ATHE_Transcript_Ep 532_The DANGERS of the Kardashian Diet No One Is Talking About
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. In each episode, I put the Power of Health in your hands and share ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut detox, and lots more. So you can look and feel better fast if you'd rather watch the video. Hey, I did put on my makeup and do my hair, so check it out on my YouTube channel.
Kim Kardashian lost 16 pounds in just three weeks to fit into a dress. Could this work for you too? Well, maybe. But at what expense? Here's what I think is a triple board certified nutrition expert now. Years ago, I helped actors get ready for roles, including Brandon Ralph, when he debuted as Superman and another actor who needed to look like he had [00:01:00] AIDS for the movie rendition of the Broadway show.
and an actress who had dramatically had to slim down for a role in reality bites. And to me, when I looked at this situation, I go, you know, this is just like when you're getting ready for a film. I mean, when you think about it, Kim was channeling Marilyn Monroe by wearing her dress to the Met Gala. She was basically getting ready for a one night role.
So let's get into what she did and if there's any strategies that you could use. I mean, bottom line is this. Or is it dangerous? So you may have heard that she dropped 16 pounds in three weeks. So how did she do it? Was it healthy? Could it work for you? There are some things that she did that I do myself and I recommend to clients.
And then there's one thing that's really dangerous for more reasons. Other than just the obvious. So here's what she did. Now this is her regiment in her words, right? I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely, cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein.
I didn't starve myself, but I was super strict. [00:02:00] She also exercised two times a day. All right, let's unpack this now. First, let's talk about the big thing she did that. I definitely don't want you to. Wear a sauna suit while exercising. And I'm gonna tell you this one because this reminds me of back when I was the nutrition expert on Dr.
Phil for two, two years on Dr. Phil. We, the first season we had the weight loss challenge going on. We had these two groups that we put into two teams, and we said, you know, at the end of this one period, a four week period, whoever's lost the most weight, collectively as a group is gonna go to the Canyon Ranch Spa.
Well, you can imagine they're like, oh heck yeah, I wanna win. So when I went to weigh them in and I was using a bio-impedance scale and I go to weigh the teams in the morning of, and what was mind blowing was one team had lost one half pound total more than the other team. That team won by a half a pound.
But what I started to see when I was looking at the bioimpedance scale was the team that was winning was [00:03:00] clearly super dehydrated that day. They didn't eat anything. They didn't drink anything. They worked out as much as they humanly could that day. Loads of time on the treadmill. So they were sweating a lot.
Then they all went into their rooms. They stuffed towels under their bathroom doors. They turned on the showers to full steam and they sweated as much as possible so you can see clearly like they shed a lot of water weight. I mean, they could lose a pound or two in a day, right? Boom. Just like a fighter does to make work.
So if you look at a sauna suit, it's this garment that's designed to hold in heat and make you sweat profusely. And so, gosh, this is what's gonna help you supposedly lose weight. , but that is that weight. That's just losing water right now. That might be something if you're trying to fit into a dress for one night.
This is something if you're trying to make weight as a boxer, you know this isn't something that's a sustainable obvious thing. You don't wanna walk around dehydrated, actually. Makes your body hold onto weight and raises your [00:04:00] stress hormones. You know, one of the things you don't know about me is that I actually used to coach heavyweight boxers.
I totally know about this trick besides seeing the thing on Dr. Phil and then being with around all these heavyweight boxers. But I also know like, This is not the thing for long term. This would be like a short term. I gotta make weight a short term. I'm gonna get into the stress. And it's especially not healthy to put on a sauna suit and go work out.
This is not what you wanna do. And I did a really cool episode with Dr. Rick Johnson on the As Health Expert Podcast, where he talks about dehydration and that when your body is dehydrated, it actually holds on to fat more. It raises stress hormones, so it's going to negatively impact your metabolism. Again, I do some hot yoga, but remember hot yoga?
I'm doing electrolyte drinks and they're turning the fans on periodically, right? So my body can breathe and my body can thermoregulate. So that's step one. Next up, she said she cut out all sugar and carbs and she ate the cleanest veggies and protein. . But you know, I kind of go, what if you cut out all carbs?
Then you can't eat [00:05:00] vegetables because vegetables are carbs. So first off, I'm all for cutting out sugar. You know that I wrote the sugar impact diet. After all, it's actually not that you have to cut out all sugar. You have to know which to choose and which to lose. Like, hey, blueberries are great and those are sugar, but fruit juice, it's like drinking a soda, especially apple juice.
But the big reality. Vegetables are carbohydrates. So what I think she really meant there is she went super low carb, but she didn't eat no carb. And that's fantastic because in eating, really focusing on those non-starchy vegetables, she's getting the polyphenols and the fiber, and that is so important for your gut microbiome.
The bacteria in your gut can actually make the difference between you losing weight or gaining weight. When you've got better gut microbiome, you have less cravings, you have better nutrient absorption. , right? And you have poor gut microbiome, you actually can extract more calories from the food you eat and store them as fat.
Now, I especially love the combination of protein and non-starchy vegetables. Like that is my favorite all-time combination because when you're eating those together, you are gonna have better blood [00:06:00] sugar control. You are gonna have the thermic response that happens from protein. Cuz here's the thing, if you want to lose weight, I'm going to just make a guess.
If you want to lose weight and be healthy, protein is key. In fact, cranking up your protein a little bit as you're trying to do this is gonna be important cuz protein's the most, thermic, macronutrient take 20 to 30% of the protein calories are used. Digestion and metabolizing, assimilating. That protein plus protein is more satiating than any of the other macronutrients, and that's super important when you're trying to eat less is that you're not hungry and protein and veggies together.
That fat and protein combination is the perfect combo. Right? There is this study in 2018 in the International Journal of Behavioral. And they asked 298 middle-aged obese women to reduce their calorie intake and increase exercise. They kept food journals and they weighed weekly. Now they divided these women into three categories, and they divided them into these categories based on the rate of weight loss during their first month.
So there was [00:07:00] fast weight loss, moderate weight loss, or slow weight loss, and here's where things get wild. The fast and moderate groups were 5.1 and 2.7 times more. To achieve 10% weight loss over 18 months than the slow group. So what came out of this is that there were short and long-term advantages to faster initial weight loss.
And in fact, those who lost the weight in the shorter period of time lost more weight and kept it off longer than those who went slow, which flies in the face of everything that we've always talked about. Slow and steady wins the race. You know, you should, you should lose a pound a week, and so the reality.
Losing weight faster as long as we can really make sure we're holding onto muscle can be inspiring, but also help you lose more weight and keep it off for the long haul. But here's the risk. The risk is more in what you're losing. What you wanna make sure of is that if you are losing weight, you're losing fat, and you're holding muscle.
Because let's say that Kim wasn't exercising and wasn't eating protein. That's really key because [00:08:00] Kim, by prioritizing protein and exercising, meant that she was probably holding onto the majority of her muscle and she was losing fat and, and obviously because of the sauna suit, dehydrating and losing water.
So if she's holding onto muscle, fantastic. That's gonna be super duper important for her because if she lost a bunch of muscle, Then she's gonna really damage her metabolism and makes it easier for her to gain fat back and shift her body composition to being less healthy. Now, as far as the actual diet, what we wanna make sure too is that when she moves out of the rapid weight loss stage, that she's getting in enough healthy fats as well, because we need protein and healthy fats and water, we can actually live without carbs.
We don't have to have 'em, but I think if you look at a diet of protein, non-starchy vegetables, healthy fats, you've got it. Then the next thing she can start to add in here, she goes into maintenance, are some slow low carbs, and that means things like berries, winter squashes, legumes, things like that. All right, let's talk about the exercise.
Now. I [00:09:00] don't know her actual, I could not find it anywhere. So I know we don't wanna model the sauna suit workouts. Right? We pretty much made that clear. But here's what I would love you to model. I know that she did resistance training. She was lifting weights and she was doing cardio, which is fantastic.
I'm gonna give you what will work really well here is to do resistance training, lifting heavy weights, cuz you wanna make sure you're holding onto your muscles, you're losing fat. And that would be hitting each body part that's upper body pushing. Hitting your chest, shoulders, triceps, upper body pulling.
That would be like a pull down that's hitting your lats and your biceps and your shoulders. Hips and thighs, things like squats for your quads and your glutes. And then power core sit-ups, back extensions for your core muscle. Then cardio high intensity interval training, plus zone two training three times a.
and zone two is working just below. It's where you are breathy, but you can still talk. So you hit that, hit into zone two, about 30 minutes or so, three times a week. And then I'd love to see you do hot yoga once or [00:10:00] twice a week. It's great for the core. It's great for challenging, it's great for mindfulness, it's great for detox bonus points every day after one of your meals, especially evening, take a walk, it lowers the blood sugar response to the.
So there you go. That's how you do it. You would add that exercise in. So you do your protein, your fat, your non-starchy vegetables, lots of water in between meals, green tea, throw that exercise in and then if you need some extra hacks, cuz I'm going All right, if you wanna do this for yourself please.
Saunas and cold plunging are great and cold plunging especially. I actually have a cold plunge at the house. It causes your body. What's called brown your fat. So we have white fat and brown fat and brown fats. The metabolically active fat, lot of mitochondria, easy to burn. Cold plunging helps get that white fat brown, so it helps you lose more body fat.
Both cold plunging and sauna are very metabolically active. Help boost your metabolism. The other important thing here, and this is kind of more of a. Bigger mindset, vision thing. So she channeled Marilyn Monroe and went after that dress and I [00:11:00] really, again, I look at this and go, she was really playing a role and I think we have to think of it that way, but we, what we need to look at is what's our best self?
You know, when you're thinking about, okay, I wanna figure out what my ideal body weight is, and I do that by looking at my frame size and my height, and then the range and going for. Do I want to be more lean and fit? Is that my body type? Am I more curvy? Like what's your best ideal body type? Right? And body weight and body composition in terms of body fat and fat-free mass.
Get to where you want to be as fast as possible because we know that's more motivating, but then build in the habits that are gonna maintain those shifts for the long haul, right? You gotta think about, okay, I'm gonna take some time. I'm going into a burning phase where I'm gonna burn fat, then I'm gonna stabilize there.
Then maybe I'm gonna put on some muscle, then I'm gonna stabilize there. . But remember, the worst thing that you can do is go in and say, I wanna lose weight quickly. So I don't care what it comes from. You've gotta focus on what your weight's made up of, and it's very damaging to lose muscle. It's something you wanna make sure you're holding onto our building, which is why we've [00:12:00] got to use scales differently.
And we've gotta look at what your weight's made up of. We've gotta look at how much your body is, is muscle versus fat. Because if you're losing more muscle and gaining more fat, that's that yo-yo dieting, that really hurts you. Now if you wanna get into how to lose fat, And more importantly, how to keep it off.
I go into this in depth in my video on six simple strategies for fast and lasting fat loss. So do yourself a favor, skip Kim Kardashian sauna suit, check this one out instead.
For more info on this and other health topics I cover, or to rate and review, find me on Instagram, Facebook, and my website jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojj.com. Thanks again for being with me this week.