you a sneak peek into my daily routine and I’ll tell you I do this whether I’m home or on the road since.

About 70 percent of the time I’m on the road. So I always bring my habits with me. So stay tuned I’m going to share them all. My preference always is to wake up without an alarm clock and most of the time That’s the case. Depends a little bit if I’m traveling and have an early flight, which I try to avoid So I wake up and here’s one thing that I do credit to Dr.

Joe Dispenza for this one before I Get up and out of bed I sit there and I do a little gratitude, three things I’m grateful for, and then I put myself into the state that I want to be in. So whatever things that I’m going for at the moment, I’m already there, right? So I put myself there. Then I get up. Go to the bathroom and step on my bioimpedance scale.

Now I have a bioimpedance scale that just reports to my phone so it can just track me. And it’s something that I do, again, whether I’m home or on the road, I travel with a bioimpedance scale and I step on it every single day. Research shows people who weigh in regularly actually do better at maintaining their weight.

And note I said by impedance scale because I really want to make sure that I’m holding onto or building muscle, right? That is mission critical. I’m not paying attention to my little weight fluctuations every single day because especially when you travel and fly, things can go wrong. can get wonky, but I’m looking at the trend over time.

So I’m looking at the weekly average of that. After that, I get back and most days I try to do a little short meditation. Sometimes with Dr. Joe, sometimes again, it just might be getting right back into that vibe of being where I already want to be. And then after that, if I am home. I will go do some sauna and some cold.

So at home I will go in and what I like to do is lately I’ve been tuning into a channel where they drop a new Dr. Joe training video. So that’s what I’ve been listening to lately are Dr. Joe training videos at that point. In the sauna, and then I will do the sauna for anywhere from 20 minutes plus, and then I will get into cold therapy.

Now, I do a lot of sauna, I do a little cold. And especially for women, this is important. It is not our job to adapt to getting into the cold. It’s our job to shiver in the cold, which then is going to help beige our white fat and make it easier to burn off and also have a great endorphin response. So.

Heat about two minutes in the cold. My cold is set at about 50 52 degrees. And then if I have time I go stand in front of a red light panel. I have a Juve red light panel so I will stand in front of that and continue to listen to Dr. Joe. And again I’m really doing that because I want to program my mind.

towards positivity and success and stay there. After that, I like to do some of my morning brain activities. So this is where I’m most creative. I like to write whatever I’m working on at the time, which right now is my next book. And then about. Hour and a half after waking up, two hours, I’m going to have some breakfast.

Now, my favorite breakfast to have is either I’ll do nonfat Greek style yogurt, I’ll stir in some of my bone broth protein to get the collagen and boost the protein up, and I’ll add in something like some freshly ground flax and some berries, or I will do a loaded smoothie, and that’s my smoothie powder.

I like to combine. My bone broth protein powder and my pea protein powder. I like the texture that it puts together. I pump that up a little bit. So I make sure that I’m getting my 30 to 40 grams of protein. And again, adding in something like a little avocado or a little chia or a little flax and, um, some berries.

Quite often for me though, it’s half of a barely ripe banana. I like to freeze those for the texture. And then putting in some chia and then putting in the variety of protein powder. So that’s breakfast. If I’m on the road and I don’t have access to any of that, which occasionally happens, although I instacart wherever I go, I will do an egg and egg white omelet with spinach, mushrooms, and a little feta cheese.

And I forgot something. really important. The big mainstay of my morning routine, of course, after I wake up, is that I have this amazing, hot barista who brings me coffee every morning. That would be my husband. So, husband walks in with coffee every morning, too, and I love my coffee in the morning. Shout out right now to Purity Coffee, who is been giving us some incredible coffee.

So that’s the morning. Then I head off to the gym. Now I head off to the gym and that could mean heading off upstairs to the gym or heading off to the gym that we go to nearby or at a hotel heading down to their gym and I’m going to do a workout. This varies every day but I always do something Every day.

It is the rare day. And here’s what I’ll tell you with that. I plan to work out every single day because there are going to be the occasional days where everything blows up. But I will say that at least six days a week, I’m getting in either resistance training, high intensity, high intensity interval training, or both.

Then I come home from the gym. I get ready for my day, and when I’m getting ready for my day, I’m listening to some cool podcast about health. So, that’s when I’m listening to more health focused podcasts. I also listen to that at the gym. And then I eat lunch. So that’s my morning routine, and the only variation to that morning routine will be if I’m at an event and I have to start earlier, which means that I’m going to have to get up, have some coffee, take my creatine, my essential amino acids, and my electrolytes.

That’s what I take with me to the gym. It’s always my sheatine powder. Mixed with my amino acid power powder and my electro replenish. I take that to the gym with me, but if I’m in the morning going to the gym before I’m able to eat, which happens, you know, I don’t know, a couple times a month. The thing that I do to make sure I can get the power I want out of my workout is I’ll have coffee with collagen in it.

So I’ll put my collagen peptide powders in the coffee and then I’ll take that big jug of essential aminos, she a teen. And my electrolytes to the gym. So either which way I’m getting it in and then that way I’ll eat breakfast after. So that’s a really easy morning routine that again is super portable.

The only thing that’s not so portable that we do take with us is we actually do travel with a coffee pot because we are coffee snobs. And we also don’t want to end up having to spend a bunch of money for Bad coffee, right? So depending on where I am breakfast is usually between 8 and 9 my preference always is to do that mid morning workout get ready and then have lunch after that and Lunch for me if I’m at home means that we had some leftover protein if we didn’t have any leftover protein from dinner the night before Then we usually will make some Grass fed, grass finished burgers or some ground turkey burgers.

So that’s the easy thing we do. So kind of a classic of what I always have at lunch is I will always do some berries. And I always feel like when I come home from the gym, it’s like my body is craving some kind of a carb hit. So I always have some berries and protein and then some vegetables. So here’s a very typical one.

I’ll give you two typical lunches for me is we had some leftover, say, Chicken, um, and I took that. I took a bunch of arugula, leftover vegetables, put them into a salad, used a little extra virgin olive oil and some either apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, and made a really yummy salad. I like to sprinkle in a little bit of feta cheese into that.

That’s an easy lunch with some berries. The other one that I’ll do is a grass fed beef burger. A little bit of manchego cheese on that sometimes. Dijon mustard. And then I especially love that when I have some leftover vegetables like maybe some broccoli or some green beans and mushrooms or some mushrooms and onions so leftovers from the day before It’s always going to be some protein centric That is the always might eat protein first part of the plate a lot of non starchy vegetables and some berries And by the way at lunch, this is where I tend to take my Um, supplements, there’s two times I’ll do most of my supplements along with, I take some evening ones specifically.

I wake up in the morning, I take thyroid immediately, of course. I generally will do a big jug of sheatine electrolytes, my electro replenish and my essential amino acid powder. Um, that goes to the gym with me. If I’m eating before the gym, I wait and take my supplements. at lunch. If I’m eating after the gym, then I’ll take my supplements with breakfast.

Probably wouldn’t have any impact, but I always have this kind of, uh, about this idea of eating, eating breakfast, taking a bunch of supplements and going to the gym just doesn’t feel like it would be a great thing. I put all of my supplements in a baggie and then I just try to make sure they’re all done by noon.

And the reason I try to make sure they’re all done by noon, maybe one o’clock is one of the things in that baggie is qualia nad plus. And. you know, in my perfect world, I probably should take that out and hit it before I go to the gym because it’s so energizing. It feels amazing. The other things in there, like my key nutrients that I love, I talked about the things that I put into my gym bottle, but qualia NAD plus is definitely a key one.

The other one is timelines might appear. Those, like when I think of energy and being able to work out harder, creatine. NAD plus by qualia and timeline, um, might appear like my tripecta. The other things that I take, I take my vitamin, uh, D3 with K2. I take omega 3 fatty acids. I take magnesium, but I generally take the bulk of my magnesium at night.

So not so much during the day. I travel with my protein digestive enzymes. I don’t bother if I’m doing like some Greek style yogurt or a smoothie, but I’ll do them at lunch and I’ll do them at dinner. Let me think if there’s any other super important ones I’ve been taking. I do take black ginseng that I got from Korea and I have to import it in from South Korea.

So I’ve, but I’ve seen such amazing results with it. I keep doing it. People keep asking how they can get it. I don’t know. You have to go to Seoul. That’s all I can tell you on that. So those are really my big ones. I will. I can actually tell you that I’ve been taking less supplements over the years, not more.

Mainly because I know I’m getting in my all in one protein powder. I’ve got a lot of my vitamins and minerals. Um, so, I’ve just kind of reduced it down to the ones that I feel really make the difference. So, those are the ones. Once a month, I do take Qualia Sinalytic. That’s a two day supplement. Hit but the rest of it are those and then occasionally if I’m really focused on writing or something I use qualia mind throughout the day now Here’s what’s important and I’ve talked about this in other videos the importance of habit stacking in the morning.

I start right away. I Very quickly charge my aura ring, but I want to make sure I’m getting all my activity and all my steps because I love to have at least half my steps for the day, 5, 000, done by noon. That’s a pretty aggressive thing, which means every step’s got to count. But fortunately, I live in a house that’s got an upstairs, so I’m going up and down the stairs a lot.

I go to the gym. I always take the stairs at the gym. I always laugh about the people that take elevators to the second floor of a gym. You’re a gym, people! I’m trying to get as many steps in as possible. That’s my goal. And I talked about, um, I’ve talked about Vilpa and exercise snacks and other videos.

And one of the things that we know is that doing things like air squats, jumping jacks, et cetera, are really good for good blood sugar control. Now. I eat the trifecta protein fat and fiber, so I’ve got great blood sugar control, but every little bit helps, right? And it gives you a great metabolic boost, too.

So what I love to do after my lunch meal, because after breakfast I’m going to the gym, but after lunch what I love to do is throw in something. So that could be air squats, it could be, uh, Uh, walk outside. It could be my walking treadmill inside. It could be using my exciser with dumbbells. So I like to do some movement after each meal.

That’s one of the key things that I’ve put into place is move after you eat, move after those meals. And then throughout the afternoon, I’m staying really well hydrated. And I’ve learned my lesson on this. Like I love. Fluids I always have since I was a little kid. I’ve always been a big drinker in the morning.

It’s coffee in the afternoon I will drop the caffeine to do more iced green tea. That’s what I like to take to the gym with me, too I’ll take my ice cream tea mixed with she a teen and amino acids and electrolytes. In the afternoon I might be doing a spindrift, a Xevia, kind of have a little addiction problem with those.

But I found that if I do too much fluids without enough electrolytes, then I get leg cramps at night. So I generally will do another hit of electrolytes in the afternoon. I also find it’s like kind of energizing as well. So that’s the other thing that I love to do. And then I start to get prepared for dinner.

Now if we’re home We generally start to make dinner around 5. Our goal is always to eat by 6. 30. We like to actually even start eating earlier, but that’s when it seems to happen. And I will start with the veggies, and Tim makes the protein. And so what that looks like for me is I rotate between the following things.

I either make broccoli, steamed broccoli with some grass fed ghee. I will make a cauliflower pilaf, throw in a little bit of lentils and whatever leftover stuff I can find in there. I always keep cauliflower rice in the freezer. Um, but if I made mushrooms and onions the night before, I can throw those in.

So I’m throwing stuff in. I’ll make mushrooms and onions. We always have those if we’re having steak or grass fed ground beef patties. Um, and I make Oven roasted brussel sprouts with a little bit of balsamic and Dijon. Amazing! So, That’s kind of our rotation. Oh, and asparagus. And I’ll do asparagus. I have a recipe for this, I think, in the Sugar Impact Diet Cookbook, with lemon zest and olive oil.

It’s fabulous and I sprinkle a little bit of, uh, sliced almonds on it as well. So I always make one of those. That’s easy. Um, sometimes we’ll have a salad, but that’s generally something I do for lunch. And then Tim makes some kind of protein. And then depending on what we had, if we had, like sometimes I’ll do a little bit of a purple sweet potato.

I don’t really love a lot of this stuff, so might have a little bit of black beans or a little bit of wild rice, but if not, then I have some more berries. So it’s protein. First, loads of non starchy vegetables, try to get in, I generally will get in like five servings at lunch and dinner each, and then a little bit of some kind of slow low carb.

Our goal after dinner is to walk. Sometimes it’s not walking, we just get into the hot sauna, but we like to do a thing after dinner, a self care thing after dinner. In the perfect world, it is walking and doing the sauna. Quite often it’s walking and then I’ll go do a hot Epsom salts bath, but the big thing that we’re starting to do in the evening now is we are preparing for sleep.

So what does that mean? That means all the lights in the house have turned down. We’ve started to cool the air down in the house. Um, we make sure we do this an hour before bed. I’ve taken my sleep candy. I take that an hour before bed. So that I can start to get this melatonin going and working. And as we age, you know, we have less melatonin.

So I know there’s this stuff out there about you should cycle it. But when you’re 50 plus, melatonin now is not where it used to be. This is an anti aging longevity hormone. So I’m making sure that I’m getting it before bed. I take about an hour before bed. I take my magnesium. I take my sleep candy. And again, we’ve lowered all the lights.

We’ve lowered the temperature. And we’ve turned the red lights on in the bedroom so that We’re really helping do that shift, and while we’re off of our tech, we take our doggies outside. Uh, we go out, that’s kind of a fun thing, because you go out at night, you’re taking your doggies out, you literally, it’s, it’s usually a little cool, and we’re on the grass, so we’re doing a little grounding, so it’s actually a really nice ritual for the morning.

and evening. But that’s the evening ritual is all of that. And then of course, um, we have our bedroom really dialed in for sleep. And I travel with this as well. We travel with a little red light. I travel, of course, with all of our supplements and our powders and my big gym bottle, um, and my workout clothes.

I’m always amazed when people don’t travel with their workout clothes. I’m like, come on. Set yourself up for success. And I travel with my eye mask, earplugs, omnia pillow. So I’ve got everything that I need to keep this routine going. Now you might think that is crazy, JJ, that you travel with all this stuff.

But here’s the reality. If I traveled like, you know, I don’t know, twice a year, I wouldn’t bother. But I travel all the time. And what I found with having these habits in place is I know these habits help me stay on track, right? Uh, they help me have great energy, sleep well, and you know, travel is a stress.

Oh, and there’s one other thing that I do travel with. I travel with my food scale too. So, whenever we’re getting to a new location, we have Instacart waiting for us when we arrive. And we always have a fridge. We travel with bowls and spoons. Sometimes we’ll travel with the Nutribullet blender as well. We travel with our coffee and coffee pot and my pillow.

So, and our gym bottles and our powders. We travel with all the stuff. I know, it sounds like a pain. It’s an extra suitcase. But it’s well worth it. And by the way, it also saves us money. Let’s be honest. Cause we’re not spending a bunch of money on like expensive hotel breakfast that probably are crappy anyway and bad coffee.

All right. So I want to know a couple of things here. Did you hear one of those rituals where you’re like. That is what I need to put into my routine. I was missing that one. Or maybe you’ve heard all these and I’ve missed something amazing that I could put into my routine. I’d love to hear from you, so leave a comment on that.

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