Let's Say Hello

[00:02:13.510] – Allan

Hey, Ras. How are you doing?

[00:02:15.600] – Rachel

Hey, good Allan, how are you today?

[00:02:17.900] – Allan

I'm good. Glad to get into this week. We got a lot going on here. Just some fun stuff or should be fun.

[00:02:24.510] – Allan

We had a chili cook off this weekend.

[00:02:26.730] – Rachel

Oh, fun.

[00:02:27.900] – Allan

Well, it could have been. It could have been.

[00:02:30.030] – Rachel

Oh, no.

[00:02:31.410] – Allan

Well, no. Okay. I was responsible for the chili, and I really put a lot into the chili. In fact, if you know me okay, guess what? There was nothing out of a jar box can.

[00:02:46.630] – Rachel

Good.

[00:02:48.150] – Allan

It was from scratch all the way through. Okay.

[00:02:51.340] – Rachel

Awesome.

[00:02:51.720] – Allan

Everything was all the way through. There were no cans.

[00:02:53.920] – Allan

Only thing that was in a can was the beer. I do use some beer, some dark beer in there. And that did come from a can.

[00:03:01.360] – Allan

But that's all that came from a can. All the tomatoes. I made my own tomato sauce beforehand. I had everything cut up, ready to go. And the folks that we hang out with here, they're a little bit more on the party side. So they just wanted this to be a big party. And so they were busier partying than they were focused on the fact that there was a second competition besides the best booth. And so they were so dedicated to best Booth that everything else just sort of got tossed to the side.

[00:03:34.880] – Allan

So we did win best, Booth. I had very little to do with that other than wearing a costume that was hot and comfortable for about 3 hours, but it was one of those things, so I didn't place still had a great chili. I've got some leftovers, so that's good. But it's just one of those things when you, I guess, hindsight being 2020, if you care about something, then you want to make sure that it's a no lose proposition, set the odds in your favor.

[00:04:02.670] – Allan

And being a part of this group was definitely not putting the odds of winning the chili competition in my favor.

[00:04:10.660] – Rachel

oh, no.

[00:04:11.870] – Allan

Yeah. Winning the booth. Absolutely. These guys were handing out fireball jello shots and everything else, which I don't know if you've ever tasted a lot of cinnamon at one time.

[00:04:21.800] – Allan

Anything you eat after it. Yeah.

[00:04:26.070] – Rachel

Oh, no.

[00:04:28.390] – Allan

Yeah. That was the impression people had of my chili, was, OOH, this doesn't go very well with fireball. Anyway, so it was what it was. It's over.

[00:04:40.350] – Allan

I learned from it. Move on. I had a good time otherwise, and yeah, go on. And then I do want to say something. I am going to be on a kind of a panel thing. It's a summit.

[00:04:54.130] – Allan

And it's called the Women's Strength Summit. Okay.

[00:04:59.180] – Allan

And the title of this, or basically the theme of this, is Women Stronger with Age. At least that's my theme as I go into my part of it. And so this is going to be on November 2, I believe it's going to be somewhere around 10:30 11:30 on that day, I'll be being interviewed live, and there'll be a Q and A. It's Amanda Mackie that's putting this all together. And so if you're interested in getting it, I believe it's completely free. It's on November 2. I think she may be recording it. You may have to pay a little bit just to have access to the recordings, but I will be on the Women's Strength Summit, and you can learn more at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/amanda, again, that's 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/amanda, that will take you to the page where you can get more information about the Women's Strength Summit. And as I said, I'm going to be one of the key speakers there going on sometime midmorning, so you can check that out. And again, it's 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/amanda.

[00:06:01.230] – Rachel

Sweet. That sounds awesome.

[00:06:02.980] – Allan

Yeah. So what's going on there?

[00:06:04.950] – Rachel

Well, I think you planted the seed with chili, Allan. So, over the weekend, we made a huge patch of chili ourselves, and we've enjoyed it over the weekend. And I've put a bunch in the freezer so I can pull it out throughout the winter. That's the fun part about making chili, is you can overdo it, freeze it, and it's there when you need it. When it's super cold up here in the wintertime.

[00:06:26.660] – Allan

Food prep. I love it.

[00:06:28.670] – Rachel

Yes. It was awesome. Thanks for the idea.

[00:06:31.400] – Allan

Well, good. All right, so are we ready to have a conversation about these new weight loss drugs?

[00:06:40.290] – Rachel

Sure.

Interview

[00:06:58.790] – Allan

Sergio, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:07:01.600] – Sergio

Pleasure to meet you, Allan. Thank you very much.

[00:07:03.990] – Allan

I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today because this topic, some of the medications, some of the things we're going to talk about today, I'm going to call them medications only because that's my vernacular and you're probably going to correct me later. But we can talk about what they are and why they're effective. But I want to talk about these because they're becoming more and more prominent. There's more and more people who are being introduced to them. I mentioned it to my wife today, and she says, well, what is that? And then when I started talking, she says, oh, that's the wigobi stuff. I'm like, yeah, that's what that is. So it's starting to kind of bubble up, and a lot of people are seeing it.

[00:07:39.220] – Allan

And I think for a lot of people, it looks like, wow, this could just be the magic thing. I don't have to exercise, I don't have to eat right. I can just take shots, and there I am. But it's much more than that. But there's a lot of value here. And so your company, MD Exam, I got on the site kind of went out there. You have kind of a quiz, it's a longer quiz that really does help someone narrow down where they stand in this. And you don't just go at this with one hammer, solves all problems. You have different levels and different things that people can choose and look at from their particular needs, not just one size fits all. And I really appreciate that because I think too many times people think, oh, there's one solution, there's one answer for me. I'm going to do what everybody else does. But you've broken it down on your website that there are particular reasons that you may or may not want to use a different approach, and you've kind of lined that out in your website.

[00:08:31.540] – Allan

So the first thing I want to kind of get into is, let's talk about these things, Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus.

[00:08:42.070] – Allan

Yeah.

[00:08:42.660] – Allan

Now, those are one type of product. And they're built around a product called Simaglutide.

[00:08:49.830] – Sergio

That's correct.

[00:08:50.870] – Allan

Okay. Yeah. I'm not really good with medical terms.

[00:08:54.570] – Sergio

I'm not a doctor. I'm not a clinician. I'm just an entrepreneur with some very smart medical people around me.

[00:09:01.700] – Allan

Yeah. So let's talk about what those are and what they're doing for us.

[00:09:07.150] – Sergio

Okay, perfect. So let me jump into that real quick.

[00:09:09.390] – Sergio

So one of the biggest things that we try to do at MD exam is make sure that if you're coming to us to lose weight, first and foremost, let's not jump into the game about losing weight because it's a fad.

[00:09:22.450] – Sergio

We got to lose weight because you want to lose weight, you need to make a change in your life. A lot of people and I say this because my education level in this is what's kept me in this business long term wise.

[00:09:33.490] – Sergio

We're up and fighting against a lot of people that need to understand because there's a lot of questions. You see them everywhere. It's like, what is this? What does it do? How does it work?

[00:09:41.610] – Sergio

Semiglutide triggers GLP one, which is a gastric like peptide, which what it does is it sends and we're doing this in layman's terms. You eat as soon as you got glucose, sugar goes into your body. Your body tears it down, breaks it down. It identifies what type of sugar goes into your body, common or simple. And we go down two different routes. One of the routes it does is. It triggers and goes into your stomach. And it triggers the incontinent hormone, the GLP one. And what that does is it sends the trigger to your brain mentally wise when you're full, when you've eaten enough and it says, hey, Sergio, stop eating, you're full. And what happens?

[00:10:20.440] – Sergio

You know how America is. We eat till, hey, you get a plate of food, you eat it.

[00:10:26.060] – Allan

Starving kids in India. You know

[00:10:27.770] – Sergio

absolutely. You can't eat anything on the and that'S good and bad. But there's something that has to be taught here, which is how much food is good for us? How much calorie intake is good for us? And that's a whole nother topic because 2400 calorie intake for females are like 26 to 2000 for males at the age of 30.

[00:10:47.790] – Sergio

If you follow that rule, which is like the healthy, you fall to what America is obese.

[00:10:53.420] – Sergio

Almost 80 plus percent of America is overweight. Obesity has over, tipping 46%. The biggest epidemic right now in America is child obesity.

[00:11:04.450] – Sergio

That's got to start with education, Allan. And that's what we're here to do. We're here to educate and help people.

[00:11:10.380] – Sergio

A lot of people say, hey, this is compounded, this is this and that. I think we need to understand I'm not here to fight big pharma by any means. I'm here to educate people, help people get this what they want to call medication with a polypeptide. Let's be realistic.

[00:11:26.500] – Sergio

I am a patent holder. Our company, we do have a chemical company, we are a patent holder or a patent holder 16,700. And we're in that range there.

[00:11:34.110] – Sergio

So you can look us up if you want to find out. So we've gone the level, we've gone the extra by the way, we do have 1250 state licensed doctors on board. We have eight nurses, armps, Or, RNS, three clinicians, and we have a staff behind us to try to support as much as we can to everyone who joins us, because my goal is to follow. If we could help them lose weight by making changes that they have to make every day with either one of the two products. Let's make sure everyone understands wegovy and ozempic are the same medication that is Semiglutide. It was created so that a doctor could never be charged I'm calling a spade of spade here.

[00:12:20.380] – Sergio

I'm sorry, can never be charged for a whistleblower process class action lawsuit, which we saw in the past.

[00:12:27.710] – Sergio

Right? What was the biggest side effect to this test for diabetics was weight loss. So if doctors were going to write a weight loss medication script, let's create and write it to Wegovy. But Wegovy did not have the $25 copay. Only Ozempic did.

[00:12:45.800] – Sergio

So if you don't have the $25 coverage because you don't qualify for pre-diabetic or diabetic, you didn't have access to this. And that's where companies like myself step in, and we have other competitors that have stepped in, and we're all trying to do the right thing at the end of the day. Our insurance companies are being really battered in the space, and I want to make sure that everyone has access to it.

[00:13:11.390] – Sergio

Why is it so expensive? This is one $1600 or charging our insurance companies, and this isn't what this conversation is about. My conversation here is our company slogan is lose weight, feel great.

[00:13:25.270] – Sergio

So there is today a product on the market in Semiglutide that works on seven and a half out of ten people that will help you address what has never touched the US market before. A product that works okay,

[00:13:41.350] – Allan

just to take a step back to help folks. A polypeptide, if you don't know, is basically a series of amino acids. And basically it's in a structure that functioned very much like a particular type of hormone. It may be missing a piece or something like that, but it still generally functions. So when he's talked about hormones and he's talked about these, that's basically what's happening, is you're communicating to your brain that you're already full.

[00:14:06.350] – Sergio

That's correct.

[00:14:07.630] – Sergio

And that's where it starts. So that works pretty well. We see on, like I said, seven to ten out of ten people. And what happens? Everyone works a little different. Some people feel it in the first week. Some people feel it at week three. But we monitor our patients by week three to four. If you're not feeling that little change. And everyone's a little different. This has nothing to do with weight, size, color, gender. I've seen it all. I've seen someone who's taken quarter milligram too much and has had a side effect, what you want to call the half life of this, for every ten units, seven days, had a 22 day uncomfortable. The only way to fix it you need water.

[00:14:54.610] – Sergio

Water is the only way this works. And then I've had people who've accidentally taken a whole milligram CC. And you know what? How do you feel, Mary?

[00:15:03.400] – Sergio

I feel fine. Perfect. Tomorrow, Mary, you're going to get a phone call from one of our nurses to follow up. Make sure. I'm fine, right? Absolutely. My biggest thing in this, there are no shortcuts. As you know, Allan, you yourself, being a trainer in the space, I tell and I preach. I've hired every single one of my employees. We do believe in a culture here. My culture is about exercise.

[00:15:24.630] – Sergio

There is no magic pill. This thing about fentermine and these other past medications, there is no quick solution to losing weight. It didn't come overnight, and it doesn't.

[00:15:36.580] – Sergio

Like I tell everyone, I can help anybody lose weight. My goal isn't just to help you lose weight.

[00:15:40.430] – Sergio

It's to help you keep it off. That's the key. And that's where the habits have to be created.

[00:15:46.360] – Allan

Yeah. And we're going to dive a little bit into nutrition and exercise later. So basically, if someone's not hungry, then they're obviously not as interested in eating, so they eat a little less or eat less, they start to lose some weight.

[00:16:01.320] – Allan

Now, there's a couple of different things that I've heard about it. Some of these are relatively rare, some are a little bit more common. So the rare one would be that there's some issues with your stomach and you don't tolerate it well, and that could cause a little bit of problems, and even if you stop taking it, potentially little problems down the line.

[00:16:19.550] – Allan

Could we talk about that? And then the other side of it. Which, again, I think we'll get into with the nutrition and exercise, is if you're not eating enough, if you actually tried to just starve yourself and not eat at all, you're not just going to lose body fat, but you're also going to lose lean muscle mass and potentially bone density and some other things.

[00:16:37.860] – Allan

So let's talk about kind of the problem with the stomach first, and then we'll pivot over and start talking about muscle mass and lean body mass.

[00:16:48.000] – Sergio

Perfect. And let me jump into and that's a great topic. I live with it.

[00:16:51.190] – Sergio

I suffer from this the stomach side issues. So if you starve your body and a lot of Americans suffer from very simple gas. Gas is created from the lack of food sometimes, and I could go into some more medical terminology, but let's make it simple. A lot of times when you don't eat a lot, if you don't eat food or eat the wrong foods because there's a restriction of intake or wanting tea, it can create all sorts of gastric, little issues in your stomach and your intestines. And that's where it starts.

[00:17:22.340] – Sergio

Okay? I've preached to people always, you have to put a little something in your stomach. People say, I can't eat. I can't eat. You need to find a little protein bar. You know, they'll find a little something.

[00:17:32.100] – Sergio

Because that's what you get is that a common side effect for everybody? Negative it's not. Between that and the headaches. Those are typically the two biggest nausea is typically the first and headaches are the second.

[00:17:44.480] – Sergio

The biggest thing is what we try to do is make sure is how much water are you drinking? Realistically the majority of the time people are not drinking enough water. And if you want to ask me on how much water do you need to drink as an individual you need to make sure when you go to the restroom and you do number one it comes out clear. If you're taking vitamins it's one thing. But people understand it. You need to be hydrated.

[00:18:09.920] – Sergio

Come on. Because hydration also takes a big effect on how your stomach functions and your intestinal functions. And then that goes into a lot of what you've been hearing out a lot of stuff about stomach paralysis and this and that. How many subjects are we talking about? We're talking about feeding millions of people here. We're not talking about deaths. We're talking about losing weight is not easy. It's not fun. It's a challenge. It's a lifestyle. Doesn't come overnight. That's where the education comes in here.

[00:18:39.740] – Sergio

The education is critical to understand. I tell people all the time don't come in here to I want to lose weight in 30 days. We're not the right program for you. I see it in our you know we do some very interesting meetings and pull out these clouds and we get all the stuff like I took a shot last week I didn't lose any weight.

[00:19:00.520] – Sergio

But on the contrary we do have people that say hey I took a shot last week and lost nine pounds. I have thousands of that's.

[00:19:10.850] – Allan

That's kind of point is everybody react differently.

[00:19:14.210] – Sergio

I'm scared of those Allan by the way. I'm scared of those because those are the people that really they got to work at making sure that hey this wasn't magic. It's just like everyone's body's different and realize that because your body was affected a little different on how you break down this peptide inside your body and how it affects your peptide. That's the key to understanding.

[00:19:36.010] – Sergio

And that's where we are trying to different. And as we grow our business that's where we are leading to.

[00:19:42.330] – Allan

And so at MD exam they're going to have access to nurses and doctors to be having these conversations of I'm feeling this, this is going on. And they're going to get that guidance and education.

[00:19:52.910] – Sergio

Yes sir. That's correct.

[00:19:54.850] – Allan

Cool. Now there's another product and this is sort of what you I guess you kind of call this. This is the ultimate one. Okay. So this is the newer one I think. I think it's newer but they kind of came up around the same time.

[00:20:05.330] – Allan

And it's called Manjaro.

[00:20:07.400] – Sergio

Yes sir.

[00:20:08.420] – Allan

Okay. And this is a different peptide polypeptide it's called Tirzepatide and it so it works a little differently. Can you talk a little bit about that one and why that one would be a little bit more of an intense treatment.

[00:20:24.630] – Sergio

Okay. So as we know everyone's hitting immediately. How do I take that shortcut? How do I get to that shortcut you know?

[00:20:33.200] – Allan

Oh right. And I'm telling not to take the shortcut, but I'm just saying it's just knowing that there's a higher level treatment. And this is not about I hear I hear tons about how this is the biggest thing that's hit LA in forever because you're about to do a photo shoot and you want to drop those nine pounds and, well, that actress or that model did it. It can seem like that because that's how some people are going to use it. But the reality of it we're a health and fitness show and the principle being is if you're really struggling with obesity and the other comorbidities that come along with it, this is a tool.

[00:21:11.190] – Allan

And so knowing the tool and knowing what the pluses and minuses are of a tool is valuable.

[00:21:18.210] – Allan

You don't want to take a hammer when you need a screwdriver. And I think that's the point is that maybe one of these is the screwdriver and the other is the hammer. But you've got to define what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:21:29.850] – Sergio

Well said. And let me jump in there because if you want let me give you a little bit of both so people understand how this works because I go through this all the time with people.

[00:21:39.600] – Sergio

And they think bigger is better. I think very few people understand this like I do. My sister in law is that person for  FYI. So I had a past Christmas at my house with six of her friends that were not happy people.

[00:21:57.960] – Sergio

Why? Because my sister in law put them.They all want to lose weight. All qualified. She hit them up immediately with Manjoro tirzepatide.

[00:22:06.690] – Sergio

Okay. Two of them it worked on four of them were miserable at my house for Christmas Eve.

[00:22:12.820] – Sergio

I sat there and talked to them for a while.

[00:22:14.700] – Sergio

I love to hear feedback because the more I get the more I could help.

[00:22:17.560] – Sergio

So where are we going to go at this?

[00:22:19.340] – Sergio

Semaglutide is a one peptide, is a GLP one, tirzepatide which the brand name is Manjoro. It will be approved for weight loss. It is already on the books for approval. It is approved but it hasn't verbally been said.

[00:22:34.530] – Sergio

And you can look it up, you see it yourself. But that triggers two peptides, the GLP one which is the semaglutide and the GIP which is the gastric inhibitor peptide.

[00:22:45.750] – Sergio

Those two I'm going to go back down on what you said. It's the screwdriver versus the hammer.

[00:22:52.010] – Sergio

Okay. Great model. I love it there. We want to help people minimize their caloric intake, which is something else I'm going to talk about CRM which hasn't been spoken about in this space. Which is massive but we want to make sure that people have some food.

[00:23:08.080] – Sergio

Tirzepatide. It kills your hunger to the majority of people. Again, it's not the same on everybody.

[00:23:15.230] – Sergio

By week five in our program, if you haven't hit that four to six seven pound change or percentage in your weight loss, we typically move you to tirzepatide, and we've been very successful with about 90% of those. We do not allow anyone to start on Tirzepatide unless you come with an understanding or we have information that you already took it. So do people lie and try to get around it? Yes, absolutely. All the time.

[00:23:44.980] – Allan

Do I have no, people aren't going to lie.

[00:23:47.820] – Sergio

No. Why not?

[00:23:51.240] – Sergio

We do have a lot of famous people across the board.

[00:23:55.660] – Sergio

I talked to males and females, primarily females. I'm a person that's accessible. I want to help people.

[00:24:01.500] – Sergio

When people say, oh, you took my money, this is what happened.

[00:24:04.530] – Sergio

If there was so much business. What happened was when Nova NorDis pulled a $25 copay, everyone got backed up. Our company went from a three to four day delivery turnaround time after your consultation to a 55 day turnaround time. I'll take the blame for it. My setup just outgrew us real fast. We're there today and we're not only going to help as many people, but there's 144,000,000 Americans that need our help.

[00:24:31.100] – Sergio

How can we help them? Semaglutide and or tirzepatide today are expensive through big pharma, they're getting more and more economical. And a lot of know you do have to find out. Do your homework. Just don't buy it off the corner of the street. Buy from someone who has credibility.

[00:24:50.470] – Sergio

Our company is Legit script certified. You cannot just go buy your legit Script certification. That allows us to mass market as a pharmacy because we do have a physical pharmacy ourselves in Texas 503, a sterile pharmacy and a non sterile. We do specialize as well Allan in rapid dissolvables, ribelsis is a product that big pharma came out with. The problem is you have to take so much of it because it has to hit your stomach. We made a rapid dissolvable that's a couple other facilities in America making it because it helps people, because a lot of people that does it don't want the injection. They take a couple of these tablets daily. Dosage.

[00:25:30.290] – Allan

Yeah. I think that's a key point I missed before. I should have put that in the plan is that this is not just a shot. There are pill versions. There are oral versions of it as well. Okay, cool.

[00:25:40.350] – Allan

Now, up until now, kind of the final go to for someone who was obese was they'd go to their doctor and explain to their doctor they can't lose weight. And the doctors realize, okay, there is a fundamental problem here. They would go to bariatric surgery, lap bands, things of that nature. Surgery either to actually cut the stomach or to actually just put bands to restrict the size of the stomach. As a result, someone wasn't capable of eating as much.

[00:26:09.840] – Allan

And then that kind of got them to losing weight because they would eat a little bit and be full. And obviously, if they followed through with that, everything's cool.

[00:26:19.610] – Allan

But most people tend to eat a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. They've still got the food issues and things like that. Can you kind of give us some of the pros and cons of these polypeptides relative to bariatric surgery?

[00:26:32.760] – Sergio

Absolutely. Okay, so two things here. Bariatric surgery will be going away. That'll be a thing in the past and the next. Technology here has taken tremendous leaps. AI, teaching big pharma the ability on how to create and manufacture medication at levels and speeds that we were never able to the next 60 months. Supposedly, there's about another 25 to 35 peptides in the works.

[00:27:03.990] – Sergio

And some of them are tIrzepatide is what we are seeing now. There's three others. Another one by Eli Lilly, two in phase, two by Pfizer, and there's somebody else. But almost every big pharmaceutical company in America's got a name brand, will have a product that will outdo anything bariatric surgery could ever do.

[00:27:24.610] – Sergio

So my answer to you, AlLan, this will be gone. But let me just say one more thing. This today is a very expensive product and or solution because the educational level I got to tip my hat to Nova NorDis. The educational level that they have put out on the market space is worldwide, is phenomenal, but they're also you've seen, they've become one of the most valued companies in this world overnight.

[00:27:50.970] – Sergio

But I will say one thing to this, is that if people don't understand that minimizing your caloric intake is an issue, we'll never get to the next level because you said it. You made a very good point. The bariatric surgery, where does it go? It's a lesson. You need to adapt your body to it.

[00:28:16.590] – Sergio

If you don't change those habits and. You don't make that effort, if you don'T make that lifestyle change, it's an issue. And let me go back to one thing you said. It's easy for me sometimes you may say to sit here and talk a lot about this. People say, oh, you don't know what it is because you're not overweight. Blah, blah, blah.

[00:28:34.510] – Sergio

I'll tell you one thing, my friend. I think the biggest thing in America is wearable depression. It's the number one mental health problem in America.

[00:28:43.410] – Sergio

You wear it 24 hours, seven days a week.

[00:28:47.110] – Sergio

Trust me, I'm out there to help people. People say, oh, you took my money.

[00:28:50.090] – Sergio

I give medication away all the time. If you can't afford it, I'll work with you. Our company works with you. You know what I'm saying? What I don't like and let me tell you one of the biggest thing that I do talking about bariatric surgery. Let's nip something in the butt real quick. I've had two patients in the last four months that are a 16 and a 17 year old female. Both parents have been ridiculed because in our state, you have to be 14 years old to have bariatric surgery. That's a big step for a parent to take for a child, a massive step. Those parents came to me, as I do have many other parents that have come to me. And I think the biggest thing that makes me smile in this business is.

[00:29:37.100] – Sergio

The smile that I put on people's faces when they see that their lives get changed by losing two pounds, five pounds, 40 pounds, whatever your goal is, it changes. These two females that came to us both came back almost all their weight. They've both been on a program here for about six day months, like seven months. The other one's almost done because the idea here is to wind yourself into a maintenance program.

[00:30:02.850] – Sergio

I don't believe in the philosophy, like, you should drive this up to the top. It doesn't work. And you're taking 2.4 milligrams. No, type one diabetics. We have two, three dozen type one diabetics that this is knocked out. This side. This I don't want to get into the medical side of this, but the bariatric surgery, if it's helped you out and there's people that have gotten beyond phenomenal success with it, so I'm not knocking it, but they do charge our insurances and tremendous amount of money. You put your body through a tremendous amount of hurt, okay?

[00:30:37.930] – Sergio

And that hurt comes from building tissue now inside your body. So now you are a person trying to cope with the recuperation of surgery. If you have you mentioned something earlier at the time of eating is critical.

[00:30:52.490] – Sergio

The cortisol, the fight or flight, the whole thing where's your body storing foods and blah, blah, blah. We go into all that.

[00:30:57.970] – Sergio

But there is a room everywhere to make this work. There's room for semaglutide, there's room for tirzepatide. Bariatric surgery is very tough. I don't want to take doctors'opinions away because I'm not a doctor. I'm sure there's many doctors who disagree with me and say, hey, no, you're wrong, Sergio.

[00:31:17.630] – Sergio

I'm not a doctor. But I do have some clinicians, and I understand this very well.

[00:31:24.830] – Sergio

I do know that this should be affordable to everyone. And Allan, I promise you this. In the next four to five years, the positive results we have from these two products alone and semaglutide will change the way people look at each other, the risk factor levels, cardiovascularly wise. And I tell you what's bothering everyone in America and all over the world.

[00:31:50.360] – Sergio

Is that when enough people take it and it minimizes their ability to eat or want to eat and makes them healthier, because it's proven everywhere they don't like that. Because for the first time in history, I think one month, these last couple of months, beverage sales are down. Food sales are down.

[00:32:11.370] – Sergio

When you touch the scales at a very small percentage, you don't like that. But five years from now this will be dirt cheap because the risk level, you want everybody on it, right? Your cardiac level has been proven now it increases by 25%. So what we're trying to do is help the person who could afford it.

[00:32:31.180] – Sergio

And help the person who can't by educating them one way or another. Our company does not bill insurances. We're a fee for service company only.

[00:32:39.860] – Sergio

But I will tell you this. I sell it as inexpensive as anybody in America. It's not because we sell a product. We're partnered with the ten largest 503 A and B pharmacies in America along as we own our. So it's critical for us to make this work.

[00:32:57.300] – Allan

So now again, I want to kind of bounce back to the concept of okay, I'm not eating or I'm not eating nearly as much as I used to. This makes nutrition really hard because we need vitamins and minerals from our food. We need essential amino acids, we need essential fats. These are things our body cannot make for itself. So we're going to need some level of nutrition.

[00:33:22.670] – Allan

How do we counsel someone to eat enough where they're getting a proper nutrition when quite frankly, they just don't feel hungry because they're reacting the way this polypeptide is encouraging them to react?

[00:33:39.910] – Sergio

Very good question. That is a very good question.

[00:33:42.650] – Sergio

And I think that's I'll be honest with you, I think that is very the trick. Tricky question, and I'll tell you why.

[00:33:49.870] – Sergio

Because we get all sorts of responses across the board. We have people that say, hey, I was doing great, everything was great and all of a sudden I just fell off the wagon.

[00:33:59.970] – Sergio

What do you mean? Well, some people's inabilities to eat caused some of the cons that we talked about before. So finding and understanding from the get go that you're going to have to find a way to change your eating habits and make sure they work because we do know where this next question is going to go to. If you don't eat properly, how do you make this effective?

[00:34:26.210] – Sergio

So much in the word that it's conducive for you that you're not tired. Because if you don't eat, you don't get the right nutritions. This is a snowball effect, right? Understand the end of the day, it'll be like, oh, I'm diet. So we do have to understand that. And I think it's one of our biggest things that we try to teach.

[00:34:42.490] – Sergio

And we're going to continue to teach. And finding people like yourselves and partnering up with everyone has a different way of thinking about how you are going to change this.

[00:34:52.590] – Sergio

People say, how do we know when and how everyone's different? But I will say something. I've been read and I try to do as much reading as possible. We have thrown out all sorts of stuff. Finding some type of protein bars, some type of bars, because they're available everywhere.

[00:35:08.760] – Sergio

These energy bars, protein bars, granola bars. They're crucial. They're crucial. I say these little bites, it's not eat it, I know it, I get it. Take a bite. Take a bite every couple of hours. Put a little timer every 2 hours, 120 minutes. No, you need to I get it. So we need to make those changes. Those are habits. Those are those couple of minute habits. It's the same thing. If you are not willing to exercise, I don't want you on this program.

[00:35:38.650] – Sergio

I don't. You're going to fail. I'm setting you up for failure. And that's where the nutrition comes in here, because let's get to that point. Let's get there and we'll deal with that. And that's critical here, because if you're not going to drink water and you're not going to do that part about exercise, and when I tell people exercise, I go very clear. When I tell people get up 15 minutes earlier, 20 minutes earlier, you don't need to join the gym. This is free.

[00:36:05.990] – Sergio

No, you don't understand. I'm 280 pounds. Not a problem. What do we got to do? How much do you do today? Where are your goals? I have people that have lost 120 pounds in a year with us and have been off now the program, for 90 days and have not gained but five, six pounds. We're doing all sorts of surveys, test. We are going to be running some interesting stuff now. So going back to your point and touching base on the nutritional factors, I think understanding that people like yourselves in education and knowledge about how do I continue to help myself while I'm on a program like this, and I say program that's sometimes taken the wrong way.

[00:36:42.450] – Allan

Yeah, quick question. This is just a curiosity question from my perspective, because one of the ways I've personally used and I've worked with various clients is on the low carb keto scale.

[00:36:54.870] – Sergio

And so it would seem to me if someone's not eating, they're effectively, let me say mimicking fasting. They are fasting, effectively. Do you find that your patients tend to get into ketosis? Is that where they end up from burning the body fat to have the energy and operate?

[00:37:12.830] – Sergio

You know what? That's a very good question. I'm not going to tell you yes or no. I've heard and seen some interesting results. We've seen, but I don't want to tell you yes on that that is true. Can they fall into it? Absolutely. Are we trying to identify, hey, what's the best way? Because remember, the way I feel and the way you feel and the way we both take our avenues is not right nor wrong. It's how you feel.

[00:37:36.930] – Sergio

I tell people if you're at a half, listen, let's go to the semaglutide route. Week one to week four is a quarter milligram. Week five to week nine or to week eight is a half milligram. Nine to twelve is a milligram 13 to 17 or 17 is one seven, and then two, four. That's what Big Pharma has seen great at. Okay, if I have a patient that's losing good weight at a half a milligram weekly, why am I moving him? No, because Big Pharma said so, and they're going to push it down your throat.

[00:38:10.340] – Sergio

No, that's where we step in and say no, because that's where we differentiate ourselves from it. So if I could tell somebody how and what to do, in a sense, we are putting all sorts of educational. We have recipes, we have all sorts of stuff that we've putting in our portal to help people on the nutritional side. But I think more than anything, it's understanding, hey, what you possibly could endure. Starting this little program. Because I think everyone's mindset's got to be set for the following hour. And how long are you going to take this for?

[00:38:42.220] – Sergio

That's something I tell people, you're not on this for life. I personally tell people, this is a four to six month window. It all depends on where you're at. So everyone might be a little different. If it's got to be an eight month window, that's fine. But I've had some people say, I quit. I stopped. Why? Guy down the street, Barber, said I lost 26 pounds in seven weeks. I freaked out. I get it. What do you have?

[00:39:11.490] – Allan

So let's take a step, because I really appreciated that you mentioned exercise. I talked offline a little bit, and you said you're an athlete. And we both agreed that even though you might not be competing at an elite level, we're all athletes and living the life that we're trying to live and the fitness level that we need for our own selves. But one of the struggles that I have and we see this with starvation studies, we see this with individuals who try to lose weight too quick, is they tend to jettison a good bit of muscle at the same time that they're getting rid of the body fat. So they're losing lean muscle mass, and in some cases, that could even be bone density. So they're weighing less, but they're not losing what they thought they were losing. They're losing both. And so I see exercise and nutrition as critical components to make sure that this weight loss is geared more towards body fat than toward the whole body.

[00:40:08.760] – Allan

What exercises do you think someone should be doing while they're going through this that will give them the best opportunity to lose what they actually want to lose, which is body fat, to get the right health outcome and actually end up stronger, better fitter when this is all said and done?

[00:40:27.030] – Sergio

Very good question. So you started off right out you nailed it right off the head. I think we're all athletes in this. This isn't you. This is everyone being an athlete. This is the journey of life.

[00:40:36.730] – Sergio

This is getting up in the morning and wanting to challenge it. And that's how I say it starts in the morning. It's an everyday thing. We've seen it. Everybody's challenges are different. Everyone's lives are different. But exercise must be a critical thing. When I tell people about exercise, I make it simple. I don't want you to go join the gym if you can God bless you. That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you're going to be lose weight faster or quicker. It's the determination you have every day to spend those extra few minutes and let's go into something about exercising.

[00:41:06.390] – Sergio

You lose too much weight. What you lose in muscle density, it's very true. A little different for everybody. But two things you must understand. I talked about the components of nutrients and kind of the energy bars or protein bars and that same thing with the smoothies and shakes like that. Those are also really good ones because you can put all sorts of stuff in that and you don't need a big shake.

[00:41:29.860] – Sergio

You need a shake. And that's a meal supplement to a lot of this. But protein, the right intake. Let me say something real quick. Eating at home is critical, my friend. Eating at home is critical. I travel this country all the time. There's fast food on every corner everywhere. It's easy to eat fast food nowadays. I know it's tough when people say. Oh, you don't understand what it costs. I get it. I get it.

[00:41:57.740] – Sergio

You know what our program cost to purchase $5.66 a day for a 90 day program? I promise you I'm trying to help you out. The amount of people that go out and spend $7 $10 on coffee a day is ridiculous. It's hard to eat at home all the time.

[00:42:16.780] – Sergio

People don't want to come home and cook. People want to make life a lot easier.

[00:42:20.930] – Sergio

And that's part of the challenge in losing weight. How do you break those habits? How do you change those habits? Losing body fat and muscle mass go. Hand in hand with the majority of the time. And you hear when people say, oh. Man, it's hard in the afternoons. I'm big into the peptide space. We do work with other peptides so.

[00:42:41.510] – Sergio

We do understand how this works. I'm a big individual into. Like I got friends of mine say, hey Sergio cheater life because I've been on a couple of different peptide programs on the BPC. BPC one five seven has done great for my gastric, for my intake, for everything from my throat down the rebuilding of muscle tissue. BPC one five seven and TB 500. I'm a patient.

[00:43:08.010] – Sergio

I had surgery on my right shoulder, three screws, the whole nine yards. I had my achilles. I'm an athlete but gone through the works. And I believe in peptides because I'm a results guy. I would be sane if I didn't get results myself. And I'm not saying this is for everybody, but I will tell you something. When people come to me and say. I feel horrible, I feel like this, I tell them really nice. Have you tried to make a change in life? That's it. And it depends on that outcome. And that response is whether I jump in immediately. Because my thing is how do I put a smile on that person's face? Because at the end of all, it's about the attitude. If you got the wrong attitude, I've been trying and nothing works. Let's give it another shot. Let's try it. I got some 60 day.

[00:43:56.410] – Sergio

We're going to do something. I'm working with a lot of athletes. I'm working with the guys at the Pivot. I'm working with the guys at a couple of different places. And we're going to come up with something interesting because we are going to run a study. I am going to do some stuff that's fun. I like to make this fun. Losing weight is fun. When you lose the weight, right, you know it. You're a personal trainer. You see the personal satisfaction that people get when they lose two pounds. People are like, oh, I don't see it. Whoa, look at my watch. Wow. Yeah. It's areas that they don't see and then all of a sudden, once they believe in themselves is the key.

[00:44:30.460] – Sergio

So let's go back just real quick two things you went hand in hand is nutrition and exercise. They're critical. Is there a challenge in them when you lose a lot of weight? Yes. That is something that we must continue to educate. Find individuals like yourself to be able to educate the people out there that need that knowledge on how do I continue to build muscle? Because you know what? You might get a little weaker, but help yourselves out. The stretching part of it. A lot of people say, I can't work out. Let's stretch. You stretch properly. You got a great workout. Once you start getting that blood flow. Things change a little bit. And a lot of people say, hey. And I've learned this. This might be a dumb one, but they always say here, how do you grow like a big sense of energy boost in your life? Stand up and stretch. Lift up your shoulder. Stand up.

[00:45:16.950] – Sergio

You understand that military style thing, it works for everybody. It works. It puts it and then you're like, but let's find I don't have an answer. If you see I haven't given you a direct answer because I don't believe I have one. I don't know if there is one. Because everybody is different. But if we educate them properly, I think we could win the battle of all of us helping people.

[00:45:37.610] – Allan

Sergio, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:45:47.890] – Sergio

I love that. The first one is always I tell our people. Are you committed? That's our first strategy is to commit yourself. If you are not committed to being the best person you could be, you're wasting your money, you're wasting your time, and you're wasting your energy. And then when I say, people say, I'm doing it for who are you doing this for? What are you doing this for? You have to do this for yourself, because it's about feeling good. If you don't feel good, stop. That's why I've been in several businesses. They've all been in the same space primarily, but there's a personal satisfaction asking people, how do you feel today? I feel great. That's a good feeling to get from people.

[00:46:26.490] – Sergio

So when you ask this, tactics and strategies for that is number one is commit yourself to it.

[00:46:31.640] – Sergio

Number two is make that plan. Make that daily plan. Write down those top three things that you're going to do, and people say, it's dumb, it's stupid. Make that little to do list. You're getting up in the morning, you're going to walk for 15 minutes. I'm going to eat three things. Do that. Commit yourself to it. You commit yourself to losing weight, and you do this properly. It works.

[00:46:52.500] – Sergio

It's proven. This is a game changer in life. This isn't just it's a non control. You need to exercise. This is the first time in our lifetime, I mean, obviously mine, and as I've grown up in this, because I've been involved in this 24 years, one way or another, that a doctor could write a prescription for this and say, hey, Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith need to make sure you're exercising. Go exercise today. Start today. You know, people like, oh, I'm going to get dizzy because you've always heard that exercise and medication, that's a problem. It's always been a problem. No, sir. In this, if a man, female, son, child, whatever it is, you want to lose weight, you must commit yourself to it.

[00:47:40.630] – Sergio

This is a booster. This is a helper. People say, you're cheating now. You're not cheating in life. If you need a little help, what's a problem. That's my strategy. How do you make your body feel better? Like you said, how do you get up in the morning with a smile? I promise you, if I could help you lose a couple of pounds every week, will your life change? I have it all the time with people, all the time, and I'm pretty damn successful at it. So I think strategies, commitment, plan A, plan B is that plan A doesn't fail. That's the commitment to losing weight and is following your habits, making sure you're eating a little bit and making sure you're exercising. And by the way, if you don't drink water, this doesn't work. It doesn't work. People like, oh, I drink water. Water and the nutrients. We could feed the nutrients, but you need H20 to make this work, because the amount of water you lose in muscle and forget muscle mass. Body fat is tremendous. Your body freaks out. Your body freaks out. I tell people, hey, I lost whatever it is, seven pounds, eight pounds. How much water are you drinking? No. Eight glasses of water.

[00:48:55.450] – Sergio

You lost ten pounds and you haven't increased your intake of water, you've decreased it? No, let's increase it. And this goes back to where we started, Allan. Education. Let's educate. Let's educate our patients. Let's educate our people. How do we make America healthy? Let's make people healthy. There's nothing worse than when I travel around and see people that aren't healthy. And the worst that hurts me is when I see younger kids that aren't healthy. We could help. There's help today. There's help.

[00:49:27.800] – Allan

thank you, Sergio.

[00:49:29.630] – Sergio

Couldn't say this a while ago. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

[00:49:32.810] – Allan

So if someone wanted to learn more about you and MD exam, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:49:38.540] – Sergio

You could send them directly to start.mdexam.com or go to Mdexam.com.

[00:49:44.730] – Allan

All right.

[00:49:45.470] – Sergio

There's plenty of information there, and someone could always reach out to me directly at sergio@mdexam.com and I'll make time.

[00:49:54.910] – Allan

Well, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/614, and I'll be sure to have the links there.

[00:50:01.740] – Sergio

Thank you very much

[00:50:02.960] – Allan

Sergio. Thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:50:06.540] – Sergio

Allan, thank you for your time and I appreciate it. Hopefully you guys got some out of this and I could help you guys lose weight. Feel great. Thank you again, Allan.

[00:50:13.850] – Allan

Thank you.

Post Show/Recap

[00:50:14.610] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:50:15.880] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. This was really a very helpful educational interview about these amazing weight loss drugs that are being marketed these days, because I see these commercials, I see them every day. Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, Manjaro, I just saw that one this morning. I've been really wondering about what these things are, and it was interesting to have this education and listen to one of the manufacturers talk about how they work and what they're good for. So it was pretty interesting. But I do have some feelings on these things, as I imagine you do as well.

[00:50:50.880] – Allan

I do. Everybody wants the easy button.

[00:50:57.410] – Allan

Let me just do this, and then it solves the problem. And then I don't have to think about it anymore.

[00:51:02.690] – Allan

And if I had to look at this and say, okay, what does this mean? I would choose this over surgery.

[00:51:10.150] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:51:11.270] – Allan

Every single time I would choose this over surgery. I just would. There are side effects, and so if you're going to go this route, you need to do your research because the side effects are not pleasant, and there are a lot of people that will start taking it and they cannot tolerate it, and they get off of it. And so there's that. The other thing that happens here that is really a struggle for me is that you're in your 40s 50s 60s you're already losing muscle and bone, sarcopenia and ostopenia.

[00:51:46.360] – Allan

And if you don't manage your nutrition and exercise as a part of this program, you will lose it faster and you will become frail sooner. Okay? I want you to hear that.

[00:52:00.630] – Allan

You will become frail, you will lose muscle mass, and you will lose bone density. So enjoy the BMI. While you sit. In a dependent care facility because you can'T take care of yourself because you don't have the muscle mass or bone density to do so. So that being said, if you go at this responsibly, then you're going to understand that these things work by making you not hungry. Meaning you're not going to eat. You will have to force yourself to eat what you do eat. Most of the time you're just not going to be as hungry.

[00:52:44.120] – Allan

If you're going to be hungry at all, it's going to be on the last couple of days. It lasts about seven days. That's the half life of this whole thing. And so basically you'll take it and for the first three or four days.

[00:52:54.940] – Allan

You probably won't want to eat anything. You might even struggle to drink enough water, okay? And then you're probably going to say. Yeah, now I can eat a little bit. Okay? But if you do that, if you effectively starve yourself, you're going to lose muscle mass and bone density.

[00:53:12.230] – Allan

So go at this with the mindset of lowest effective dose, okay? If they recommend that you start increasing the dose or you think increasing the dose is going to make this go faster, rethink that strategy.

[00:53:29.650] – Allan

Because you need protein. You need the building blocks. There are essential amino acids and essential oils in our diet. We have to get. Essential is not this thing where you're talking about the essentials, like the essential oil stuff where. It'S just pure these essential oils, essential fats and essential amino acids in nutrition means your body cannot manufacture them.

[00:53:54.730] – Allan

Okay? Your brain is 60% fat. You need these essential fats to have a healthy brain. You need these essential amino acids to build muscle and maintain muscle. So if you're not getting nutrition, you'll lose it. You'll lose your brain, you'll lose your muscle and you'll lose your bones. You just will.

[00:54:16.870] – Rachel

It's serious. And the phrase serious as a heart attack. And the reason why I say that is because if you're so severely obese or you have these comorbidities, this could be a tool in helping you lose the weight to become a healthier body. To have a healthier body. But patients need to realize that there's a big picture. There's a long game to this. And so losing weight can get you to a place. But also the nutrition, you need to eat properly. You need to have ideal movement. No matter what your size is, you have to be able to move. So there's like a big picture. And this is just one very serious tool that could be deployed, should somebody be a good candidate for it? But yeah, it's certainly not for everybody, and it is very serious.

[00:55:04.670] – Allan

Yeah. And so, yes, if you're obese or you've got comorbidities, this can be a great tool to help you drop some of that body fat, but it has to be done along with lifestyle changes. Again, I've talked to people about this that have started it or that have used it. I was talking to one guy, asked his results, and he was really excited about what had happened because he started a lifting regime.

[00:55:32.910] – Allan

He managed his protein and nutrition, and then he used his product to basically lose body fat. And he felt great. He maintained his muscle mass and he lost weight and so for him, it was a wonderful tool. Now, one of the other sides of this thing is eventually the intention is. You go off of this. Okay, I'm looking at it. You see different prices, but we're talking $1,500 a week.

[00:56:04.230] – Rachel

My goodness.

[00:56:05.610] – Allan

So you do the math. That's more than $6,000 a month.

[00:56:10.950] – Allan

Okay. Now, is it worth investing that for this and for a lot of people? Maybe it is, yes. Okay.

[00:56:19.210] – Allan

You're going to invest over $6,000 a month to do this, but there's going to be a time when you go off of it, unless you're just weird. And you just want to keep paying that money and going when you need to.

[00:56:30.430] – Allan

But you're going to probably go off of it. And if you haven't made the lifestyle changes, then you're going to be that friend you saw the person that got the bariatric surgery? Yeah. They lost 80 pounds and then gained 100 back because they went back and they stretched the stomach out again, eating the way that they were eating before.

[00:56:49.600] – Allan

They weren't getting the nutrition because they were eating crap food.

[00:56:52.900] – Allan

Their body kept telling them, eat more, eat more. You didn't get what we need. Eat more. And they answered with eating more of the crap versus getting the nutrition their body needed. And so you've got to make some nutritional changes and be ready for that, not just while you're doing it, but the whole time. So again, you can maintain the loss. A lot of people love to go out exercise and think that's the way you'Re going to lose weight. No, but exercise can be a key to maintaining weight loss.

[00:57:23.150] – Rachel

Well, you've seen it, Allan, with all the clients that you've had over the years. You've seen it how when people make changes in the kitchen and they combine that with weight loss or I'm sorry, exercise, and they combine that with adequate rest and recovery and sleep. I mean, there's a lot that goes into successful weight loss. And it's important to make all these changes in how you're eating, what you're eating, how you're moving, when you're moving, as well as utilizing tools like bariatric surgery or weight loss drugs like this, like serious. Weight loss drugs, not the junk you buy at the drugstore.

[00:58:02.250] – Allan

I'm all jittery. I'm all jittery. I got to be losing weight. I'm all jittery.

[00:58:07.050] – Rachel

But it's a big picture. There's a lot that goes into this. This is just not a shot, just not one thing to do. There's a lot to this. Like I said, it's a long game. You've got to look for use this now. But how healthy are you going to be a month from now or two months from now or a year from now? I mean, there's a lot that goes into it, not just

[00:58:27.220] – Allan

and the prices of this stuff will invariably go down over time as they make more, and then other versions of it come out. So the prices of this stuff will go down.

[00:58:37.560] – Allan

But again, if this is a part of your strategy, it can't be all of your strategy. There has to be the rest of it. And so if you're thinking about this from being healthy, not just what you weigh, but being healthy, you need to be smart about it.

[00:58:55.690] – Rachel

Yeah, I feel like, thank goodness this is a prescription that you need a doctor's assistance or a prescription to get it. But it would be also important to have other experts on your team, maybe spend some time with your nutritionist or some sort of an expert nearby, and also maybe get a trainer to help you in the gym. I mean, if you're going to go get to the doctor to get a shot, you might as well rely on some other experts to get you through this safely. In the long run,

[00:59:25.750] – Allan

have a plan.

[00:59:26.960] – Rachel

Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

[00:59:30.510] – Allan

All right, well, Rachel, I'll talk to you next week.

[00:59:33.270] – Rachel

Take care, Allan.

[00:59:34.370] – Allan

You too. Bye.

[00:59:35.360] – Rachel

Bye. Bye.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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Let's Say Hello

With Coach Allan being off this month, there won't be a hello session for a few weeks. We'll see you after mid-October.

Interview

[00:01:47.090] – Allan

Deanna, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:01:50.210] – Deanna

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

[00:01:52.850] – Allan

Yeah, we found each other because you have a podcast, Fitness and Sushi. And so I reached out to be a potential guest I think you probably had listed on one of the sites where you're looking for guests, and that's kind of how I came across you. You and Tony, your husband is your co host on Fitness and Sushi. And then as I started kind of diving into, okay, who are these people and what are they doing out there? I really resonate with your message. I think that so many times people think, well, I just got to find the right diet.

[00:02:24.990] – Allan

I've tried them all, but I just haven't found the right one. And so they're always out there looking for the diet. They're looking for ways to burn more calories than they consume. And so they go into the gym and they find one elliptical. When they get on it, it says, okay, in an hour, they did 500 calories. And then the other elliptical, which is a little different, it says they burned 600. So they now have a favorite elliptical. It's just this whole idea of, okay, I have to do all this stuff.

[00:02:54.540] – Allan

Add all this stuff to my life to lose weight. And your message is quite different than that.

[00:03:01.710] – Deanna

Yeah, what you just described is like, I'm going to math myself to a better body or better health. I'm going to math myself. I always say that we are not math. Of course math is a consideration, but we're all about the whole person, which includes behavior, psychology, emotions and preferences. And also we have these brains that we have to deal with that work a certain way, they're hardwired a certain way, we have to understand them. Because if you're just mathing your way through health and fitness, your brain is not going to like that. It's not going to let you be consistent with that.

[00:03:41.740] – Allan

Yeah, and even beyond that, I mean, yeah, we are hardwired at some level. But our past, our traumas, our history. Everything creates these grooves that's valuable if you were a hunter gatherer and you know, okay, yeah, if I go that way, that's poison ivy and I'm going to be suffering for three days. If I go that way, there's a bear and I'm going to be dead going that way. And so your brain starts hardwiring and soft wiring to kind of remember and know.

[00:04:12.580] – Allan

And as a result, our behavior is not fixed, but it's pretty hard to change. And unfortunately, diet culture doesn't really help us do that.

[00:04:23.730] – Deanna

No, it goes directly against a lot of it. It puts us into famine mode, survival mode. It puts you into a state where you are literally now working against your brain's strongest desire, which is for you to survive. And if you are not eating enough, if you are putting yourself into a state of scarcity, then those are going against your brain's hardwiring desire to survive. And yes, you can overcome it. People do for bursts of time or long periods of time, but they do it and it's extremely uncomfortable. It's not pleasant, it's very difficult. It requires a lot of energy. And it's the hardest way to be consistent when you're working against your primitive. Survival skills or primitive survival mechanisms.

[00:05:16.950] – Allan

Yeah, of course. I'll go on various forums like MyFitness pal and Facebook and things like that. And I think what's so disheartening to me is that there'll be someone and they'll say, I'm eating at a calorie deficit and not losing weight. They're doing the math thing and they're on a diet and they're doing it and they're like, okay, I know everything I'm eating. I know all my movement. I put it all into the formula. I should be losing weight and I'm not losing weight. And they get just so disgusted with that whole thing that when I read it, I just know they're going to quit because no one is reaching out and telling them that they have to do some of this other work first and then the other parts kind of fall in place. So it's not a diet, it's just changing behaviors, changing thoughts.

[00:06:06.460] – Allan

Now, you call that healing. Can you kind of get into how that works and how you guys see that as the basic paradigm of how we can fix ourselves so that we get healthy without having to do all the diet stuff and being frustrated by it?

[00:06:26.360] – Deanna

Yeah, I think the idea is that with healing is actually not that you need to fix yourself. It's that you came into this world intuitively, like having a good relationship with food, having a good relationship with your body and society and all its ideals and the weird things that humans do. Comes in with diet culture and really has kind of destroyed those relationships. So healing is getting us back to that foundational place where we are waking up every day and we're taking care of ourselves. And food isn't like an obsessive thought throughout the day and controlling our bodies is not an obsessive thought throughout the day. And what that does is allow you to return to a state of thriving instead of surviving, which is what dieting puts you in.

[00:07:15.420] – Deanna

And when that is your state of mind, then you're much more consistent with any kind of changes that you make. And yes, there's work to do and habits to form through that process. But if you're dieting, you're forming those habits and also working against your brain. You're also working against the way that you are wired. And so healing is really just getting you back to that place of having a good relationship with food and reminding you that you can trust yourself with food. So many people don't trust themselves with food and because a calorie deficit has frustrated them and they've gotten to this place of binging and restricting and binging and restricting over and over again because of that whole math equation thing and following meal plans and feeling frustrated. And when you follow a lot of diets too, no diet ever tells you. Like, this is an us problem.

[00:08:14.190] – Deanna

They say, this is your problem. You're not trying hard enough. You shouldn't have any excuses. There's something wrong with you. And the reality of that is that if 97% of people can't follow a diet for more than two years, then something's going on there. It's working against human being psychology and human beings behavior to our survival instincts. So we want to try to get them back to that healed place where we take away the damage that diet culture has done to those relationships and then start them fresh from that place.

[00:08:52.430] – Allan

Yeah. One of the things I like that Tony had in his book, which I wrote down, is called The Ideal Body Formula. And you guys have talked about this a few times, I've heard Is where you talk about how weight loss is not the objective. I don't think you said side effect.

[00:09:11.540] – Allan

I don't think Tony said side effect. Was that because I've always said, if you're doing the things that your body needs to be healthy and feel safe, then you're going to lose weight if you need to lose weight. If your body needs to lose weight, it will do the natural thing once you start getting it healthy. And weight loss is just a side effect.

[00:09:34.230] – Deanna

Exactly. I think your example of going on to the reddit Forum or the MyFitness Health forum and someone's trying so hard to lose weight and they're getting so frustrated. And the reality is that what we have seen and what we know is that the harder you try to lose weight, the harder it is to lose weight. And the more you try to force this thing to happen, the more resistance you're coming up against, the more frustration you're coming up against, you're more likely to give up. Your behavior really changes. And so what we propose is that you stop trying to lose weight and you start trying to really just wake up every day and take care of yourself in the best way that you can without all the dieting stuff, all the dieting attitudes and mindset and take care of yourself and kind of relax into that. And what we have seen is that that has been the way that people who couldn't lose weight finally can because they're forgetting about it.

[00:10:32.650] – Deanna

They're just trying to let it go and trust their body, that their body will do the right thing and just make changes because they want to feel good, because they deserve it, because they're finding joy in their new routine. That's a big piece of what we do. And when you are finding joy in these things and you're enjoying what you're eating, you're enjoying your exercise, it does become a natural side effect. You're not trying to do anything. And because of that, it's very sustainable.

[00:11:00.780] – Allan

Yeah, it's funny because I will, I'll be out there and I'll be looking at this and that 1% or 3%, whatever it is, the people who successfully lost the weight, doing the calorie counts and things like that, you can look at them on MyFitness pal and it shows you how many days in a row they logged in. Not that they logged their food, but they logged in and they're usually hundreds or thousands of days. And so this is someone who doesn't trust themselves.

[00:11:29.360] – Allan

And so they are probably logging their food every single day and probably will for the rest of their lives. I'm accountant, so I don't mind doing number crunching data and all that kind of stuff, but that just seems so exhausting.

[00:11:45.010] – Deanna

That's not the life I want for myself. I say that to my clients all the time. I don't want to be like 80, 90 years old and still be having to log everything that I eat and weighing myself every day. My grandmother is 93 years old and every time I see her, she still tells me how much she weighs and that's a major thing on her mind still. And I just think, God, I don't want that for myself. And I mean it's the best thing I've ever done, is letting go of that obsession and just enjoying my fit lifestyle, but enjoying it.

[00:12:17.680] – Allan

Right. And it's one of the things I'll talk to my clients about this. They get weirded out by the fact they're like, okay, what's my meal plan? And I said, I don't know. What's your schedule next Thursday? And let me pull up my calendars. So you see, I couldn't write you a meal plan because I'm not living your life. I don't know the food you like. I don't know how they make you feel. And so I said, well, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go eat, and I want you to write down in your journal how you felt before you ate and then write down in your journal how you feel after. And then the next day and what that will be is over time. You're basically telling yourself you're teaching yourself. Okay, these are the foods that serve me, and these are the foods that don't. Okay, does that mean we're going to not eat the foods that don't serve us? Of course we are.

[00:13:08.910] – Allan

Aunt Martha has a birthday, and we're all going there because she's turning 90, and there's birthday cake. We're going to eat a little bit of cake. That's okay. So many people get so frustrated with. Oh, well, I broke the rule. Yeah, I ate some bread. Oh, my God.

[00:13:26.930] – Deanna

And the irony of that attitude is that it makes you eat more bread and more cake. That's the irony of that. The more you tell yourself, I can't have this and put something on this pedestal of this is bad, or this is forbidden, then every time you eat it, your willpower will break down and you eat it.

[00:13:48.490] – Deanna

But you're telling yourself, this is the last time this is bad, so I won't do this again. And so that intensifies when you eat it and you eat more of it. Yeah, and then that happens all the time.

[00:13:59.230] – Allan

Don't see a purple elephant. Don't think about a purple elephant.

[00:14:02.660] – Deanna

Yes, exactly. Or my favorite one is like, telling my kids going into their room and out and they see a toy that they haven't played with forever, and suddenly it's going away. They're like, that's my favorite toy.

[00:14:18.130] – Deanna

with food, when you threaten to take it away. It's going to suddenly look shiny and exciting, because now it's scarce.

[00:14:27.110] – Allan

You do see this. If you get into the forums where there's a particular way of eating, be it vegan or carnivore or keto or whatever, if there's a certain way of eating, there are purists out there that are going to tell you, they'll even ask. It's so funny. Someone will plug in, and they'll say, well, can I have some tomatoes with my hamburger meat or ketchup? And it's like, well, of course you can. You're a grown person. If you want a little bit of ketchup on your burger, have a little bit of ketchup. You know, the bun probably isn't serving you very well, but the burger, it's fine. If you tolerate meat, then it's fine. But it's just interesting to me that we do get into this thing and then we see the people who are so strict as leadership for almost like a cult and so we go, okay well the diet god just told me, I can't have ketchup on my hamburger meat.

[00:15:29.690] – Deanna

Well and that honestly is really tempting when you are so anxious about your weight and your body you don't want somebody to be like yeah, you can have cake sometimes and you could be.

[00:15:43.600] – Deanna

Lackadaisical about that's not what you want to hear. You want to hear what's going to work fast, what's really exciting, what's really going to fix this because it closes a loop in your brain. It's like I've got this problem and if I here is the answer and it's very extreme and because of that it's going to work and it's going to work fast. And I've got all these proof and before and after pictures without any regard to whether it's sustainable or anything. Sometimes it's a trauma response. I think dieting can be like a trauma response to the anxiety of I'm not good enough, my body's not good enough. I feel bad about myself. I feel this anxiety about who I am and what my body looks like. And so we're much more vulnerable in that position to the diet guru who's going to tell us, like, don't ever eat a hamburger bun again, or whatever extreme thing is that it does feel very exciting to somebody who is desperate. And so that's one of the major things that we work on is to help people to get rid of that body anxiety because the body anxiety will begat the food anxiety and you're more vulnerable to those strict rules and that strict lifestyle that doesn't work, that makes everything worse.

[00:17:00.670] – Allan

Fast is not sustainable and usually strict is not sustainable. You have to feed your body and you have to heal your body as you said.

[00:17:08.480] – Allan

Now another area where because again, as you said, there's anxiety and there's trauma. And there's things that are going on and so as a result our relationship with food is almost like an abusive marriage.

[00:17:23.070] – Deanna

Yes.

[00:17:23.790] – Allan

And so something goes on in our life and now we have to eat it away because this is our companion. This is our friend until it's not because we're going to feel guilty as crap about doing it later. So there's this concept, it's aptly called emotional eating. How can someone recognize when they're emotionally eating?

[00:17:45.610] – Deanna

Well a lot of people first of all I think, think they're emotionally eating. When they're actually just deprived and restricted. So deprivation meaning they have a scarcity relationship with certain foods and restricted meaning they're not getting enough to eat at their meals. You have a lot of women, especially who are skipping meals because of career pressure, because kids or just they don't have time, they haven't prioritized it. And so they're showing up to the end of the day after a long day with their stress built up.

[00:18:21.820] – Deanna

And they're sitting down and they're eating nonstop and calling it emotional eating because they're stressed and emotional. But in reality, what we've seen is that when we help people to come out of those two states of deprivation and restriction and they're eating enough throughout the day and they're regulating themselves physically and mentally with making sure they're satisfied with their food and what they're eating, that emotional eating is reduced by quite a bit. So we work on that first. Before we ever even get to emotional eating, things need to be eliminated first and then you can start to take a look at emotional resiliency. That is such a big deal.

[00:19:04.910] – Deanna

I think that so many of us are so afraid to feel our feelings. I think that anyone who's 40 plus never had any sort of emotional as a kid or growing up, feelings were not talked about. Like, I was allowed to feel happy, but nothing else, like everything else was very uncomfortable for my boomer parents and very shoved under the rug and they just didn't know what to do with it. And so a lot of what we do is teach people how just teach women how to just feel their feelings, which is to not sit and ruminate in the thoughts that are coming along with the emotions, but to actually sit down, turn off the thoughts that are running, and stop the story and just feel the physical sensations. Because emotions are very physical and the sensory experience of it and tuning into that helps you to process it and get it out. And when you learn how to do that and you also learn adaptive coping skills for those emotions, which is you're feeling the feelings, and then maybe you still need to soothe yourself in some way. There's other things that you can try that are so freaking simple that nobody ever believes that it's going to work. It's just sitting and taking deep breaths, doing tapping, if you've ever heard of tapping, just going for a quick walk. Standing outside and looking at birds.

[00:20:26.330] – Deanna

These things sound so simple, but it really works. It helps you to soothe yourself and to release certain hormones and chemicals in your brain that will calm your nervous system down. And you also need to learn how.

[00:20:40.990] – Deanna

To complete the stress cycle. Because the stress cycle is you go into fight or flight, your body needs some kind of signal that you're safe. What we've been doing is coming home and using food to tell our body that it's safe. Which is like, there's no shame in emotional eating. That's number one. If you emotionally eat, that's nothing to be ashamed of. And it's not even always a problem. We always say it's only a problem if it's a problem.

[00:21:02.370] – Deanna

But completing the stress cycle can look like just shaking your like coming home and just shaking your body, shaking your arms and legs. It's a way that animals do this to shake the stress and move the energy out of their body. We can do the exact same thing. And it's very simple, but it works. It definitely works.

[00:21:20.970] – Allan

Yeah. That's kind of a concept that in my coaching training, they called it breaking the chain. So basically what you're doing is you realize, okay, I shouldn't be hungry, but I want something, and I just need to know if this is emotion or is this actual hunger. And I thought it was funny, you have an email list, and I'm on it. So I'm reading your emails,

[00:21:42.770] – Deanna

I know what you're about to say.

[00:21:43.940] – Allan

You wrote the other day about the statement. I guess the advice was, okay, would you eat broccoli? You kind of tore that one a hole. But even with that, there is a need to somewhat figure out the right way for you to break that chain.

[00:22:02.570] – Deanna

Yes.

[00:22:03.380] – Allan

Can you talk a little bit why not broccoli versus something else?

[00:22:07.270] – Deanna

Well, first of all, I think that that's just misleading because never in my life when I have been super hungry have I ever craved broccoli. That's just not I don't crave broccoli. I eat broccoli because I know it's good for me, but I don't crave it. I've had clients told me before that they crave it, but I never have, the whole idea is, like, if you're not craving broccoli, then you're not hungry. And so that's not totally true. I've seen clients who, when you get so hungry that your blood sugar is low, you don't crave broccoli.

[00:22:39.480] – Deanna

You don't crave vegetables or anything with any kind of fiber in it because that takes too long to digest. You crave chips and sugar and high calorie foods because your body wants to get energy to your brain really fast. So just because you're having those cravings doesn't mean that you're emotionally eating. You might just be over hungry and let yourself get too hungry. We see that quite a bit.

[00:23:02.480] – Deanna

But also it doesn't solve the problem, which is like just telling yourself, well, I'm not hungry, I'm not hungry. I just want to eat, doesn't give you a solution to that problem. And the solution is to emotional eating tonight way past, or it'll be weeks in the future at this point, but when this comes out but I'm teaching an emotional eating Master class tonight because there's a lot to know about emotional eating. It's a multipronged approach. It's definitely not as simple as am I hungry or am I just bored? Am I hungry or am I emotional? You have to know what to do with the emotions. If you are just emotional, you've got to have proactive things put in place. Like daily I journal my feelings and just get it out onto paper. That helps me process it. So there's the proactive side, and then there's the reactive side. What do you do when you're having the emotions? You don't run from them. You feel them. And then you soothe yourself in a way that works and turns off the stress cycle. I'm sorry about that email. You have to be kind of opinionated. About these things sometimes.

[00:24:10.990] – Allan

No, it was great because it really made me think about, okay, I understand. We have to break the chain or at least have to understand why we're doing what we're doing.

[00:24:18.720] – Deanna

Yeah.

[00:24:19.400] – Allan

Slowing yourself down, whatever that can be. I love the idea of journaling. So sit down, or you eat and just sit down in your journal for about five minutes. And I'll tell my clients this. I'm like, you're a grown ass man or you're a grown ass woman.

[00:24:34.220] – Allan

If you want to go have a slice of pizza and drink some beer with your friends, you do it. You do it. And sometimes you do it not just because it's taking care of you, but sometimes you're taking care of them. A friend calls me up and says, Look, I'm going through something. Can we go have a couple of beers? My neighbor, I think tonight yeah, he's going to be building something across the street, and we watch over his property because he doesn't live on this island.

[00:24:58.640] – Allan

And he just said, hey, let's have a cookout together. It's my birthday. I want to celebrate my birthday. So what am I going to do? I'm going to go over there. I might have a couple of beers. I'm going to have some cooked food that wouldn't be food I'd necessarily eat. I know tomorrow I'll wake up and. I won't feel 100% because I found out what 100% feels like.

[00:25:17.110] – Deanna

Yes.

[00:25:18.790] – Allan

Okay. And so when you find out what feeling good feels like, then you know when you're not feeling good. So far, we've probably spent most of our lives feeling terrible and thinking that's normal.

[00:25:29.790] – Deanna

Yeah. And I love everything you're saying. That's the whole picture of life. Right. It's like I could get to the end of my life and be like, man, I was perfect with my eating, and I was perfect with my exercise, but I missed out on beers with my friends or I missed out on wine night or margarita night. That's not balance to me. It sounds so cliche and so simple, but it really is all about balance and being able to live this lifestyle that allows you both, and that's going to look different for everyone. So. Yeah, I love that.

[00:26:01.840] – Allan

Right. And that's why I'm going to ask you this next question. But I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. And one of the reasons I asked that question that way is because I think when someone goes down the diet rabbit hole, they're rejecting happiest.

[00:26:21.050] – Deanna

Yeah.

[00:26:21.710] – Allan

When they think they have to burn off calories so they can eat what they want to eat, they're not paying attention to what fitness really is. It's not about how long or how fast you can go on that elliptical. It's about what your body's capable of doing. And sometimes it's not just being an endurance athlete on the elliptical machine. You got to be able to lift stuff, push stuff, move stuff, move your body so there's a lot more to fitness. So when someone's on that diet culture thing, they're often not paying attention to their fitness and they're not paying attention to their happiness. And nine times out of ten, because of the way they're approaching this with this restrictive approach and everything else is going on, they're not actually even taking care of their health

[00:27:03.640] – Allan

So the things that matter most in life, health, fitness and happiness are completely avoided as a topic in their lives. When they're on this diet. And so I'm going to ask you so folks can get off the diet roller coaster.

[00:27:20.690] – Allan

I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:27:30.270] – Deanna

Okay, first of all, we have something that we call the ideal body. And the ideal body is not your perfect body. It's not societal's ideal, but it's kind of like what you're saying. It's those kind of three things put together. It's your healthiest body that's in perfect harmony with your healthiest mind. It's your physical health, but not at the expense of your mental and emotional health.

[00:27:54.730] – Deanna

So that is kind of our definition of that. And those relationships are good food, body, exercise, and mind. So what was your question again?

[00:28:04.010] – Deanna

Three tactics?

[00:28:04.960] – Allan

Just three strategies or tactics that we can take away that could help us be healthier, more fit, and have more happiness and joy in our lives.

[00:28:14.750] – Deanna

Okay, well, I would say think in terms of addition, not subtraction when it comes to food. Abundance, not scarcity.

[00:28:23.530] – Deanna

Like I mentioned at the beginning, that we have to work with our brain and not put ourselves into that state of scarcity. Because your brain, when you're in scarcity and it can't have sugar, it can't have cake, can't have pizza, there's a process that happens in our brain automatically that starts scanning its environment for pizza and sugar. And that is just how it works. We cannot get away from that as human beings. So don't think about what you can't have. Even I tell this to my diabetic clients, to clients who really need to eat less sugar and really need to eat less cake. Don't look at what you can't have. Start looking and finding the things that you can and stay focused on addition, not subtraction. You're not trying to get rid of anything. You're just looking for nutrient dense foods and trying to get those in and enjoy those.

[00:29:13.090] – Deanna

So addition, not subtraction.

[00:29:15.270] – Deanna

This is going to be more towards happiness, and that's stop thinking of your body as this prize or an outcome. I think that when it comes to happiness, we think that happiness lies at the other end of that weight loss. And so that's why we're like, we'll do whatever it takes, we'll work really hard and then we'll be happy when we get that body. And I've been there, I did that.

[00:29:42.840] – Deanna

I dieted down to what I thought was going to be I had ABS, I had like a six pack. And the body I thought was my dream body, it did not make me happy. It was really shocking. And some people don't believe me when I tell them that. They're like, I'd like to try. But I was actually more insecure than ever. I felt like I was on display. I felt like everyone was watching everything I did.

[00:30:07.250] – Deanna

And it was like a temporary hit of happiness. And then I had to work harder to keep it.

[00:30:16.020] – Deanna

There was so much pressure on me. So get rid of that idea. Just get rid of the idea of achieving something with your body and start thinking in terms of today. How can I take care of my body? Just stop objectifying your body at all. It's not that you don't like it or like it. It's just that this is your body, period. It's your home, you live in it. It's not an object, it's you. And to just practice self care every single day and start thinking, being more present about that.

[00:30:47.970] – Deanna

Third, I think, let's see, all or nothing thinking, I think is probably one of the best things that you can do for yourself is to get out of that all or nothing state of mind where I'm either all in and doing it perfectly or I don't try at all. And just find the messy middle where you're taking messy action. We call it half ass action sometimes, like, something just take action, get out of your head, stop overthinking everything and really just find something.

[00:31:17.480] – Deanna

Something that you can do is better than nothing at all. Like doing one workout a week is better than doing no workouts all year. And doing eating a few fruits and vegetables throughout the week is better than eating none at all.

[00:31:30.350] – Allan

Awesome.

[00:31:31.180] – Allan

So Deanna, if someone wanted to get in touch with you and Tony, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:31:36.750] – Deanna

Well, I since you're listening to a podcast, I'm assuming you like podcasts. So the Fitness Position podcast is where Tony and I, we banter, we talk about the healing process and we talk about how we've overcome it ourselves and how we've gone through these very things ourselves. We have a long history with this stuff, but the Ideal Body Formula book my husband Tony wrote and he went into depth. It's our strategy. It's how to heal your relationships. There's an assessment in the book that you can take and find even what your relationship with food, body, exercise and mind is like, and that is at idealbodyformula.com.

[00:32:16.250] – Allan

Okay, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/606 and I'll be sure to have links there. Deanna, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:32:27.150] – Deanna

Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast.

Post Show/Recap

[00:32:30.130] – Allan

Hey, Ras.

[00:32:31.240] – Rachel

Hey, Fitness and Sushi sounds like a really fun podcast.

[00:32:35.870] – Allan

Yeah, if you go back, I was on, I think, September. Her August 30 episode. So the episode that came out last Wednesday, I was on her podcast.

[00:32:46.410] – Rachel

Awesome.

[00:32:47.030] – Allan

She's on mine. So we kind of just swapped back and forth because we have similar messages. In the way that we look at food and movement and things like that, is that the things you do should serve your body, and it shouldn't be strategies and tactics or diets and exercise before you actually start working on the mindset stuff. That's where their whole ideal body concept comes in is this, okay, you're not on a diet. You're eating. You're feeding yourself. And you've got to work on your relationship with food. You got to work on the relationship you have with your body, and you got to work on the relationship that you have with yourself.

[00:33:25.250] – Rachel

Well, I love that she had said you need to find joy in both eating and exercise. And she had mentioned, too, you need to consider what foods serve you. Just like you mentioned. I mean, we're not just eating calories. We're eating foods that we want to enjoy tasting and that do good in our bodies. And it's not that always foods are good and bad. You guys talked about craving broccoli. I don't crave broccoli either on a regular basis.

[00:33:55.130] – Allan

Well, I crave Brussels sprouts, but that's only because I can't get them.

[00:33:59.630] – Allan

Yeah, but I think the thing is if you start understanding what food does for you, it's energy, which is the calories, and you need energy. No one sits there and says, I want less energy.

[00:34:12.610] – Allan

I want less energy. And then no one says that because. They want more energy. But energy comes from food. So if you're eating good quality food. And you're eating the right varieties of it, you're giving your body the nutrition it needs and the energy it needs. And your body turns on. And so there's just opportunity there. I mean, we're going to talk about vitamins next week, but vitamin B12, if you're not eating meat or animal products, you may not be getting enough B12. B12 is a key component to your body producing energy. And where is it going to come from? Mostly animal products.

[00:34:54.020] – Allan

Okay, so when people start looking at foods and label them as good or bad based on what they've read or what they've heard, it just creates this syndrome, this cycle that just self inflicts over and over and over. It's like, oh, I ate a bad thing. Well, I guess I'll start back on Monday. Yeah, well, dude, it's Tuesday. You're going to wait till Monday because you had a cookie today. You're going to destroy the cookies for the rest of the week and start back on Monday. That makes no sense whatsoever.

[00:35:24.230] – Allan

So you got to fix that relationship stuff, because if you don't do that, you end up in these cycles where, oh, I screwed up. I did something bad. I'm a terrible person. And you're just beating yourself up over that.

[00:35:37.930] – Rachel

Right. Well, it's important to find foods that agree with you. There are certain foods I eat that just don't agree with me, but also find foods that are palatable besides the ones that are manufactured to be palatable.

[00:35:51.720] – Allan

Yeah, well, I was at a party. And I should have eaten before I went. I didn't. There was vegetable platter, just the basic broccoli, carrots, and forget what the other one was, but little tomatoes, I guess, and it had the ranch dressing. And so I go over there with a plate, and it's like, okay, there's chicken nuggets. There's all kinds of sweet stuff. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess. I'll go grab some broccoli, and I put it on my plate. No one else was anywhere near this vegetable tray. And so I grabbed some of the broccoli, and I grabbed some of the ranch dressing, and I went over. I'm just eating this, and then I'm still kind of hungry. So I go back to the table, and no one else has touched the broccoli or the carrots. But the broccoli looked good, and I liked what I just ate, so I grabbed more of it.

[00:36:39.950] – Allan

By the end of the night, I had eaten all the broccoli, every last bit of it. No one else had any. There were still a lot of carrots there. I don't know that anyone else ate carrots. I don't know anyone ate people were eating some of the tomatoes. But just at that moment, that wasn't what my body wanted or what I wanted. I just ate broccoli, and I enjoyed it.

[00:36:57.930] – Allan

So it's not that you would crave a vegetable over it. The basic principle was this, if you're going to label broccoli as good and you're going to label a cookie as bad, and that's in your head, then you're going to label yourself based on what you just chose to eat

[00:37:18.720] – Rachel

success or failure.

[00:37:20.320] – Allan

Right.

[00:37:21.060] – Allan

And who are you? Who are you? Yeah, I wanted to lose weight, but I ate the cookie bad. okay.

[00:37:29.380] – Allan

And that's what they want to try to get away from, because that's what gets toxic, because someone says, hey, I just baked these cookies I brought into work today. You should have a cookie. Are you literally going to look them in the face and say, no, I'm not eating any of your cookies?

[00:37:48.690] – Allan

have some of the cookie. You don't have to eat the whole one. Just say okay, yeah, I'll try it. And you take a little pinch off and you eat it. And there should be no remorse to that. You're basically doing something kind. You're doing something nice. And if you think, well, I'm being bad, this is bad, then you can't come from a genuine place of love and caring and kindness because you've labeled this whole event as bad.

[00:38:14.020] – Rachel

Right.

[00:38:16.510] – Allan

And it shouldn't be.

[00:38:18.140] – Allan

A little bit of this or a little bit of that is not going to derail you. It's not going to kill you. And unfortunately for a lot of people, mentally it does. They let it derail them rather than sit there and say, oh, I don't know how many times when I was in ketosis, I would know. I'd almost know as soon as I got home.

[00:38:35.850] – Allan

I'm like, crap, something's not right. And then I'd check my ketones either then or in the morning, and I'd be out of ketosis and I'll be like, dang, something was in the food.

[00:38:50.170] – Allan

 I didn't know was in the food. And now I'm not in ketosis. Now I could have lost my stuff and said, well, since I'm out of ketosis, I may as well go eat everything in the kitchen that I wouldn't eat otherwise. And I didn't approach it that way. It was like, okay, well, that happened, right? I know next time I'm not getting that. I know it's on their menu. It was delicious.

[00:39:09.700] – Allan

But if I want to stay in ketosis, that's not going to serve that purpose. So I'm not going to have that. I'm choosing not to have that when I go back because I know it will take me out of ketosis.

[00:39:23.270] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:39:24.160] – Rachel

Well, that's just the point, is that it's just this one meal, this one snack, this one thing. We're on a health journey, hopefully for decades, years. Just one day out of that snapshot of time. It's not that big a deal. And we need to learn how to give ourselves a little grace when these things happen. I mean, I always talk about the holidays when my mom breaks out the delicious Greek cooking, particularly the baklava. You can imagine there's a lot of sugar in the baklava. But it's a celebration. It's a time to enjoy the family traditions. And it's just a moment. I will probably pay for it later, personally, but it's worth it you know, and you just move on. The next day can be a better day.

[00:40:14.130] – Allan

Yeah. And that's really what Deanna and Tony are all about, is just this idea of let's work on our relationship. Let's think about why we feel the way we feel. Why do we put value on a dress size?

[00:40:27.910] – Allan

Why do we change clothes five times in the morning? Because we don't like the way this dress or this thing looks on us, so we're going to change into something else. Why do we do that?

[00:40:37.370] – Allan

Why do we put so much worth in size and weight? And that's kind of the whole point of where they're going with this, is let's just work on being healthy and actually being kind to ourselves. And if we'll do that, if we'll fix the relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship we have with our body, the relationship we have with food, the relationship we have with exercise, if we work on those relationships and we truly think of them as relationships, and every relationship takes investment. And so if you invest the time and effort to build that relationship up, to build yourself up, to understand that your body is what it is, but you can help make it better with some basic work, realize, okay, I'm not going to approach food like there's good food and bad food. I'm just going to ask myself, is this something that's going to serve me and give me the nutrition or not?

[00:41:32.980] – Allan

Is this something I want to build my brain out of? Is this something I want to build bones out of? And occasional cookie is not going to matter.

[00:41:43.750] – Allan

But if I'm eating cookies every day.

[00:41:45.890] – Rachel

Right,

[00:41:46.660] – Allan

then it does. So that's a different thing. Basically, I'm okay to put in a little of substandard stuff here and there, but I can't make that the staple. I can't make that the norm. And that's really where they're coming at.

[00:42:00.890] – Rachel

I love it. That was really fun. I imagine their podcast is a lot of fun.

[00:42:04.790] – Allan

Yeah. So I'm going to be a guest on there. If you go over to Fitness and Sushi podcast, well, wherever you listen to this podcast, it's there in the show notes for this episode. I'll probably have a link to their podcast. So you can just go on over to their website. But it's everywhere. You listen to podcasts. And so I'm on their August 30 episode, which was last Wednesday.

[00:42:26.330] – Rachel

Sweet. Can't wait to listen.

[00:42:28.460] – Allan

All right, well, I will talk to you next week.

[00:42:31.040] – Rachel

Thanks, Allan. Take care.

[00:42:32.820] – Allan

You too.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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Another episode you may enjoy

How diet culture is keeping you from losing weight – Abby Langer

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:52.390] – Allan

Hey, Ras.

[00:02:53.710] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. How are you today?

[00:02:56.090] – Allan

I'm okay. Just okay.

[00:02:58.360] – Allan

I went for a long walk this weekend and it was really hot and humid and I think I tripped myself back into hypothermia again. Yeah, so I think my sodium dropped too low. And I have had a really tough couple of days.

[00:03:15.950] – Allan

Sleeping, a lot of it, but just trying to get more salt into my diet, more potassium into my diet and just try to get myself back on an even keel. But it's been a tough couple of days.

[00:03:27.160] – Rachel

Oh, that's miserable. It just feels bad. When those types of events happen, that's really a game changer.

[00:03:34.870] – Allan

Yeah, I just went out on my normal walk. I'm like, okay, do this. And I originally said, I'll just do 12 miles, you know, what the heck?

[00:03:42.060] – Allan

And I got to the six mile mark and I'm like, you know what, I'm feeling pretty good. I'll go ahead and go and make it more of a 13 point something walk.

[00:03:51.980] – Allan

I walked all the way to the sign that's at the end of the road, and then I turn our fence gate and I just turned around and.

[00:03:58.830] – Allan

I'm walking back and got to mile 10, and I'm like, okay, something's not cool. I gutted it out for the final 3.25 miles, but yeah, got in and I was like, I don't feel good. So I got a little bit of hydration in me, cooled myself down, took a shower, took a nap, thought, okay, that should do it. Went out to a celebration party, some friends were anniversary, and then we got back, it was like 05:00, and I'm like, Done. So I'm like, okay, going to go to sleep.

[00:04:28.610] – Allan

I slept for 13 hours.

[00:04:30.310] – Rachel

Wow.

[00:04:32.630] – Allan

And then got up and said, okay, I'm up. And I started trying to do a few things and then just crashed again.

[00:04:39.370] – Allan

So I took another nap. And then last night went to bed at 8:30 and didn't want to get up this morning at six, but I did. It is what it is.

[00:04:49.470] – Allan

I still got a lot of work to do. I fell behind on, but it's just my body hit a line and I know I have low sodium. That's one of the advantages of testing myself over time, is just knowing I run on that lower line and I just have something I have to be aware of. But I just pushed a little harder than I should have at that particular time and went over the line.

[00:05:11.410] – Rachel

That's the crazy thing about the hyponitremia is that that line is not always right in front of you, like a bright neon sign. The right temperature, the right amount of sweating, not enough sodium in your diet over the last few days. I mean, just all of that stuff, it's hard to see sometimes. And then it lines up and then there you are, and it just sucks the life out of your body. It's hard to recover from that. It really is.

[00:05:38.110] – Allan

Well, but I caught it. I think I caught it early enough that just adding sodium to my diet for the next couple of days should do it. The last time, the first time I got it, they had to put me on IVs for a couple of days to get me past it. But I think I can get by with just some higher sodium and potassium in my food.

[00:05:58.440] – Rachel

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're hopefully on the mend.

[00:06:01.510] – Allan

How are things up there?

[00:06:03.000] – Rachel

Oh, good.

[00:06:04.040] – Rachel

Last week I was talking with you. I was in Boston. Now I'm back home. It's nice to be home again. We had a great trip. Like you, we're having incredible heat right now here in Michigan. I was just out for a run this morning, and, man, I think I sweat as much as I drink. But as a runner, I always have my electrolytes with me. I don't usually run with just plain water. It's usually electrolytes. So I was fine, but it's hot.

[00:06:31.960] – Allan

Yeah. So got to watch that. Can be a big deal. So pay attention to the signals your body's giving you, because it is. You just have to listen.

[00:06:41.910] – Rachel

That's right.

[00:06:43.110] – Allan

All right, well, you ready to have a conversation with Kim Shapira?

[00:06:46.710] – Rachel

Sure.

Interview

[00:07:12.810] – Allan

Kim, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:07:15.380] – Kim

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

[00:07:17.570] – Allan

Well, I really enjoyed reading your book. It's called, This is What You're Really Hungry For: Six Simple Rules to Transform Your Relationship With Food and Become Your Healthiest Self. And I think one of the reasons I really got into the book early on, one, I look at the table of contents, I'm like, well, we might not agree there, we might agree here. I went in kind of I'm not going to say open minded, but I kind of said, okay, we're going to dive into this. But you said something really early in the book that I think we overlook it so much that.

[00:07:48.790] – Allan

We'll see a friend go on a diet or we'll read something in a magazine while we're standing in line at the grocery store, and it's like, wow, this person lost 30 pounds in three months. Now, the little fine print at the bottom says, these are not typical results but we think we should be able to do the same thing and get the same result, and it just doesn't work like that. And then you use the word. I think that's really important is then we feel shame for not being like someone else.

[00:08:20.060] – Kim

Yeah, it's interesting. I was touring the bookstore the other day and kind of reading as many different books as I could just for the fun of it, and I came across a book called Contagion, and it was saying that the most viral posts and emails that had ever occurred are the ones that gave people the feeling of awe. And it's really interesting is when you read an article or you walk past something or you hear your friend saying, I was successful doing this. It's that light bulb that goes off that kind of ignites some excitement in you that thinks, like, maybe there's hope and maybe I can do that too. But the reason why diets fail is because people don't deal with what triggers them. That takes them off the path. And so, as a registered dietitian, I believe the way that we eat makes our bodies well. The problem is people don't want to eat certain ways because they don't understand the call to eat things that aren't making them well. And so in the beginning of my career, I put everybody on diets thinking, you're going to want to eat kale because you know it's good for you and it has a bunch of different vitamins and minerals.

[00:09:28.990] – Kim

And the problem is, they were eating ice cream and cake after because they were eating the kale because someone told them it was healthy. They weren't eating it because they felt good about it. And what they really wanted was the ice cream and the cake, or so they thought.

[00:09:41.130] – Kim

But it was because they were restricted from it in their minds because they had been on a diet that is really what called them to even eat it to begin with. I know I probably just went off on a whole another tangent.

[00:09:51.690] – Allan

No, that's exactly what I meant. My story, okay, I went paleo because I hired a dietitian, and that was the hot thing at the moment. So she's like, oh, you've got it. Do you know what paleo is? I'm like, no. So she gave me this whole little notebook thing that she had made up all this information, all these studies, all this stuff. I'm like, okay, cool, I'll give it a shot.

[00:10:12.200] – Allan

And it worked until it didn't.

[00:10:15.350] – Kim

There it is. Did you get that line from my book?

[00:10:19.000] – Allan

No. Well, no, it's it's actually actually, I was thinking before we came on, I was thinking about Dr. Fung because in his book, The Obesity Code, he said all diets work and all diets fail.

[00:10:29.660] – Allan

And so it's like what I ended up doing was I was just tweaking what I was eating and I ended up transitioning into keto, and then the rest of the weight dropped off. And so for me, the paleo keto approach worked very, very well. And as I got to talking with hundreds of people in this field, because this is episode 599, I realized that there are 1000 million different ways to eat because there's a billion people plus on this planet, there's a way that you should eat that's very different from the way I should eat. And while what I did worked very well, for me, it may just be completely unsustainable for you. And so it's great to explore. It's wonderful to explore different foods, to explore different ways of eating and realizing, as you said in the book, this is about providing nutrition for your body.

[00:11:22.010] – Allan

this is not about saying, okay, food is this savior out there that's going to make my life more exciting and more fun and we'll be here bored because I got to sit here and answer this phone and it's not ringing. So I think I'll just go to the vending machine and buy a candy bar because that's going to be a lot more fun with a candy bar than just sitting here with no phones ringing. So it is that thing of it's really hard.

[00:11:49.220] – Allan

But if you can tailor the way you currently do things and make small adjustments with these six rules, this could be a very sustainable way for just about everybody to tweak who they are. What they're doing just a little, and make some substantial changes that are sustainable.

[00:12:08.370] – Kim

So what I really heard you say was, if you can be curious, which people don't know to be curious, and that is one reason why they fail. So they already assume they know what they need to do and they're also totally neglecting what they need to do. And I think it actually starts with being curious, which you are very curious. I mean, look what you uprooted your life, you take care of things, you pay attention. And the thing about I'm sure we're going to get into is rule number two, eat what you love, but make sure the food loves you back.

[00:12:38.840] – Kim

What I have found is that people have a hard time sustaining weight loss because they're not really eating the foods they love, they're eating foods other people love. They're not paying attention to the way their physical body feels. They already know this is going to be good for me, so I'm just going to eat it. Not paying attention to joint pain, digestive issues, things like that. They're not curious about specifically what's important to them. So they're focused on weight loss and they're not focused on weight maintenance. And I would say changing your relationship with food, the side effect is weight loss.

[00:13:11.620] – Kim

Changing your relationship with food, the side effect is weight loss. So instead of focusing on losing weight, changing the focus to changing my habits, getting curious about why I'm eating and what I'm eating. And the only way that a person, I believe, like you can begin this process is to go back to kindergarten. And that's learning the rules. So I know it sounds scary when.

[00:13:35.850] – Kim

I say eat whatever you love, but. Now it's the first time somebody actually has permission to be guilt free, shame free to eat what they love.

[00:13:44.660] – Kim

And then that opens the door for them to say, I didn't even realize that those were making me sick. That's why I don't feel good. I thought I loved ice cream. It turns out it's beating the crap out of me.

[00:13:56.140] – Allan

Right. And that was one of the initial disconnects I had, was like, no, please don't tell. Eat whole food.

[00:14:02.240] – Allan

Please just eat whole food. Stay away from the processed stuff. I know it's delicious, but they want you to eat more of it. And so I was thinking as I went into this and we're talking about relationships, and I'm like, okay, we all probably know someone in our lives that had a really toxic relationship.

[00:14:15.960] – Allan

I was one of those people, but I stayed in that toxic relationship. And so in your book, you talked about the four reasons we eat.

[00:14:25.270] – Kim

Yeah.

[00:14:25.910] – Allan

Okay. And some of these reasons, if you listen to it from a relationship perspective, you're like, that's the abusive girlfriend, that's the abusive boyfriend. That's the relationship you want to get out of if you're eating for that reason. Can you talk about the four reasons?

[00:14:39.840] – Kim

Yeah. And I just have to say, I was scrolling on Instagram this morning, and I ran past a quote that it said something about, before you go to sleep at night, call back all your energy. And I loved this because we put out so much energy in different places, and we take other people's energy. And the idea that we can call back and fill ourselves back up with our own energy is really important to me. So I always think in terms of, here I am in my physical body.

[00:15:06.500] – Kim

And I have an emotional self, and I have a physical self. Right. And most people are paying attention to their emotional self. They're thinking their mind is telling them what they need to do, not even aware that their mind is wired to help you survive in the most pleasurable way. And people are not paying attention to their physical body and all the signs and signals it's giving us all day long of telling us exactly what we need.

[00:15:29.240] – Kim

And so if we can kind of learn to separate, understanding that our emotions come and go every 15 minutes and moods last longer, but our physical body is always telling us when we have.

[00:15:39.630] – Kim

To pee, when we have to eat. I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks, oh my God, I have to pee six times today. Where are all those toilets?

[00:15:46.760] – Kim

Right? We trust that we will find a bathroom. It might get a little uncomfortable, but we trust it. And so we need to start trusting our physical body and paying less attention to what our emotional selves are telling us. And so the four reasons why a person eats is because, number one, emotional reasons. Number two is because the food is in front of us. Number three, because we're having cravings. And number four, because we're physically hungry. And the reason why I want you to read this book is because I want you to only be eating for physical hunger and to have a normal relationship with food. Which means sometimes I eat birthday cake on a Monday, but I'm not doing it on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

[00:16:22.850] – Kim

Right. Food is fuel, and it only takes up one important place in our life.

[00:16:27.280] – Allan

Yeah. And that's why, again, with the whole food thing is like this is a building block. And so, as you talked about relationship, it's like interning yourself inside. One of the things that I've really gotten become a lot more aware of in the last few years is that there is this inner part of us that needs love, needs attention, and we're the ones not giving it to ourselves. We're not listening to our body, and we're not telling our body and showing our body that love.

[00:16:54.370] – Allan

And so as the result, we go out and we eat things that we know are bad for us, and we're not feeding ourselves. And so when you start changing the relationship with food, you start saying, well, okay, yes, I could have ice cream for dinner. I'm a grown adult.

[00:17:11.290] – Kim

Calories and calories.

[00:17:12.470] – Allan

Right?

[00:17:12.920] – Kim

Calories.

[00:17:13.940] – Allan

What I know is that even if it'S the good stuff, the Blue Bell ice cream or Haagendazs or Ben and Jerry's or whatever your poison is, that's fine. It's good quality stuff, but it's not going to nourish your body the way getting a good balance of vegetables and proteins and all of that is going to go.

[00:17:34.700] – Kim

It would be so cool if you stopped thinking about ice cream for dinner. And I think that's where we have to start is when we know we can have it and we put it on hold and we don't worry about it.

[00:17:46.690] – Kim

Right.

[00:17:47.010] – Kim

And the reason why diets fail. And this is a building block. This is the first building block, because now you're in kindergarten, right? You're learning how to play on the playground, because if you're trying to build a house on a faulty foundation, it's going to crumble. And that's what diets are. And so we are building that foundation.

[00:18:03.760] – Kim

Why are you eating? Is it because you're having an emotional need for it? Or because your physical body is needing fuel? And food is not anything other than fuel at any given time. It is always fuel. Your body is, like, so amazing and efficient. It takes up everything you're eating, and it's just checking in to make sure that it's the right kind of fuel for your body. But if we start telling people, don't have ice cream, or if we start saying it's unhealthy or we even call it bad, or we say shouldn't, what happens is then we're automatically assuming that we're bad. And that's what we're putting into our subconscious. Right. So if we stopped labeling food and we called everything a banana, what would happen? Allan, right now, if I handed you a banana, what would you do?

[00:18:44.310] – Kim

If I handed you a banana?

[00:18:45.810] – Allan

I would actually probably just set it down.

[00:18:47.860] – Kim

Yes. You would pause and you would say, why is Kim handing me a banana? Everybody pauses when they get a banana because they only eat bananas when they're hungry. And if we started thinking all food was a banana, we would put that space between the thought to eat and the action to eat. Right.

[00:19:03.460] – Kim

We need a pause. We need to say, Why am I thinking about a banana? Why do I have a banana in my hand? What's my body needing right now? Also, if you put that banana down, you would totally trust that you can come back for it.

[00:19:14.610] – Allan

Yeah, because I just had breakfast not 20 minutes ago, so it was okay. Well, great. I don't need this banana now. If I get a little hungry later because I've got a lot of work to do this afternoon, then, yeah, I might grab it and have it.

[00:19:27.830] – Kim

Right. But I have to just say one more thing. So sorry.

[00:19:30.900] – Allan

No.

[00:19:31.700] – Kim

If you never ever were given a banana and then somebody hands you a banana, now it's a treat. Now it's like, I'm going to have it because I don't know when I'm going to get it again. And if I said, you only have 30 seconds to eat a banana, you're not enjoying it, you're sneaking it, you're shoving it in. There are so many things. So if we slow down the whole process and everything becomes a banana and we become more mindful and we accept that we can have ice cream any time of the day, any day of the week, we no longer need it right now. And maybe days go by and weeks go by.

[00:20:05.600] – Allan

Well, an OD aside is the area of Panama we live in is where they grow bananas for chiquita. So there's a lot of bananas. They're going to run out of bananas or plantains. But you have a very important aspect to that foundation. You talked about the solid foundation.

[00:20:20.970] – Allan

And I think if you take a few minutes and you really look at this and you even said to it, I call it kind of a wellness audit, you called it a wellness wheel. Can you talk about the wellness wheel and the seven spokes and how we can use that as a tool to kind of check in with ourselves?

[00:20:37.390] – Kim

Yeah. So everybody is in the center of their own wellness wheel. Right. And what we're doing is we are attached to all the things that are important to us. And so they could be adventure, they could be our spiritual well being, our physical well being, our financial, our relationships, our career, and then there's a few more and what like environment. But what happens is, if we are disconnected from any one of these things, we are not moving forward in our journey.

[00:21:05.660] – Kim

We're stuck. And so it's paying attention, checking in, how am I doing? Am I connected to the things that are important to me? Have I stayed in my routine with sleep? Have I planned ahead to make sure that I know where my water is coming from and what food is available to me today? Have I booked my next adventure? Have I checked in with my friends?

[00:21:26.140] – Kim

If we're not connected to these things, then what happens is we become unwell because we overthink about where we are and how lost we are and how sad we are and disconnected. And so the first thing to do is kind of check in, where am I on this journey? What can I do to improve that? And then that's how you start moving forward. And we're all in different places, so there's no judgment. And we're all working by ourselves, making this all happen. So you might be further along in your fitness than I am, but I am not looking for perfection. Not that I'm assuming you are either, but I am working for progress. So now I'm open to learning from you and also checking in to see, what have I not done today? Where can I pick that up?

[00:22:09.350] – Kim

Right? This is how we become balanced. If you're tired, how many times do you think about how tired you are during the day? If you had an argument with your friend, how many times do you think about that argument? Right? These make us unwell. We have to get connected and stay connected.

[00:22:23.670] – Kim

And like I said, the reason why people fail is they neglect to do the things they need to do.

[00:22:29.250] – Allan

And I think one of the key things about what you just said is when you start to feel that shame or that loneliness or that boredom or any of it, most of us have been taught, well, food will make me feel better.

[00:22:43.640] – Kim

Yeah, well, that's a trained behavior, right?

[00:22:46.920] – Kim

So for me, it was about shopping. It wasn't about food. I totally trained my mind to think every emotion shopping was a great idea. I definitely needed something, even when I couldn't afford it. And so that's kind of where I started recognizing, oh, my gosh, my clients are literally eating the same way that I shop. And so being able to check in and recognize I want to well, let me go back a little bit so you can understand. Our mind produces about 60,000 thoughts a day. It's doing it all by itself. It's not like you asked your heart to beat or your lungs to breathe, right? Your mind is already doing this for you. We can write a book or we can have a conversation, and we're actually asking our mind to think. But all the other things it's doing is to make sure that we're safe. If we heard a loud sound, we would both stop exactly what we're doing, check in, make sure we were safe.

[00:23:34.910] – Kim

Before we would carry on. Our mind would also give us a few different ways to resolve the issue quickly and safely. And so if we've had any sort of emotional trauma, which every single person on this Earth has between three to 18 different emotions, that can be triggered, that cause them to become irrational. And so our mind remembers, the last time I felt that way, we ate and we felt better.

[00:23:57.930] – Kim

And we have to recognize that our mind is only doing its job and it's not always right. And that we can just say, mind, I'm safe, because all our mind wants to know is that we are safe. And so if we can say to our mind, I see you, I see you directing me towards the pantry, and I see you telling me that ice cream is good in my mouth, but I'm going to laugh right now, and I'm going to remind my body that I'm safe. I'm going to check in, scan my surroundings, confirm I'm safe, and then I'm going to carry on. What happens with most people is they think their mind got their best interest and their mind says, ice cream is a good idea. So they just assume that's their idea. And they end up eating ice cream.

[00:24:37.840] – Allan

And then like you said, when you put that space in there, you get that half step back and you can say, maybe ice cream isn't what I need right now. Maybe I just need some water and to go for a walk. Or in your case, it was, no, I really don't need that sweater. If I need that sweater, I can go buy it later. But yeah, 50% sale, it's beautiful. You don't really need it, but you got to have that space because the emotional part of you is like, I'm never going to get this deal again.

[00:25:02.930] – Kim

Yeah.

[00:25:03.590] – Allan

And you know, there's sales every single day I get an email, 50% off, 60% off.

[00:25:11.970] – Kim

Yeah, it's so true. But you're right and I forgot that part. So once your mind tells you food is a good idea, that's when you have to recognize your alarm is going off, just like any alarm.

[00:25:21.760] – Kim

And so notice that the alarm is going off. Turn it off. Take a deep breath, look at your mind, laugh at it. Okay, mind, we don't need that sweater right now. Let me scan my body and see even why that alarm was triggered.

[00:25:33.990] – Kim

And once you can recognize where the alarm came from and you recognize, okay, my chest is tight or my shoulders are tense or I'm recognizing that I just had this really uncomfortable phone call. Or maybe it is actually hunger, any of these reasons could set your alarm going off, right? Hunger is the most primal signal we have to keep us alive.

[00:25:53.380] – Kim

Hunger is the best signal we can get from our body. We would all run to the doctor if we stopped having to pee. We need to be hungry. We need to be hungry often, but we don't want to stay hungry. But we do need to recognize when our mind is giving us an idea. That is not a real idea that. We need to be doing right now. We need to take a deep breath. Scan our body, and if we're really stressed, then that's when we breathe again, emotions pass.

[00:26:17.110] – Allan

I have two questions in one. So first I got to start out with maybe it's the libertarian in me. But right now, I'm just not a big fan of the word rule.

[00:26:26.250] – Kim

Yeah.

[00:26:27.370] – Allan

And I think there's a lot of people like, I'm a rebel. I set rules for myself, and then I break those rules because that's what rules are made for. But I don't have a better word than rule. So we're just going to call them this, the six weight loss rules.

[00:26:42.860] – Allan

Can you just give us a quick rundown of those and why each one is important?

[00:26:48.130] – Kim

Yeah. So I'm all about staying uncomfortable. Buddhist said life is suffering, and I would say suffering in quotes, right. Like, we're going to either suffer by eating food that we know is going to make us sick, or we're going to suffer by not eating that food. Now, again, it's suffering. It's a little discomfort.

[00:27:08.080] – Kim

Our body does not like discomfort. It will never let us stay uncomfortable. It will always kind of come up with a more pleasurable solution. People are so triggered by the word diet, fats, calories. I mean, diet literal definition of diet is the lifestyle. The way that you eat. It doesn't say in the dictionary restriction. Right? So if we can reframe it and understand we have rules in kindergarten, right? We sit crisscross applesauce.

[00:27:33.860] – Kim

We talk when after we're called on. We don't over talk or speak over somebody else. We have rules, and they really do help the community be better. And so that's what we're doing here. Would you ever think of leaving the house in the morning without brushing your teeth?

[00:27:50.540] – Allan

Probably not, no. It's a habit.

[00:27:54.310] – Kim

It was probably part of something you were taught growing up, that you were trained, and that became a behavior.

[00:28:00.950] – Allan

My parents are going to go and they're going to say, go upstairs and brush your teeth. And then when they come in there. They're going to touch my toothbrush to see if it's wet. There was some police action in my house.

[00:28:12.670] – Kim

Yeah, that's funny. There's probably a lot of police action in a lot of houses. The thing is that the reason I use the word rules is to make you uncomfortable, because I want you to stop and I want you to think. And I want these to become so ingrained that now they're a set of values. You don't brush your teeth because your parents made you do it. Now you actually value it. And so once you start valuing these rules, they become something totally different. They become who you are and your lifestyle. And I could say to so many different people, define your relationship with food. What kind of eater are you? And they wouldn't have any idea. And what I want them to say is, normal. I'm a normal eater.

[00:28:52.740] – Kim

I'm a normal eater. In Italy, in Panama, in California. I'm a normal eater in this restaurant. I'm a normal eater next Thursday at dinner when I don't even know what I'm going to have. I'm normal because I follow these rules. And now they're inside of me.

[00:29:06.830] – Allan

So let's go through the rules.

[00:29:08.310] – Kim

Okay? Do you want to do it? Just kidding.

[00:29:11.710] – Kim

Okay, so rule number one is to eat when you're hungry.

[00:29:15.570] – Kim

These are non negotiable. Eat when you're hungry. So really find your mind and know what your physical body is needing. Take your normal portion and cut it in half. Now people are having visceral reactions, probably listening to this, oh my God, I don't know what hunger is. I don't know what my normal portion is. So your normal portion is whatever you ate the last time you ate.

[00:29:35.790] – Kim

It doesn't have to be what the chef is preparing. It doesn't have to be what is on the box. It is what you would normally eat. Cut it in half. And now you're going to wait 15 minutes to see if you need more food. So we know that it takes 15 minutes to get from our mouth to our stomach to get the signal that we've had enough food. And that's why we're cutting it in half and we're waiting 15 minutes. And the thing is, most people eat their food in two, three, four minutes, giving them eleven minutes of discomfort. And our minds hate discomfort and we'll just say, go ahead and eat it. And we need to remember, no, we're safe, we just had fuel. There's more right here. I'm going to come back to it and see if I need it. So really the trick is to slow down the pace at which you're eating, be more mindful, chew your food, really taste your food, and then let it last a little bit longer. So hard for people. Yeah. So that's real one. Do you have any questions about that?

[00:30:25.990] – Allan

Well, yeah, let's jump ahead in our plan here a little bit because I think this is really important. You put guidelines for hunger and you went from basically over full, Thanksgiving full, all the way down to starving.

[00:30:38.950] – Allan

Number one, there's not a lot of people in Western world actually starving.

[00:30:44.020] – Allan

You're not actually starving. You may be very hungry, but that's a whole nother conversation. It's a range. And we all probably can relate to being so stuffed that we are uncomfortable, really uncomfortable, beyond uncomfortable, all the way down to a point where we got blood sugars falling and our bodies screaming at us, eat anything. Why do we have so much trouble playing in that range of being just a little hungry and thinking we're about to die?

[00:31:12.540] – Kim

It's a good question, especially when your mind is telling you for every emotion you're hungry. I mean, I have 250 pound clients, 300 pound clients, 180 pound clients, everybody who wants to lose ten pounds, 50 pounds, who are telling me they're starving. They're hungry all day long.

[00:31:29.640] – Kim

There is so much confusion on what hunger actually feels like. Hunger is isolated to our stomach. It's actually not painful, it's not scary. It's just a hormone, telling you you're getting a little low on fuel. We need to eat something here. I think people are, again, totally primal. That people don't like to be hungry because it's basic survival. And I think people have to learn and get curious to see what does hunger actually feel like? And so what would happen if I just ate an apple, nothing else? Why is there so much fear in not eating anything else when the food is right in front of you? And so I think it's basic fear. People do not trust that they're going to eat again.

[00:32:12.750] – Kim

And we know historically, you had 21 meals last week and you can't remember what you ate last.

[00:32:18.220] – Allan

And that pantry is stuffed to the gills. Your freezer is stuffed to the gills. Your refrigerator, which also probably needs to be cleaned out.

[00:32:25.900] – Kim

DoorDash.

[00:32:26.840] – Allan

Yeah, there's so much food around us, you're not going to miss your next meal.

[00:32:32.350] – Kim

It's fear. Fear and lack of curiosity. Neglecting what they need to do, get curious

[00:32:38.860] – Allan

and listen. Listen to their body.

[00:32:41.010] – Kim

Yeah, totally.

[00:32:42.550] – Allan

Okay, let's move on to rule number two.

[00:32:44.720] – Kim

Okay, so rule number two, which is where I think you have a visceral reaction.

[00:32:50.790] – Kim

Eat what you love, but make sure the food loves you back. So I would say most people are walking around with headaches, clearing their throat, heartburn, bloating, digestive distress, gas joint pain, psoriasis, eczema, nausea, sleepless nights, itchy skin, yeast infections. I mean, tons of food related digestive distress. And then they're eating foods that are directly linked to this. I just remember I'm going to give you an example that you probably read about because I think it's a profound one. I had a ten year old client that was overweight, and they had a friday night dinner every single Friday night at this diner. And this kid always wanted a shake. And the parents said, when you finish your hamburger and French fries, you can have your shake. Now you and I are both hitting our heads going, hamburger and French fries? Okay, yeah, you finish those hamburger and French fries, which is exactly what he would do, and then he would have the shake.

[00:33:47.920] – Kim

And so we know that that's why. This kid was overweight, right? But because he had to finish his food to get the shake, that was the only way, and that's what he was going to do. And this is why diets don't work. And so when I finally convinced the parents, let the kid have the shake, they finally, after a month, let the kid have the shake.

[00:34:08.730] – Kim

And after two weeks of having the shake, the kid no longer wanted it. Because they found that it was not really satisfying and making them feel good, and they never had the shake again. And this is why it's eat what you love.

[00:34:21.540] – Allan

And so, yeah, it's like, well, the donut holes was another one. It's like, okay, yeah. What I found, though, is for some people. For some people, it's that trigger thing. It's like it's the macaroon that then has you craving, puts you back into another state of a reason to eat, is you're now craving this food. And so there are trigger foods that you don't think it doesn't love you. You just think, okay, I want it, I want it. I'm hungry. And so there are foods that I would say some people probably just need to try to avoid, even if there's no physical reason that they should avoid that particular food. Like, most of us are not allergic to donut holes, but the sugar is going to make us want the third one and the fourth one and the. Whole box,

[00:35:06.050] – Kim

and there's trans fats. When we're talking about health, we're talking about a lot of ingredients in the donut hole. But does that mean I can never have a donut hole? No, because everything in moderation. It's just what else did you have today? What did you eat yesterday? What are you doing? And so the truth is, that's why I say have the donut hole on a Monday, but not Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

[00:35:26.110] – Kim

And I remember when I tried cutting sugar out of my own diet just to experiment and see how it was making me feel. I went through a real tug of war with my mind because I loved chocolate, I loved butterfingers and Chips Ahoy. And there was like, now I'm contemplating a life without these things that I loved.

[00:35:45.320] – Kim

Made no sense to me. But when I came up with the idea that I was going to just get curious and experiment, how am I without it? What does my body feel like without it? I opened a door, and so I noticed on day five of not doing it, I only allowed myself five days for this experiment. On the fifth day, the idea of wanting a butterfinger or Chips Ahoy completely vanished. It left my body. I was no longer having physical withdrawals from the sugar. So sugar is heroin, and there's no way around it. It is literally causes us to have an addiction, and then we are spiraling, looking under every single rock for it. But if you tell somebody who loves sugar that they can't have sugar now, they feel suffocated, and that's not going to help them move forward. But if you can get them to understand how the food makes their body feel, don't tell them. Let them experiment and experience how the food makes them feel. Now, it's easy to say, oh, okay. I do love myself, and I don't actually think that that's what I want to have in the middle of the day or right before I'm going to sleep.

[00:36:53.430] – Kim

Right. Teach them to be in their own bodies. And, I mean, I do have sugar. Now, this was that experiment was 14 years ago, but I don't have it two days in a row because I'm aware of when my mind is sending me down this spiral, and I can say, oh, I had it yesterday. And this is only because I'm craving. Because I'm addicted to heroin again and I can walk away from it. But you have to get mindful. You can't believe every thought you have.

[00:37:18.490] – Allan

And that's another area I got to eating mindfully is probably one of the hardest things to do because we're so busy, we've got so much to do. It's like, look, I can do my accounting and eat. I can't record a podcast because I have to use my mouth, but I can eat during just about every other thing I do with my work. And so it's really hard to say. No, put the work down, fix yourself a plate, go sit at the dinner table, take a bite, savor the bite. Feel the bite, take a breath, take a sip of water, wipe your mouth with your napkin, and then have another one. That is hard

[00:38:01.290] – Kim

and boring. It's boring. And you know what? Our mind doesn't want us to be an uncomfortable. It's telling us, no, pick up your phone. No, definitely do something else. Our mind won't let us be suffering. I have a client who came home from work the other day, and his family had bought crumbled cookies, which are just like these giant cookies that are super thick. And in my family, we cut them into like, I don't know, eight to ten slices. And I said, how much of the cookie did you have? And he said, I ate half of it. And I said, what were you doing when you were eating the cookie? He said, I was watching the Bake off and it was 10:30 at night.

[00:38:37.190] – Kim

And I said, what time did you go to sleep? And he said eleven. And I'm like, hitting my head, and that's not going to help him if I'm hitting my head. So what did I say to him is, Where's the cookie now? Where's the other half? And he goes, It's in the kitchen. So I said, Go grab that cookie. And he was so excited, he grabs the cookie, it's a whole half a cookie. He sits down. I can see his salivary glands already getting ready for the first bite. And I said, okay, now cut that into quarters. So he did, and then I said. Now cut that into another quarter, each bite making another half. So now we had eight. And I said, now do it again. So we had 14 pieces of cookie on the same plate. It was like a small cookie. And all of a sudden it was like a whole plate of cookies.

[00:39:16.200] – Kim

And then I said, now take the first bite and just smell it. Don't put it in your mouth.

[00:39:20.590] – Kim

And you can see he was all excited and ready. I said, okay, now we've gotten our body ready. Now put it in your mouth, but chew it longer than you think necessary. Savor it because you think you love food. Let me see you actually love the food.

[00:39:33.720] – Kim

So he ate it, and it took him about 40 seconds to really savor it. And I said, now show me how you would normally eat. And he just pops in his mouth and 2 seconds later it's gone. I said to him, So you say you love food, but you're not even allowing yourself to really love food. Then I had him turn his chair around because we were on Zoom, and I said, show me every single thing in your room. Tell me all about the things on your walls and whatever you have. He spent five minutes giving me the entire higher explanation of all the things he loved in his room. He completely forgot about the cookie. He turns around, he's like, oh my God, I forgot about the cookie. Now I have like twelve more times. I get to eat it, right?

[00:40:10.130] – Kim

And I'm like, but are you hungry? He said, no, I'm going to put it away. Right. So he had the same experience with two bites as he had the night before. With probably five bites. We have to get mindful. Yeah. And that's the fail safe while he'll lose weight, right? Because he won't be eating the whole half. He doesn't need it.

[00:40:28.240] – Allan

Yeah. So let's run through the other four rules real quick.

[00:40:32.010] – Kim

Okay. Rule number three, eat without distractions.

[00:40:34.390] – Kim

So we talked about that. Motions are distractions. Having food in front of you is a distraction. Cravings and hunger. So make sure that you're hungry every single time you eat.

[00:40:43.170] – Kim

Rule number four is to get 10,000 steps every single day. The average American gets about 2500 to 3000. We really need 7000 to prevent sudden death and a bunch of different diseases. I found 10,000 really helps you sustain your weight loss. So if you're somebody who's getting two to 3000, just shoot for 500 more every day. Make sure you're getting seven, but really shoot for ten. We need this built in so that way by the time you're done losing weight, you're already helping your body maintain your weight. And you can do it through lifting weights, walking. I mean, I'm calling it steps, but it's really movement. And we need a variety of different types of movements for our body.

[00:41:24.250] – Allan

And this is something you can do with friends. And as you said, go with a walk for a friend. It doesn't have to be the full we're going to work out to probably close to four and a half to 5 miles. But get out with a friend for a little while. Spend the time enjoying nature with them. You have a little stepper in your room. I remember at one point I was in a hotel room and I was at like 9200 steps and I was like, crap, I got to get 800 more steps in. I'm literally walking around my bed, just doing laps around a hotel room bed to get those extra 800 in there, because I wanted that streak. Because for me, keeping the streak was something that was going to keep me motivated to keep doing it. I didn't want to fall short.

[00:42:03.430] – Kim

I mean, you can move your arms, you can do Arm things during commercials. You can do whatever, just keep moving. Yeah, it's really important. Our metabolism goes from 100% when we're moving to 30% when we're sitting. So we want to stay active. We want to keep those burners on.

[00:42:16.030] – Kim

Rule number five is to get eight cups of water. And it really does change, depending on your climate, what else you're eating, what else you're drinking, and how much weight. But a minimum of eight cups every single day will really help your body lose weight and detoxify every one of your organs.

[00:42:29.970] – Kim

And the last rule is 7 hours of sleep. The average American gets about six and a half. And if we're not getting at least seven, and we need between seven and nine, but if we're not getting at least seven, we're just wreaking havoc on our body and it's going to affect our adrenal glands, our hormones, our digestion and our stress. So we can't lose weight without sleep? We can't be well without sleep.

[00:42:51.340] – Allan

Yeah. So, yes, rules make me uncomfortable, but these are important. These are really good. And if you do these, you are going to lose weight and you are going to keep it off, because they'll just work.

[00:43:01.680] – Allan

They'll teach you a lot about yourself and they'll teach you a lot about food.

[00:43:04.920] – Allan

Kim, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:43:13.790] – Kim

Routine, consistency and confidence. That's what I would think.

[00:43:18.880] – Kim

You have to have a routine. It has to be non negotiable. So no matter what you're doing, make sure you're getting up early enough to move your body and plan ahead to get the things you need to take care of your body. I think you need to be consistent. So if you aren't perfect, you have the next day. So we're looking for progress, not perfection. I'm looking for consistency. As much consistency as you can have over time is going to help your body basically thrive and confidence in the fact that you can do this.

[00:43:48.980] – Allan

Thank you. Kim, if someone wanted to learn more about you or your book, This is What You're Really Hungry For, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:43:56.970] – Kim

Everywhere, please. Instagram is Kim Shapira Method. My website. Kim Sharpira Method. TikTok Kim Shapira Method wherever I'm always Kim Shapira Method everywhere.

[00:44:07.080] – Allan

Perfect. And I'll make sure to have the links there on our website at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/599.

[00:44:14.740] – Allan

Kim, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:44:17.750] – Kim

Thanks for having me. It was fun.

Post Show/Recap

[00:44:19.410] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:44:20.840] – Rachel

Hey, Allan, I really enjoyed your discussion with Kim, and it sounds like she has a book that was really fascinating to read. I love listening to it. But let's just start off with her six rules. I like rules. I know you don't, but I do like rules.

[00:44:38.330] – Allan

There are some absolutes. There are definitely some absolutes. And so I think there are areas where you can have rules, but where you have rules, you have rule breakers. I would only put rules down on where, you know, this is it. You have to do this.

[00:44:59.680] – Allan

You have to move. You can't be sedentary and healthy. It doesn't work that way. You can't eat crap and be healthy. Even if you're eating less crap, you're not eating some food. If you're not getting the nutrients in your body, then you're not doing the right thing. So there are areas where I think you can write rules and say, stop eating crap smooth, then that'd be a lot. But just start with something. I think that could be a rule.

[00:45:28.180] – Allan

But when I say, hey, Ras, sleep more.

[00:45:34.410] – Allan

Then, sure, just struggling with my sleep right now. That's not always inside your control. So rules can be about the things that you control. Rules can't be about things that happen to you or outcomes.

[00:45:50.420] – Rachel

Right.

[00:45:50.820] – Allan

And so that's where when you start saying rules, I'm like, okay, here we go. I think there's just a whole subset of people out there that as soon as they see the term rule, they're like, oh, this is going to be hard, and I'm not going to want to do it. And so then now that there's a.

[00:46:08.740] – Allan

Rule, they're fixated on that rule versus actually trying to change their behaviors and lifestyle.

[00:46:16.060] – Rachel

Right. Well, I think that I do love rules, but I also prefer them as, like, rules of thumb. Like, for example, she said to drink eight cups of water.

[00:46:25.260] – Rachel

Well, I don't drink eight cups of water. I drink a lot of electrolytes, like I mentioned, and I I drink a lot of coffee and occasionally plain water, but not a lot. But, you know, it's just same thing with the 7 hours of sleep. I need eight or 9 hours of sleep. Rules of thumb, like be cognizant that you need more water. Be cognizant that you need more sleep. And then figure out what that means to you. How many hours of sleep do you really need? My husband can certainly live on five or 6 hours of sleep, and he does quite well. I need about eight or nine. So the seven hour sleep rule is not quite where I'm at, but I think that it needs to be customized or you need to be flexible with what works for you as an individual.

[00:47:09.240] – Allan

Yeah, because obviously, Sunday night I needed 13.

[00:47:16.570] – Rachel

Right.

[00:47:17.930] – Allan

And so seven would not have done it. And then even with 13, I took a nap that day and took a nap the day before.

[00:47:25.520] – Allan

So there was a lot of sleep in a 24 hours period of time to basically recover for my body to have some healing time, because that's what's happening when you sleep. So I agree with her that the things that are in her six weight loss rules are important considerations. If you're looking at losing weight, these are things that you really want to consider how you can apply them in your life. I'm just a word Smith. And when I see a word, I think about the emotional attachment that I and other people have to those words. And that's why I don't particularly like the word rule. But that said, the six areas that she covers are important, and if you follow them to some extent, you're going to be successful in your weight loss.

[00:48:11.130] – Rachel

The other part of your discussion that even you just mentioned is the emotional aspect. We do have an emotional attachment to what we eat. When we eat it, we live on the fact that we need breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but do we really need breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Do we really need that afternoon snack? Do we really need a giant bowl of cake and ice cream at every single birthday party? There is a lot of emotion, but even that is a good rule in that you begin to think and strategize, like, Why are you eating this? Do you really need this? And ask those types of questions. And if you did need to lose weight, if that is a goal of yours, then that's a perfect time to really reconsider. Like, why are you eating this? Do you really need this right now? Is this the best thing for you?

[00:49:01.580] – Allan

And I think that's what she got into is like, okay, we don't we don't actually ever let ourselves get hungry. Yeah, so she's in her book, she talked about a hunger scale from completely stuffed all the way down to starving.

[00:49:14.300] – Allan

Again, another word that I don't like. Because you're not actually starving, you're just very hungry. Again, words. Okay, but all that said, I think. Letting yourself get hungry and sitting in that for a little while is healthy.

[00:49:34.150] – Allan

Not that I encourage people to go into fasting, but if you know you're not hungry, don't put anything in your mouth because your body doesn't need it.

[00:49:44.330] – Allan

And then when you are hungry, when you start getting hungry, feel that hunger. And kind of sit in it for a little while and say, okay, this is just I'm hungry. Then go make a good decision on the foods that you're going to eat.

[00:49:58.080] – Allan

And satiate that hunger. That's why her half a plate rule, you literally take what you would normally eat, and you just eat half of it. I don't know if we really got into that rule a little bit.

[00:50:07.090] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:50:08.770] – Allan

Okay, so let's say you would have a whole chicken breast, and you'd have all this mashed potatoes and rice and all this you just literally say okay I can have all that stuff, but I'm going to cut it all in half, and I'm only going to eat half of it. Now, I know the other half is sitting in the kitchen right now, and I'm sitting at the dining room table. And I'm going to sit down and mindfully eat this, and then I can't go for the other half for 15 minutes. Again, you're giving your body that opportunity to talk back to you. You've given it food, you've potentially given it nourishment if you're eating the right things, and then it will communicate back. Yeah, that was actually enough. Wrap the rest of it up. And that can be a meal for tomorrow or tonight.

[00:50:51.090] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:50:51.970] – Allan

And so just as you kind of go through this process, like I said, all of these are valuable. If you go through the process of what she's talking about, it is going to help you build a healthier relationship with food. And that's really the crux of weight loss. It's all about your relationship with food. And your relationship with yourself.

[00:51:12.470] – Rachel

True.

[00:51:13.190] – Allan

And the point where you start loving yourself enough to not punish yourself or reward yourself, whichever way you're thinking about it, with food, then the better off you'Re going to be. When you see food as nourishment and energy, only eat enough of it to give you what your body needs, then you're on the track eating healthy and having a great relationship with food.

[00:51:38.960] – Rachel

Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah, that sounds great. It was just really good discussion. Really interesting questions that we could ask ourselves.

[00:51:47.210] – Allan

Yeah. All right. Anything else you want to talk about today?

[00:51:50.390] – Rachel

No, that was great.

[00:51:51.670] – Allan

Great. Well, then I'll see you next week.

[00:51:53.650] – Rachel

Great. Take care, Allan.

[00:51:55.050] – Allan

You too.

[00:51:55.890] – Rachel

Thanks.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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Another episode you may enjoy

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Let's Say Hello

[00:02:13.320] – Coach Allan

Hey, Ras, how are you?

[00:02:15.120] – Coach Rachel

Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:02:16.950] – Coach Allan

Good. It looks like you're somewhere fun. I am. Well, you're in a hotel room, which is not fun. Well, it can be fun. I guess it can be fun. I don't want to hear anymore.

[00:02:25.990] – Coach Rachel

Yeah. Mike had to make a trip up to the outskirts of Boston. Actually, we're in Westborough right now where he's got a couple of plants that he needs to take a look at. And so we made a vacation out of it. So we just spent the weekend in downtown Boston, walking all over the city and enjoying the sights of Boston. Now we're here in Westborough for a couple of days, and I'm just going to take it easy talking with you today. I've got books to read and places to go walk, so I'll be a happy camper while he's at work.

[00:02:58.420] – Coach Allan

I lived up that way nearly 20 years ago. You start looking back and say, Well, when was I there? Well, I was at that job for 10 years, at that job for two years. And I'm like, Oh, wow. That was a while ago because I've been here now for a while. So I was like, Okay, yeah. From age 39 to 41, I lived up in Groton, which is a small little village town just outside the loop. And so, yeah, occasionally I'd go into Boston and just have some fun. But yeah, Boston is a really fun town, but it was a really weird town back then. But then things were changing. There's progression as they will. I was like, so they had, I think one of the rules they had just started doing was they had started no smoking in bars and restaurants. And so all the bar owners in downtown area of Boston, that big area, they were really concerned that they would lose all their customers. And I was talking to the bartender. He's like, Yeah, we're thinking we're going to lose all our business. And I'm like, Well, where do you think they're going to go to eat?

[00:04:06.770] – Coach Allan

Where do you think they're going to go to drink? They're still going to come out. They're not going to just stay home because you say they can't smoke there. They'll go outside and smoke. They're resilient. They'll deal with the cold and do it. And some might quit. But it was just interesting that that was happening. And I was sitting in that bar because, again, we were taking a weekend there. And I was like, Okay, I'd like a can of beer. The guy's like, I can't serve you a beer right now. I'm like, What do you mean? He says, Well, it's 1155 and I can't serve you a beer until noon. I'm like, Where in the hell am I?

[00:04:41.730] – Coach Rachel

Oh, my goodness. That's funny.

[00:04:44.900] – Coach Allan

Well, you're as up there, I guess, as you were in Michigan. It's probably straight line across.

[00:04:49.980] – Coach Rachel

Pretty much, yeah. It's hot right now. Hot and humid, but I'll take it. I'll take it. It's just nice to be outside.

[00:04:59.460] – Coach Allan

Get you some chowder and plenty of lobster. You're going to make a drive out to the horn, the Cape?

[00:05:08.580] – Coach Rachel

I'm not sure how much time we'll have for that. Mike's got a couple of long days of work ahead of him, and then we'll just explore the areas close by. But yeah, we.

[00:05:17.570] – Coach Allan

Have no plans. It's like a four hour drive over, but it's beautiful over there. But if you had the time, it's worth the trip. But yeah, you got to spend some time if you're going to make it matter.

[00:05:29.240] – Coach Rachel

Right. Yeah, we'll just explore the areas around where we are.

[00:05:32.810] – Coach Allan

Well, cool. All right. You ready to talk about calories?

[00:05:36.300] – Coach Rachel

Sure.

Episode

Today I want to talk about calories. If you've listened to me for any period of time, you know that I'm just not a huge fan of the calories in calories out model for a number of reasons we'll talk about today. But for a lot of people first starting out, counting calories can be a very beneficial activity because teaches you a little bit about how food works. And so today I want to give you the basics of how calories work in our body, how to do calories in, calories out, and then what to do when it stops working. Because for most people, it does stop working at some point, and that's because there are some limitations. But that said, it's a great way to jump start your journey to learn a lot about what you're eating and how much you're eating and what food is all about. So let's dive into it. Now, before we go too deep in this, calories in, calories out is a pretty simple basic thing. It's what I call just basically the pluses and minuses, the addition and subtract formulas for the way that you can lose weight and have enough energy.

That said, there are more complicated levels underneath this that, if they're not addressed, can cause you some problems. So the next level below that or above that, however you want to look at it, which is more complicated, you can think about the difference between addition and subtraction and when you started learning algebra is when we start talking about macronutrients and micronutrients. If we're not feeding our body what it needs, it's basically going to be a problem. So we can actually be overfed and undernourished. And so that happens a lot with the American diet, particularly with the processed foods and things that are going on today. But all that said, there is a more complex math underneath the calories in calories out model. But from a basic perspective, the calories in, calories out model is not wrong. They're both right. They just overlap. And then there's another level that's a little bit more deeper, a little bit more complicated. You can think of it as the calculus or differential equations. It's the complicated stuff that a lot of us won't be able to do a whole lot about, and that's hormones. Your hormones are going to affect how your body operates.

And so for certain individuals, no matter what they do, their hormones are going to be a progress slower, if you will. It's not going to stop you from necessarily losing weight. But you'll may notice that you don't lose weight as quickly as someone else does. So women have estrogen, men have testosterone. That additional testosterone makes it a little easier for men to lose weight. So if you notice that you and your significant other are basically eating the same foods, but they're losing weight and you're not, or you are losing weight and they're not, it's that hormones. It's not necessarily what you're eating or how much you're eating. It's just you're in a better balance from a hormone perspective to lose weight. So just realize that calories in, calories out is an easy to start model. Over time, it'll probably stop working for you. And that's when you want to start thinking about these other things and either set your expectations or make some adjustments to the quality of the food you're eating to make this continue to work for you. So let's get into the basics of calories in, calories out. A calorie is a measure of energy.

Now, when we use the term calorie, we're actually talking about kilo calories. But just to shorten it, we still call it a calorie. But a kilo calorie is basically the amount of energy necessary to warm one liter of water, one degree Celsius. And so we call it a calorie, but basically it is a measure of energy. And so the principles of what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out exactly how many calories we're consuming and how many calories we are burning. And then the balance of those two or imbalance of those two is going to basically determine whether we're gaining weight or losing weight. So it's a thermodynamics of looking at energy into a system and energy out. Okay? So when we want to know what our energy burn is, most of the energy burn that we're doing when we're talking about it is a calculation. It's an estimate. So you get on one of those treadmills and it tells you for an hour's time running, you burn 400 calories. It's just an estimate. How they calculate that estimate inside that particular machine is particular to that machine. If you've ever gotten on one elliptical and then got on another elliptical and said, Well, I like the other elliptical more because within an hour I burn 700 calories, where this one says I'm burning 500, you're probably not burning 700 calories.

You may not be burning 500, but it's an estimate. And the only way you'd really know how much you were burning would be if you did some scientific tests where you were in a closed environment and they're measuring your carbon dioxide and they're measuring how much energy you're outputting. That's how they would know. But everything else is an estimate. Okay, now, when you start talking about the foods that we're consuming, for the most part, those are estimates too. What they've done for a lot of these different foods is they've burned them in a container and they've determined how much additional energy is put off when these things are set on fire. And that's assumed that our body would do the same thing, use the same amount of energy. So it's an estimate. And one of the other big issues is because these are both estimates, I prefer to look at these as guidelines and not absolute. But so many people get stuck in the math of, Oh, I'm eating 500 calorie deficit every day and I'm not losing weight. Or you go on to some of these applications and they tell you, You had a great day.

You're 1,000 calories under your requirement. If you eat like this for the next six weeks, you'll lose 30 pounds. And the reality is, one, you're not going to do that. Two, you may not have recorded your food right. And three, the estimates that are in there for your burn and for your consumption may be off. Okay, so what we want to try to do when we're looking at the food that we're eating and the energy that we're expending is just get an idea of balance. And so it gives us some basic information to make some decisions about how much we're eating and how much we're moving and what that means in relationship to each other. So let's dive a little bit deeper into each side of this calculation. So on the expenditure side, how many calories are you burning? Okay, one of the key terms that you'll hear is BMR. Okay, and BMR stands for basic metabolic rate. And what that means is how much do you need to just stay alive, meaning you're laying on your back in bed, completely at rest. How many calories do you need to stay alive? And that's keeping your brain alive, your organs alive, basic metabolic function.

And it's different based on age, gender, and your body composition. So you may have heard, if you have more muscle, burns more calories. And so that's where this all comes in. If you have more lean muscle mass, you're younger. And as I mentioned before, you're male, you're going to have a higher BMR than a woman. And it also has to do with your total size. So if you're 6 foot tall, you're going to burn more energy than someone who's 5 foot tall. So all of these things play into all of this burn. And so what you'll do with most of these things is you'll log in and they'll ask how tall you are, how much you weigh, and then they'll calculate a number. For most of us, the number is going to come somewhere between 1250 and 2,000. Again, that's a pretty wide range. But again, there's a wide range of people, so that range can be pretty wide. So if you're eating less than 1200 calories, it's very likely that you're under eating. You're not even giving your body enough to stay alive. And if you're out there doing exercise on top of that, that's even worse.

So that's where we come up with the term TD EE, or total daily energy expenditure. So if we're moving around, which most of us are, depending on our activity level, you add that to your BMR, and that will give you your total burn for the day. So I put into a calculator and I link to this as the Harris Benedict calculator, 40plusfitness. Com calorie will take you to that calculator. I didn't make that calculator. It's a website that just basically has that calculator, this link will just send you to that. But what it does, if you key in, okay, you're a 5 foot woman and you're basically sedentary, your basic metabolic rate is going to be just over 1200. If you're mildly active or you're sedentary, you're still going to burn more calories because you actually stand up every once in a while. You walk around, you got to go to the bathroom, you got to go to work. So you're moving around a little bit, just a little bit, and that's going to burn about 300 more calories. So for a basic woman to basically survive and deal with her daily expenditure, she's probably going to need, even a 5′ foot woman is going to probably need at least 1,500 calories just to stay in balance.

Now, if you're trying to lose a little bit of weight, you can go a little bit under that, but I would never go below your BMR. That's when you're starting to push yourself beyond. So what we want to do is basically say, okay, if I can up my activity, which we'll talk about and we can talk about, once you start actively increasing your activity, if you can just keep your food the same at roughly your TD EE, you're going to lose weight initially. So a good thing for this calculator is to say, what's the minimum amount I should eat? And that should at least be your BMR. I I would recommend you eat to your TD EE and then move more, just a little more. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but if you can just add half an hour of activity each day, you're probably going to lose some weight there. Okay? So now let's talk about the consumption side. Okay? And again, this is just what we're trying to do is estimate how much energy is put off by the food that you're eating. And the only way you're really going to know that is to sit down and log it.

And the easiest thing I found to log it is an application called My Fitness Pal. They've got all these other foods out there so basically you can just plug this stuff in. There are other tools that other people have told me they like much more, but find your tool and this will help you in the initial. So what you want to do is you're going to look up what you're eating. So here I am eating a chicken breast and I'm going to have to look at how much that is. So what is that going to require? I need to weigh it. If I'm just estimating that this is a serving of chicken breast, it might be a larger breast or smaller breast. So I can't say both are the same number of calories. They're different. They're different sizes. So if you're going to do this and really get a good basis, you're probably going to need a food scale. You're probably going to need to go in and really pay attention to what goes into the foods that you're eating. Restaurants are notoriously off with their calorie counts. One study showed that they can be off by as much as 20 to 25 % understating your calories of a particular meal.

And so it's really easy to over consume and underestimate how much you've eaten. And so it's worth taking some time to sit down and log your food. But you've got to get the weight right. You've got to get how much you're getting, and you got to look at exactly what you're eating because just different additives, different things they put into it can really change the dynamics of how many calories are in a particular dish. It's a little easier, unfortunately, when you eat processed foods because they're putting it on the label. A serving of pasta has this many calories. A serving of hamburger helper mix has this many calories. So it's a little easier to look that stuff up. But that's not the nutrition your body needs. And so eventually, that's going to create a problem at those other math levels we talked about, the nutrition and the hormones. But that said, they make it a little bit easier for you to know. But if anytime you're eating something and you're not sure, like chicken breast, you can just Google, nutrition facts, chicken breast. If you're eating an apple, nutrition facts, and then the apple and the apple and just the size.

Is it small? Is it medium? Is it large? And that'll give you a basic idea. So now, as I mentioned, these are estimates. So your BMR and your TD EE are estimates of how much your body is burning. You're not actually ever going to really truly know that number, but you're getting an estimate. Unless you're going to take the time to weigh and measure all of your food, you're estimating how much of that you're eating. You're estimating serving sizes based on what's there. Even the numbers that are on the labels are estimates. So estimates of estimates, and you can see how this can run a little haphazard. Also, we sometimes miss things like grazing. So you didn't count on the fact that, or didn't think about, you're standing at your colleague's desk and they happen to have small chocolate there, and you popped two or three of those chocolate and you didn't log it. Well, that could have been 100 or more calories and you didn't log it. So you can see if you're not paying attention, it's easy to eat some things that you don't remember eating or you didn't get logged. So it looks on paper like you're at a deficit and maybe you aren't.

With labels, again, we're talking about processed foods here, and these things are engineered to make you want to eat more. So if you're sticking to processed foods as a way of doing this to make it a little easier, just realize they're engineering those foods to keep you hungry, to make you come back and eat more. They want you to eat more. That's how they make more money. So they're engineering their foods, and if they can fudge it on the label, they're going to fudge it on the label. So just be cognizant that processed foods are not really your friends, even if they make things a little easier and more convenient. The other thing that happens is in our bodies, as we exercise, as we do things physically, we become more efficient. I had Dr. Herman Pontzer on Episode 478. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/478. And he went out and studied the Hadza tribe, which is in Tansania. It's one of the only remaining hunter gatherer tribes out there. And they had a way of counting the total number of calories expended, utilizing carbon and a process with the urine and water.

And it's complex. But at the same time, they were looking at how many calories these had stuff who were at least nine miles a day traveling to get the foods that they needed. And so you would think, Okay, here's some really lean athletic guys that are moving around a lot. They're not sitting around much at all. And the ladies are digging for tubulars, and their men are climbing trees to get honey, and they're traveling around hunting and gathering. And what they found was that these individuals had gotten so efficient with movement and their bodies that they weren't really burning many more calories than a sedentary office worker sitting at their desk. So it was about 2,500 calories, which is the basic man of the same height and weight, same age, would basically be burning the same number of calories each day just sitting at their desk doing their job. So realize that over time, your body might get more efficient at using the calories as you get more fit. And that's just the way it works. And so as you're thinking about food, there's a whole lot that's not calculated into any of this. And it can just make it really hard that you feel hungry all the time because you're trying to hit a calorie number.

And sometimes the reason is that we're not counting the thermic effect of food. So protein, for example, requires a lot more processing in our body to process, to make it into something we can digest. That digestion is what we call the thermic effect of food. So if you ate 100 calories of chicken, you're not going to get 100 calories of energy out of that chicken. You're going to basically burn some of that to digest that. Whereas it f you had sugar water, it's going to go right into your system and there's not much processing of that at all. So if you're drinking a Coke or a pop, whatever you want to call it, if you're drinking that, that's going right on. There's no thermic effect. It's just calories straight in. Whereas, again, if you're eating something that takes a little bit longer to digest, there's a cost and that cost means you're getting fewer calories from that. So we may undercount calories for some things. The other thing is there are certain foods that are going to make you feel more satiated. They're going to keep you from being hungry or sooner. Fiber and protein are two examples of that where you're just going to feel fuller sooner and longer, and that's going to help you actually eat less.

And then, of course, with a lot of folks that are trying to do the calories in calories out model, they just start eating too little. And what this leads to later is binge eating or private eating and not logging. I don't know how many times I've been looking at a log for someone, and they've got 700 calories logged. And I'm like, You can't go day after day on 700 calories. They're complaining they're not losing weight, but they're obviously not logging everything, or they're eating too little for a few days, and everything's just shutting down. And while you can't really destroy your metabolism, it is what it is. Your body will start to shut down organs and things. It will start shutting things down if it feels like you're in a stressed, starving mode, and it will start shooting cortisol into your system to help hold on to fat while you're losing muscle. So realize you might see some weight loss at that level, but you may very well be losing the wrong weight. You might be losing muscle and not fat. So you're going to want to eat really close to that BMR number, if not to the TD EE, which is what I would personally recommend when you start.

But just make sure you're eating good quality food and that you're doing the right things for your body because this is not just about calories in, calories out. It can work and it does work. So basically just be careful that you don't get yourself into a mindset of that calories in, calories out is the answer because there's a little bit more to it. So I want to summarize a little bit here and just say, okay, as you go through this process, just start with the basics. Get to know what your numbers are as far as your BMR and your TD EE. Get those in your head. Start learning what the calories are in the various foods that you eat each day, making sure, again, you're getting adequate nutrition, log it for a while and log it correctly. Weigh the food, do the right things, get everything in there so that you have a really good idea of the volume of food that you're eating, the amount of energy you're putting in, and then be thinking honestly about how much energy you're putting out each day, and then watch for trends. If things are not moving the way that you want to, we can make some adjustments, but you just got to start with the trend.

I'm eating this way and I'm losing weight. I'm going to keep eating this way. The other thing is pay attention to your satiety levels and the kinds of foods that you're eating. You need nutrition. Food is not just calories, food is not just calories. Food is everything. Our body is made from food. So if we're not getting enough fat, if we're not getting enough minerals and vitamins, and we're getting the macros our body needs, the protein, if we're not getting those things, our body will not function well, and that can be a problem. So make sure, again, you're paying attention to the food you're eating and how you feel eating that food. And then you can just make adjustments. And I would say make micro adjustments, small adjustments. So never this drastic drop another 500 calories off of this thing. Because again, if I'm saying your TDE is 1,500, 500 calories a deficit means you're at one third of what your body needs to function the way it's functioning. So eventually you're going to find yourself fatigued. You're going to have some issues, and that's where that's coming from. You just went too drastic. But if you're eating to your TDEE and then you're moving on top of that, then that's when you're going to start to see the action.

That's when you're going to start to see things move the way you want to. So again, I'm not a huge fan of calories in, calories out as a model for weight loss. I think you just need to eat high quality whole food and your body is probably going to do what it's supposed to do. But if you're interested and you want to give it a go from the start, it's not a bad exercise for a period of time to at least understand what you're eating, how the food is affecting your body weight, and how you feel when you start eating the amount of food that your body really needs.

Post Show/Recap

[00:25:46.960] – Coach Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:25:48.760] – Coach Rachel

Hey, Allan. I think it's really important to talk about the calories in calories out model on occasion. It's like the best reminder to pay close attention to what we're eating, especially when we have a weight loss goal in mind. There's just so many ways that we can do it wrong. So it's nice to have this refresher.

[00:26:07.360] – Coach Allan

Well, I don't think there's any ways to do it wrong. In fact, seriously, if we go off culture, it's because we're just not paying attention. 99 % of it you realize, okay, well, why am I not losing weight? And then you realize, well, damn it, Sally's got a chocolate on her desk and I'm eating five or six of those every day when I go by there and say good morning. And so you're like, okay, I got to stop doing that. But I don't. I keep doing it. So it's usually just when we stop paying attention. Now, a lot of people will get into Keto and then they're like, okay, well, I'm losing all this weight on Keto. And then they stop losing weight and they get to this point, they're like, I don't understand. I know all the foods that are Keto foods. I'm not eating any carbs, but I'm not losing any weight. Well, you're eating too many calories. I'm like, Well, no, calories don't matter if you're… Yes, they actually don't matter. Yeah, it all matters. And so it's not a bad idea to at least know. And then the other side of it is, I think the other concern I always have is people under eating, really under eating, and that causes other issues.

[00:27:14.530] – Coach Allan

So they'll sit there and say, well, okay, if I can be 500 calories down, I could lose a pound a week. If I can be 1,000 calories a day down, then I could lose two pounds a week. If I'm 1,500 calories down, then I could lose three pounds per week. And I've got 30 pounds to lose. I'd love to lose that in 10 weeks. So let's just do the math.

[00:27:34.960] – Coach Rachel

More is better, right?

[00:27:37.810] – Coach Allan

I got to get on that treadmill for an hour every day and only eat 800 calories. And they're starving all the time. And then they stop really counting all the calories because they're like, Well, I'm just going to have a bowl of cereal. And they eat three bowls of cereal or four. There have been times I probably ate a whole box of cereal in a sitting, just not not knowing and thinking about how many calories were in it. And it wasn't that the cereal was the problem. I just had too many servings of it, and I wasn't paying attention to how much it was. I wasn't paying attention to whether I was full or not. I just was really hungry. I poured a whole bowl of cereal in a big bowl, a whole bunch of milk, and just sat down with a spoon watching morning TV on a Sunday. And that's all the calories I probably should have had for the whole day.

[00:28:27.820] – Coach Rachel

Well, that's where I've gone wrong in the past. I have a cereal bowl at home that maybe it looks like I have a half a cup, the serving size of most cereals, but I know full well that I pour way more in my cereal bowl than half a cup. And I just, I eyeball it, but my eyeballs aren't super accurate. My measuring cups are probably a little bit.

[00:28:49.810] – Coach Allan

More accurate. They would be just a little more accurate. You got to pack it in there. I'm going to get the most out of that half cup.

[00:28:58.300] – Coach Rachel

But then, like you mentioned, too, cereals are usually super satisfying, barely great on the palate. And one bowl becomes two bowls, which becomes three bowls. And you're watching the morning news or something. And did I have one bowl of cereal or four bowls of cereal?

[00:29:15.040] – Coach Allan

You'll lose track pretty easily. I just jumped the chase and got a big bowl and just went at it.

[00:29:20.360] – Coach Rachel

Because.

[00:29:21.610] – Coach Allan

I was a growing boy and not growing the right way. But I think if you're struggling and you get to a point where you're stuck, this is a tool to just go back and assess, how much am I really eating? It's not that you have to log all the time and track and weigh everything forever, but it's just getting your head reset about what a portion size looks like and how many calories in it. And then making some basic decisions and realizing, oh, I could have that whole salad over there with chicken breast on it and the dressing that I like, and that's 500 calories, or I can have this little bag of chips.

[00:30:03.390] – Coach Rachel

And.

[00:30:04.370] – Coach Allan

I have the bag of chips and I'm hungry again in 20 minutes. Well, that's important. That salad is going to take me 20 minutes to eat. And so it's just this thing of just saying, okay, food is a building block and it's to provide calories for energy. And if you start thinking of it, yes, you should enjoy your food, have food that you enjoy, but know what's in it, know how much it is and start getting your head around what portion sizes are. E at a little slower. That'll make it easier to eat fewer calories because it's easy to eat a lot of calories if you eat really fast. You'll notice the people that are doing the eating contests on TV, they're not going slow. They're eating faster than their body can even pay attention to just so they can get all that stuff down. And so if you slow down, you'll feel satiated sooner. You'll get an idea when you start looking at it's okay, what's a serving of chicken breast look like? What does a serving of bread? Serving of bread is one slice of bread. Most loaves I've looked at, a serving of bread, who's eating one slice of bread?

[00:31:07.270] – Coach Rachel

You're.

[00:31:07.710] – Coach Allan

Already having two servings instead of having a sandwich. And you had two sandwiches, so four servings of bread. You get the idea. It's like, I think I'm eating 100 calories of bread. No, you're eating 250 calories of bread. And does that 150 calories mean a whole lot? Well, if it's 150 more than you needed, yeah, over time, that's going to add up. And so that's going to be extra pounds that you're not losing or you're trying to work off doing these exercises. And it's pretty easy. If I set up a thing of M&Ms in the little cup holder of your treadmill and I said, Okay, here's what I want you to do. Look at how many M&Ms are serving and look at how many M&Ms are now in the pack to get an idea. And say, okay, so if every M&M was like two calories, so walk long enough to burn two calories and then eat an M&M.

[00:31:58.950] – Coach Rachel

And.

[00:31:59.340] – Coach Allan

Think you'll see that bag of M&M is going to wear you out. You'll be on that treadmill for an hour to eat a little bag of it because there's so many calories you got to burn the 300 calories for that little bag of M&Ms. And people don't think that. They think they're burning a lot more calories. So it's a guideline. If you find yourself stuck, it's just an opportunity to sit back. But in addition to looking at the calories, think about the types of foods you've been choosing and which ones are really the better foods for you. I'm not going to say there's good foods and bad foods, but there are better choices.

[00:32:29.900] – Coach Rachel

Well, like you had mentioned, our bodies need nutrients, not food. That's an important thing to look at. Way back when I was using my fitness pal, I was actually pretty shocked to learn that my favorite McDonald's meal was about 1,200 calories in just that one sandwich, aburger and fries meal. And that was my whole day's worth of calories, according to my fitness pal. And there's no nutrients in that meal.

[00:32:58.440] – Coach Allan

But there is some protein. There is some protein, they do put some niacin in the bun to fortify it because they've stripped all the nutrition out of it. If you had pickle, if you had a little bit of ketchup, some lettuce, maybe tomato, there's a little bit. There's not what your body needs, but there's some nutrition there. And so it's just this concept of eat better quality food. It'll be more nutritionally dense than calorie dense. The calorie dense foods, occasionally as a treat, you can work those in. If it fits your load and you're okay with a detour, by all means, you don't have to deprive yourself of things, but you shouldn't think you can have cake every day. No. A cake should be something special. Donut should be something special. They should not be a staple. And unfortunately, too many people get wrapped up into the, every evening I'm going to have ice cream. And then they're having… And it's not a serving of ice cream. It's like, how many servings of ice cream did you put in the bowl? Be honest with yourself. Get a good scoop size. Look at it, understand it, and know how many calories are in that thing, and then make the decision.

[00:34:15.560] – Coach Allan

And if you want to have an extra couple of hundred calories of ice cream in the evening, by all means. But the whole court owns a lot of calories. So just realize that calories do count. You don't have to count them to lose weight, but it is a tool to find yourself stuck.

[00:34:31.860] – Coach Rachel

Yeah. And I think logging a meal periodically or your favorite snack or something, just paying attention to the size of the serving you're taking and what macros are in it as well as the calories. It's just an eye-opening exercise to do. So even if you just logged a dinner meal or your favorite after-work snack or something like that, it's just an eye-opening thing to do periodically.

[00:34:57.610] – Coach Allan

I agree. Yeah. All right. Well, Ras, I'll talk to you. Enjoy Boston and I will talk to you next week.

[00:35:04.190] – Coach Rachel

Great. Take care, Allan.

[00:35:05.540] – Coach Allan

You too.

Music by Dave Gerhart

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– Ken McQuade	– Leigh Tanner
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

You are not a victim

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:06.520] – Allan

Hey, Ras, how are you doing?

[00:03:08.360] – Rachel

Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:03:10.540] – Allan

Just another day in paradise.

[00:03:12.530] – Rachel

Of course it is. You lived own in Panama.

[00:03:15.210] – Allan

third-worldAnd a third world country, yeah. And so we're still having the water problems. We've had about an inch of rain in the past week, but we really almost need a foot or more of rain to get where we need to be with the reservoirs and all of that. And people say, Oh, my God. A foot of rain. Well, it could rain a foot in 24 hours here pretty easy.

[00:03:36.980] – Rachel

Wow.

[00:03:37.560] – Allan

But we got 24 inches, about 24 inches in 36 hours. So we can get a lot of rain when it's raining. So we just need one of those. We get some rain in, it's this and that. And we got some rain last night and it's early this morning, but it was hardly noticeable when it was all said and done. So yeah, we just need a good solid rain. But I've got full tanks and we don't have a ton of guests, so we're not hurting for water. It's just, you know, I feel bad that a lot of people on the island have been. And when you just don't have a means to get water, it can be very frustrating and difficult. So some of the people that live here are not too happy with the government for not making sure they have water, but hopefully we'll get some rain. So all you folks that are getting too much, just send it this way. Right.

[00:04:26.280] – Rachel

Oh, my goodness.

[00:04:28.110] – Allan

How are things up there?

[00:04:29.450] – Rachel

Good. It's just good. I had mentioned last week that Mike was having some more testing done, and he had the biopsy of his lymph nodes looking for potential cancer, and he's in the clear. So we've dodged that bullet. He's healthy, no evidence of cancer at this point. So we're hoping that immunotherapy just keeps moving and working like it's supposed to and we'll be past this soon enough.

[00:04:51.770] – Allan

Yeah, I hope so too. I really do.

[00:04:53.800] – Rachel

Big relief. Yeah.

[00:04:56.930] – Allan

All right. Well, are you ready to talk about weight loss?

[00:05:00.670] – Rachel

Sure.

Episode

Five keys to sustainable weight loss.

Now, when it comes to trying to lose weight and keeping it off, we really have to change not just what we eat, how we eat, when we eat. We have to change our whole self. We have to change our brain. And that is very difficult. Our brain resists change. It was in our best interests when we were hunter gatherers for our brain to keep us doing consistent things, seeing normal things, staying on a given path, doing things a certain way because it was less dangerous. And so our brain is wired to look for anomalies. It's wired to look for change because change is deemed dangerous within the framework of the way our brain works. I think you can see where that can be a big problem.

Now, if you find yourself overweight and you're way off the path, a lot of people like to approach this and say, Well, I don't have to really change anything. I can eat what I like to eat, I just have to eat a little less. And so they try diets that help them do that. And it's really just driving slowly in the same direction you've been driving. If you're lost and you're driving in the wrong direction, driving slower isn't necessarily going to get you what you want. You're still going to be off the path. We've got to make some significant changes, and that's going to be difficult. But if you follow these five keys, I think that's going to help you quite a bit.

As we go through the five keys, I'm going to be talking a little bit about how your brain works and a little bit about how this played out with one of my clients. Now, I'm going to change the names of my clients just so you know, but these are real clients. I'm changing the names because I don't really want to out my clients for certain things that they were dealing with when they were trying to go through this. But I just want you to have some examples of how this key, that key that I'm talking about applied in someone's journey.

Embrace Discomfort

The first key to sustainable weight loss is to embrace discomfort. Losing weight is going to be hard. You're going to have to change some things that you do. You're going to have to do some things that you weren't doing. And that difference is going to trigger your stress hormones. It's going to trigger the release of cortisol. And so you're going to feel this fight or flight thing hitting from time to time. It's going to be difficult. You're also likely going to feel hunger. But I'm here to tell you, hunger is not starvation.

Hunger is just your body telling you you should eat something, but it's not dangerous. You're not going to starved to death. But these are discomfort feelings, uncomfortable feelings. And so if you can't embrace the discomfort, you're going to give in to them. And so this first bit where you're trying to use some willpower, develop some strength in that, it's going to be uncomfortable and you have to embrace it.

Now, I had a client, her name was Susan, and she decided she was going to go hard in and she wanted to do low carb, she wanted to get into Keto. And I think if you've tried Keto, you've read about Keto, it can be very difficult, but it can also be very effective at helping people lose weight. Now, there was an unintended consequence with her Keto that a lot of people suffer with. She ended up with constipation. And as you can imagine, that's very uncomfortable.

A lot of people at that point would have said, Oh, I can't eat low carb. And she would have reverted back. But we talked her through it. And so she tweaked some of her food choices and she pressed through. Now, what we did was we added a little bit of fiber to her diet, and we got her to take a supplement of magnesium, and that solved her problem. She found a sustainable way for her to eat low carb, and her preservation paid off. She stuck with it, and she lost over 40 pounds.

So you have to push through and you have to embrace that discomfort. The discomfort is your body telling you something is different and that's not a bad thing. That's your body telling you that it's hungry or wants you to eat. That's not a bad thing. You just have to figure out how to work through that and find the right way that's going to work for you.

Perfection Rather Than Progress

Now, the second key is to focus on progress and not perfection. Now, a lot of people want perfect. They want fast progress. They want straight-line weight loss, and that's just not how it works. If we keep trying to strive for perfection, a part of our brain that's called the anterior singlet Cort is going to be activated. And so this is going to create anxiety, self-doubt.

And so instead of striving for perfection, what you want to do is focus on progress, even little small progresses. And you celebrate those wins, you're going to reward your brain. Your brain is going to say, hey, this is good. This feels good. It's a release of dopamine. Every time you congratulate yourself and you feel good. And so what that does is that it motivates your brain's reward system and you feel good. And so if you can start acknowledging small progress, and that's why a few weeks ago I did episode on journaling, and I think writing down your daily wins is a really good and valuable tool.

I had a client, Maria. Now, Maria wanted to lose weight, but here's the deal. She was working very long hours. It was a busy season for her at her job. She's a tax accountant. And so during tax season, right up until the filing deadline dates, it's insane, 60, 70 hours weeks plus. The food they're bringing in is not necessarily always the healthiest for you either.

There's a lot of stress. And so what she did was she just basically said, “Okay, I'm not going to have time to go to the gym and get workouts in.” So instead, she just focused on making better food choices. Now, what did this mean? That she was not seeing this perfection. Occasionally, she had to make a bad food choice because that's all that was available. But she ate less of it. And so she worked her way through this, and she managed to lose weight during this busy time because she focused on progress and not perfection.

And now the busy season's over, she's in the gym and she's doing great. So just realize that there's going to be times when you can sprint and there'll be times when you just have to go really slow or just hold your ground. And recognizing that pacing is really important and then rewards your progress. Know when you're doing something right and so your body rewards you for doing that.

Be Open To New Ideas

The third key to sustained weight loss is being open to new ideas. Now, our body wants regular things. It wants us to stay familiar. It wants predictability. And that makes it really difficult sometimes for us to acknowledge that things have to change. That's why it's so popular for people to put, eat whatever you want and lose weight. Keep eating the food you love and lose weight. You'll read that time and time again. And sadly, I'm here to tell you that's probably really not going to be the way that you have to go.

If you've eaten a certain way for a certain amount of time, that's where you are. That's what got you where you were. So trying new things, just trying a different strategy, trying new foods so you're getting more whole foods in your diet. The ability to try new things, to put new things in there, often can be the difference and can start crowding out things that weren't working for you that maybe you enjoyed.

I had a client, Mick. Now, Mick, at the very beginning, basically told me, I do not want to cook for myself. I don't enjoy cooking. I don't enjoy preparing meals. I want to go out and eat a dinner at a restaurant or something else. And so he didn't want to cook. So we were going to work with that. We were going to work with not cooking as an approach, even though I think he knew deep down that he needed to be willing to try it. And so what ended up happening was he started losing a little bit of weight, and he noticed that he lost more weight when he was cooking for himself. So he was starting to prepare more meals for himself. But when he was eating family meals, when he was eating what he prepared, his progress was better.

So this rewarded his brain, again, that whole process of saying, Hey, this actually feels good. This is what I need. Seeing that additional progress and recognizing why it was happening, again, not a bad reason to have a journal, he started cooking more. And he started actually enjoying the process of cooking because he knew what was going into his body. He knew it was fueling him, and he could see his weight drop and he could see his energy level increase. And so being open to new ideas is one of the key ones because what got us where we are is probably not going to get us where we want to be.

Believe In Yourself

The fourth key to sustainable weight loss is to believe in yourself. Okay? Yes, you've tried and you failed, and yes, you've failed and you failed and you tried, and maybe you lost weight and then you gained it back. But by believing in yourself and setting that self-efficacy and saying, I can do this, I am doing this, this is happening. When you start to get your brain wrapped around what you can do versus what you think you can't do, you start pushing yourself toward success.

I think it was Ford who said, whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right. And that's this principle is all about. When we go through in our brain and we tell ourselves that this is our new reality, this is what I know I can do. I believe in myself, I know this can happen, you activate your brain and it basically starts affirming you. So as you do these self affirmations, as you do these self reflections, as you say, I know I can't. I know I can lose the weight. I know I can get stronger. I know I can avoid certain situations. I know I can stop doing things that are not serving me. When you start making those choices and you're making those choices from a statement of belief and knowing that you can, it will change a lot.

Annette struggled with self-love and compassion. We talked about this a great deal, and she didn't feel good about herself, and as a result, that was holding her back. What I had her do is I had her do some daily work. She thought it was silly at first. Go in the morning, look at the reflection, and tell yourself how you feel about yourself, how you love yourself, how you believe in yourself, how you know that you deserve to be treated right.

And like I said, she thought it was a little funny. But over time, that started to shift. And what she was able to do after she started getting this belief system in place was she started tapping into her strengths and she started being more consistent and she started losing weight and feeling better. So the accomplishments then of losing weight reinforced the belief that she put in herself at the beginning and that just got stronger and stronger. And so if you find yourself struggling, take some moment to do some self reflection.

But above all, this is not going to happen if you don't have self compassion and self love. So believe in yourself. You can do this. You can lose the weight. You just have to believe in yourself and then do the things you know that are necessary.

Get Help

The fifth key is to get help. Now, a few months ago, maybe a couple of months ago, I shared a model for motivation, and I strongly believe that everybody has motivation backwards. Everybody believes motivation is just something you have, something that just comes on. It's like, oh, now I'm motivated and I wasn't motivated before. But the reality is motivation comes from doing something first. Now, there are multiple different types of motivation. The best kind are the intrinsic ones, but they take a little bit of time to develop. That self belief, that trying new things, all those things are helping you build that. But the easiest and fastest way to get motivated is to hire a coach. A leader coach, extrinsic motivator, which is an external motivator, a coach is going to be there to hold you accountable. They're going to be there to push you. And then you're going to do trial and error.

Things are going to work for you that don't work for others. Things are not going to work for you that did work for others. It's like, I don't understand. They ate this way and they did this thing and it worked for them, but that's not how it might work for you. Now, I went through eight years of just up and down, up and down, and I invested thousands of dollars. Once I figured out that I needed to be my own coach and I figured out that I needed to do some things, I wasn't sure how I could do that. I was traveling so much and my life was just so messed up and there really weren't online trainers like there are today.

So I just said, okay, I will work with a local nutritionist and I will have some conversations with them. I will spend the money, I spent thousands and thousands of dollars to educate myself, to get certifications so that I could know what to do when I was training. And then I took the information that the nutritionist gave me and I started training. And that's how I lost my weight. That's how I lost the weight and it basically kept it off is just from that process.

And I still hire coaches today.

So I started 40+ Fitness because I wanted to be there for people the way I didn't have someone there for me. There was no one online for me to say, okay, I'm over 40, I'm going to be at a different gym every week, I'm going to need programs that I can do in a room, I can need programs I can do in a gym, and I need substitutes if I go into a gym and they don't have a particular piece of equipment. So I trained myself to do that. And you don't have to today because there are online personal trainers available.

Now, I want to talk about someone named Jose. Jose came to me. We were on a call. He was about 60 pounds overweight. And we talked about it. And then it came down time to say, Okay, are you going to hire me, Jose? And his answer was, No, I don't want to spend that money. I think I can do it on my own.

About six months later, I get another email from Jose, and he wants to talk to me. He had gained another 10 pounds in that six months. He reached out to me. And again, when it came time to say, do you want to hire me, Jose? The answer was no. And so we've messaged a little bit since then, a little over a year, he still has that 70 pounds. He's still 70 pounds overweight and he still isn't ready to get help.

He's stuck and I can't be the answer. I can't help him if he won't get help. So the fifth key to sustainable weight loss is to get help.

Summary

I think as you can tell, the way our brains are wired is really working against us if we're looking to lose weight. And so if you're going to make a change, if you're going to lose the weight and keep it off, you've got to do a lot to change the way your mind works, your mindset works, and your brain works. And that means you have to embrace discomfort. This is not going to be easy. It's going to be hard. And you have to push through that. You have to focus on progress and not perfection. It's the progress that matters, even little bits of progress, if you can celebrate them, you're teaching your brain to want more and then teaching your brain to be consistent.

And that little progress that you're making over time adds up to a whole lot. You need to be open to new ideas. The way you're eating, the way you're moving, the things you're doing now might not be serving you and changing up some of them, trying things you might not thought you would try can go a long way towards making that change happen and making it sustainable. But you got to be open to it. You got to believe in yourself. If you don't believe you can do this, you're right, you can't. So you've got to work on that. You work on your self compassion, work on your self love, and really instill a mindset that you believe you can do this and you are going to do this.

And then finally, I just say, look, ask for help. It doesn't have to be me. You can be a person in the gym. It can be a nutritionist. I hired a local nutritionist, had some conversations with her about what I should eat and how I should eat. And then I ate that way. But that was a very different situation.

I have my 12 week Shed the Fat program going on right now. I have limited slots in that program. But if you're interested, you can message me, coach@40plusfitness.com. Reach out to me. Let's have a conversation.

These keys to sustainable weight loss are hard. They're not easy. And if you get help, it's going to make it so much easier because you're going to have that accountability. You're going to have done an action, hiring a coach, that's going to be the key to having your initial bout of motivation. That's going to help you see progress. That's going to help you be successful at the start. And that's going to keep you going when things get hard. So again, coach@40plusfitness.com.

Post Show/Recap

[00:22:19.040] – Allan

Welcome back, Ross.

[00:22:23.040] – Rachel

Hey, Allen. I have to tell you, truthfully, when I heard you mention the title being the five keys to sustainable weight loss, the first thing I was thinking of, okay, got to eat better, sleep more, exercise more. And then you gave me these five other keys that had literally no particular direct thing, but all great strategies for making a change with your weight loss journey?

[00:22:48.570] – Allan

Well, I just wanted to comment on that a little bit because it's just this thing that I… I've started really working deep with people on weight loss and having the right conversations. I've got the quiz out there at 40plusfitness. Com quiz. Just seeing the results and what people are coming up with, we all know what to do. Like you said, those five things, just do those five things. The healthy things that make you healthy will make you lose weight. And so I just repeated that. That's not really solving the problem. The real problem is why aren't we doing those things?

[00:23:23.090] – Rachel

That's the question.

[00:23:24.570] – Allan

Of the year. So that's the real key. We know the locks, we know what's there, we know how to do it. It's just getting it done. And so as I was thinking through this, it was like, I wanted to go that layer beneath all of that. How do I make myself do these things or get myself to do these things? And so these were more in the lines of, Okay, what's really in our way? And if someone says, Okay, well, I'm hungry and this is uncomfortable. Well, got to embrace that a little bit. If you want to lose some weight, you're probably going to be a little hungry at time. We talked about that with Brian last week. He had his little shark mode. He's a big man. He's over, I think, 6'5 or something like that. So grumpy guy who's 6'5 and weighs 300 pounds, stay out of his way, shark mode. But we're going to be a little uncomfortable. That's what these were really all about was how do we get ourselves to feel right about this so that we can stay successful?

[00:24:23.380] – Rachel

Right. Well, the one that stuck out the most with me was key number 3, be open to new ideas. And what really hit me with that was when I first started listening to your podcast, how long has it been now, Alan? Six years.

[00:24:37.620] – Allan

Seven years? Yeah. Well, I launched the podcast seven and a half years ago. Gosh.

[00:24:42.460] – Rachel

Well, about that time you started to introduce the information about the Keto diet and low carb eating. And at the time, I just had a lot of doubts with yet another fad diet out there, and I didn't want to cut out all the fruits that I like to eat during the day, the breads I love to have with dinner or pizza or anything like that. And I was very resistant to that idea. But at the time, I was at a crossing point here. I was at the bridge. I had to make a change, but I just couldn't figure out what to do. And so I was like, Okay, I'm going to be open to this. And I literally said, I'm just going to try this and see how it works. And so I dove right into the Keto way of eating, and I lost the weight that I needed to lose at that time. So it was sometimes these ideas are out there, or sometimes we don't want to give up our favorite foods or our favorite habits. But sometimes if you really want to make a change, you just have to do something a little different.

[00:25:45.170] – Allan

That was the whole point of the client I mentioned. I used the name Mick, not his real name, but he had told me the very first day we talked, he's like, I don't like cooking. I don't like being in the kitchen. I don't like doing any of that. I'm like, Okay, well, let's talk about strategies just to get you eating better food. And then we see where it goes. And the interesting thing was he went on a trip to see his family about three weeks. In the middle of a 12 week program, he's on vacation and he's sticking with it because the whole point was that's how his family actually lived. They cook their own meals. So he's having home cooked meals and he's starting to taste the nutrition and really realize, okay, this is serving me a lot better than the big US based portions that I'm getting at all these restaurants. And so he started to learn. It's like, this is what real food tastes like when you prepare it yourself. And so he started doing that and control the portions. He knew everything that was in the food. And then he and his wife just came to realize, Wow, this is actually fun.

[00:26:49.660] – Allan

We're spending time together. We're cooking our own meals. We're feeling better, we're looking better, and this is working for us. And so by the end of the 12 weeks, he actually said, We might eat out once every week or every two weeks. But most of the food that I'm eating, I'm preparing myself, and I actually like it that way. Whereas before, he was so resistant to, I'm not going to cook my own meals. I have to eat out every meal thing. Just start with that idea of, Okay, what if I cooked one extra meal per week for myself? Just one meal. What if I did a little bit of food prep on Sunday? I'm working on it for two or three hours, but then I don't have to do that the rest of the week. I just warm it up. So there's lots of opportunities there if you're willing to try new things.

[00:27:36.060] – Rachel

Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I'm with him. I don't like to cook either. But I also don't like to pay a whole ton of money for a restaurant meal that I don't like or that's not healthy. So you got to choose.

[00:27:47.800] – Allan

Yeah. Well, I think that's one of the things you don't have to choose, choose. But the whole point being is I told him, I said, well, we'll work with what you got, but you got to look at what a portion size is. And so when they bring out that big plate of food, that's three meals. That's three meals on that plate. The standard restaurant has to give you two and a half to three meals just for customers to feel like they got their money's worth. And so you go in there and you look at the calorie counts. Some of these restaurants to print that on their menus now, or you can look it up online and you're like, Okay, so this particular meal is 1,500 calories. Guess what? Rachel, for someone your size, that's almost all the calories.

[00:28:28.670] – Rachel

That's all in.

[00:28:29.470] – Allan

My day. If you're sedentary and you're 5'1?

[00:28:35.230] – Rachel

Two ish, yeah, and a good.

[00:28:36.900] – Allan

Hair day. But you can look that up. You can look that up and say, What's my TDE, which we're going to get into next week, actually, a little bit about calories. But that 1,500 is almost 100 % of the calories you need that day. So you start saying, okay, if I want to lose a little bit of weight, I eat that meal, but I also had breakfast and lunch. Now you start to see why you were gaining weight is we don't understand portion sizes, we don't understand meal sizes. And so is the whole point of when you're preparing it at home and you know what goes into it and you can plate yourself a real meal. Okay, I'm going to have two portions of protein and then some vegetables. And if I'm going to have something like rice or potatoes, I understand what a portion size is, and I'm going to eat maybe half a portion. So I still get to savor and enjoy the carbohydrates that I love. But I'm just not going to eat as much of them. I'm really going to take my time with them so that I enjoy them rather than scarf them down like you would do in a restaurant situation.

[00:29:40.870] – Rachel

Oh, gosh, yeah, for sure.

[00:29:43.370] – Allan

And you don't have people walking by constantly, Can I get you another beer? Can I get you another wine? Do you want another this? Do you want to know that? Do you want some dessert? Oh, look at this tray. You're on your own kitchen. You're not selling yourself that stuff. That's true. So it was just that thing. He opened himself up to a new idea as we were going along. But he still went out to eat occasionally. But now he understood, okay, that's two or three meals. So if I'm going to do it, I'm either going to not eat all the food that's there or I'm going to bring it home. So maybe I carry it to go container with me so that I just know as soon as they bring it out, because I used to do that, I'd order a steak and a sweet potato. I'd bring my own cinnamon because theirs was already mixed with sugar. I'd actually bring my own butter because they wouldn't give me. The stuff they had was the fluffy whipped stuff with honey in it. And so I was like, No, I don't want their butter and I don't want their cinnamon because it's already got the sugar in it.

[00:30:39.650] – Allan

So I'd bring my own cinnamon and I'd bring my own butter. Tammy was a little frustrated with me when I first started doing this, but she liked the results when I started losing the weight. And I would literally bring that container or ask for a container and I'd cut the stake in the other half or I'd cut one third off, depending on how hungry I was at that moment. And the sweet potato, I'd maybe eat a quarter of.

[00:31:00.900] – Rachel

It because it's.

[00:31:01.810] – Allan

Thighs of my head.

[00:31:04.220] – Rachel

Too big.

[00:31:05.910] – Allan

And so I just sit there and cut a piece off and I'd cut the stake and I'd put the rest of it in the container. And I'd know I've got lunch for two days sitting in that container and I'm going to have a nice meal here. So a nice Caesar salad with no croutons, that stake, which is a portion, four ounces, maybe a little bit more some days, and then the sweet potato with cinnamon on it. Cinnamon has the capacity to help blood sugar spikes. So putting regular sugar on a sweet potato works fine. You don't have to have the sugar to sweet potato. So I would adapt what the restaurant was serving me to serve me better. But it was just that that was an exercise. I had to go through at a restaurant, I'm carrying butter into a restaurant. You can't put that in your pocket.

[00:31:55.100] – Rachel

No.

[00:31:56.720] – Allan

Certainly not. Don't put that in your pocket. But it was just one of those adaptations to say, Okay, if I'm going to go out, then I'm going to look for the protein source and look for the vegetables. And if they bring me three meals, I'm going to take two of them home.

[00:32:09.190] – Rachel

That's awesome.

[00:32:10.200] – Allan

So it's just those little things. But it's new and it's a change, and it's outside your comfort zone. So when you start it, it is hard. But when you start to see the results, it's like, okay, if this, then that, and you know how your body works, those new ideas can become the new you. You're now you eat Keto. That's who you are. You've put that into your persona.

[00:32:35.000] – Rachel

How you live.

[00:32:35.790] – Allan

You don't even think about it anymore.

[00:32:37.910] – Rachel

No. I was asked the other day if I missed anything, if there was any particular food or meal or something that I've missed, having been Keto and very specific with what I choose to eat. And I don't crave anything anymore. I can pass up all those sweet pastries. They really mean nothing to me at this stage. So I don't miss any of that. But just one more thing I want to mention is the last key about hiring an expert or to going to hire a coach or a trainer. And I feel like that is so important, especially at this particular age where we are, over 40, I'm over 50, that I don't have time to play all the tricks. I don't have time to mess with different strategies anymore. If I want a result, I want to just go and get the result. And you just mentioned a whole bunch of really great ideas that I don't think the average person might have thought of on their own. When somebody were to hire you, Allen, you'd probably give them these types of strategies and these types of tips and things to look for, to think about.

[00:33:44.020] – Rachel

And I would rather be guided in those ways than to just hit and miss it on my own. There's a lot of benefit to hiring an expert right off the bat.

[00:33:54.550] – Allan

Yeah. The way I look at it is, okay, well, one, you can look at it from the motivation perspective. It's easy and it's immediate. So you have extrinsic motivation, accountability from a coach right there to start. That's huge. It is. For most people, as soon as they know, okay, I invested and I've got a coach and the coaches ask me what I can do and can't do, and then just pushing me just to the edge and just outside of my comfort zone, that's where the magic happens. You can't stay comfortable and change. That's not how it works. It's got to be just outside your comfort zone. You don't want to go too far outside your comfort zone because then it has the opportunity to backlash on you and cause some problems. But just outside your comfort zone is a place. When you start pushing that, your comfort zone gets bigger and then you push it a little bit more. And that's where a coach can really come in handy because we can start pushing. And when something just isn't working, I have clients that I say, Okay, here's your workout. And they come back and say, This particular exercise just doesn't feel good on my knees or my lower back or this.

[00:35:04.420] – Allan

Or they try something and they're like, I just don't like broccoli. Just do not like broccoli. I'm like, Well, broccoli isn't the only vegetable out there that you could try. There's lots of them. But some people equate. If I'm going to lose weight, I got to do chicken and broccoli. It's because that's what they're told or that's what they believe. And so it's just the, Okay, well, let's talk about other vegetables that would fit with what you're trying to do. Leafy greens. Are there any leafy greens that you like? Are there any other basically cruciferous vegetables? Which asparagus does not taste like broccoli. It's entirely different. Ca workflower does not taste like broccoli. And there's things you can do with either one of those to make them not the same texture, same quality. You can make a ca workflower into a mash and put some butter in there. And it's almost, I'm just not going to say it's mash potatoes, but.

[00:35:57.910] – Rachel

It's.

[00:35:58.660] – Allan

Fish. You can rice it and it can replace rice in some dishes. And so there's just opportunities there to have the conversations to see, okay, what would work and what can we try? And I always tell my clients, I'm like, let's try this. And if it's serving you, you should keep it. If it's not, toss it. And there's plenty of times we start a strategy and they're like, Okay, this is not working for me. Cool. Or it's a pivot like the client I had that she wanted to do Keto. She knew that she'd seen enough to know that that would be something that would help her lose weight. Me and a friend that referred her to me and all that, she saw, she knows. Okay, so she said, I'm going to try this. Well, she also got really bad constipation. And so we're a few weeks in and she's like, I can't keep doing this because this is not working. She said, I'm losing the weight. But she said, I'm miserable. So I'm like, okay, well, let's get you started taking a little bit of magnesium and let's eat some fiber. And she says, I thought I was supposed to stay away from carbs.

[00:37:03.690] – Allan

I'm like, No, you can have fiber. In fact, I want you to get a lot of fiber. So we just went out, picked some fiber rich foods, factored that into her nutrition plan. So she's like, Okay, you can eat these fibrous foods. You need to eat these fibrous foods. And a week after that, she's running clean. I love it. But the weight is coming off, too. She lost over 40 pounds. She stayed on after I finished the 12 weeks. She lost about half of that during that 12 weeks. And then she was like, wanted to stay after because she had an idea where she wanted to be. So she stayed on for another six months in my legacy program and got herself down. And it was just the consistency and her willingness to believe in herself when at first she didn't. Then just the pushing through and doing uncomfortable things. It was new things, it was uncomfortable things. It was just all of it. That's why I thought these five were really important because I see it over and over and over again, the people that don't do these five things, and as a result, they struggle.

[00:38:10.780] – Allan

And a coach is there. If you got a good coach, they're going to help you ride right on the outside edge of that comfort zone, keep you in the game long enough to start seeing results. And when you start seeing results, then you start to internalize that. And that's how you start building additional motivation that's intrinsic, which is where really the magic happens.

[00:38:33.310] – Rachel

Perfect. That's absolutely perfect. Great tips, Allen. Great keys.

[00:38:38.860] – Allan

Thank you. All right, well, I will see you next week. We're going to talk about calories next week. I know a lot of people think, Well, Allen's not calories in, calories out guy. Well, maybe I am.

[00:38:50.880] – Rachel

Well, I guess we'll see.

[00:38:52.260] – Allan

Yes. Talk to you then.

[00:38:54.390] – Rachel

Take care, Allen.

[00:38:55.480] – Allan

You too.

[00:38:56.290] – Rachel

Thanks. Bye bye.

Music by Dave Gerhart

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– Ken McQuade	– Leigh Tanner
– Debbie Ralston	– John Dachauer	– Tim Alexander
– Eliza Lamb

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

You are not a victim

Less...

Let's Say Hello

Rachel Discussion

Interview

Text – https://amzn.to/44eYf6C

Post Show/Recap

Post show with Rachel.

Music by Dave Gerhart

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– Ken McQuade	– Leigh Tanner
– Debbie Ralston	– John Dachauer	– Tim Alexander
– Eliza Lamb

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Signals that make your body get and stay fat | Dr. Richard Johnson

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:15.950] – Allan

Hey, Raz.

[00:03:17.250] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. How are you today?

[00:03:19.420] – Allan

I'm doing better. I had a cold for a few days, and so I was down, but I'm back and I'm doing well.

[00:03:25.240] – Rachel

Good.

[00:03:25.890] – Allan

Just catching up.

[00:03:28.050] – Rachel

Glad you're feeling better.

[00:03:29.780] – Allan

How are things up there?

[00:03:31.300] – Rachel

Good. Would you be surprised if I said I found a new run club to join?

[00:03:37.350] – Allan

How many days in a week are there?

[00:03:38.950] – Rachel

How many run clubs are not enough? Pretty much. And actually, it's not my fault. It's Mike's Fault. My husband Mike's Fault. One of the ladies in our local running club in the city that we live down in Middleville, she works at a brewery up near Grand Rapids, and she said she's been looking to start up again. They used to have a run club, and my husband said, wait, you don't have a run club? We should run there. So we took a field trip up there and ran a loop with a bunch of friends, and everybody loved it. And so our local brewery called Railtown Brewery has started up their run club, and we will be there tonight. As a matter of fact, you do.

[00:04:22.550] – Allan

That run club and then drive down and do that run club.

[00:04:26.030] – Rachel

Yeah, we're hitting them all.

[00:04:28.060] – Allan

Like shuttling kids to soccer practice.

[00:04:30.490] – Rachel

Exactly it.

[00:04:34.870] – Allan

I do have a couple of things to talk about. I got a message from a guy and he was looking at the retreat that I had scheduled that was actually supposed to happen a couple of weeks ago that would cancel because there really wasn't any interest. People were telling me it was just the timing was bad or this and that. So I am going to try one more time to have this retreat here in Bocas. And so I'm looking at right now, August 28, and that'll run through September 1. Because it's low season here in Bocas, I will be able to lower the price, particularly for the VIPs that are staying at Lula. And you'll be able to get cheaper airfare, cheaper flights, I mean, cheaper rooms. All of it will cost less this time of year. So I'm pretty excited to be trying to do that and see if that happens. But I'm just going to try it. This episode is supposed to go live kind of in the middle of June, but go ahead and message me or go to the page 40 plusfitness. Comretreat and sign up. If I don't have sign ups by about the first or second week of July, I'm going to pull the plug again because I can't put money into something that's not going to happen.

[00:05:51.330] – Allan

So you can be interested or you can actually sign up, two different things. So don't just tell me you're interested. Go ahead and go to this page 40 plusfitness.com retreat and go ahead and sign up. And if I get some sign ups, then we'll have this thing. I was pretty excited about it before, and then it kind of fizzled out and didn't happen. I hope this one will. So please do go check that out. And I also have a few slots left in my personal training for the twelve week Shed the Fat program. So if you're interested in that, one of the interesting things to think about is that if you do twelve weeks training, you're going to be in a lot better shape when you come to the retreat on August 28. So consider that, consider checking that out and you can go to 40 Plusfitness.com, message me from there and we can talk about getting you on the twelve week program.

[00:06:50.130] – Rachel

Awesome. That sounds great.

[00:06:52.020] – Allan

All right. So are you ready to talk about journaling?

[00:06:55.480] – Rachel

Sure.

Episode

You've probably heard me say more than once that you need to journal or journaling is a good tool. A lot of my guests have said journaling is a great tool for wellness, weight loss, fitness, health, all the way across the board. A journal can be a great tool to help you on your journey. The question is what should go into a good or a great wellness journal? So I want to talk about that today. When you think about a wellness journal, it's going to be custom to how you want to approach your journey. Things that matter more to you may matter less to me, and vice versa. So take these. These are just ideas. You could probably add other things you want to do. Some people will do a whole lot of extra logging, others want a very succinct and concise log. So it's really up to you how deep you go into this. But this is really about learning. This is a tool to help you learn, a tool to help keep you on track, a tool to keep you motivated. And so I strongly encourage you to journal as a part of your journey.

So when I talk about a journal, I basically break my journal into two pieces. So I've got my global, or kind of my planning stage of this. It's kind of the first few pages where I'll go through and break down my goals and my vision. And I usually look at these in a short term, medium term, long term kind of cycle. So my short term will be like the next 30 days. So what are some things that I want to accomplish in the next 30 days that lead me toward my vision? And then what are some things that I expect that I'll do in the next six months? Again, focused on my goals and my vision, and then the three to five years, which is usually a little bit more aligned with just what my vision is, what I want to look and feel like, how I want to be moving, what I want to be able to do. So I break that down into those three phases, the short term, medium term, and long term term. And I have all those documented. And so what I know is that my 30 day goals are going to lead toward me being able to hit my six month goals, which are going to lead towards me being able to hit my long term goals, which are usually in the range of somewhere between three to five years.

So you know that question, where do you want to be in five years? It's kind of that mindset of a vision, what am I aiming at? And then making sure everything I'm doing in between is leading towards that long term. And that's a part of my global approach. The Journal. And that's the front of my Journal. And then, like I said, I've set my 30 day goals. So now I work day to day. And so I set a daily set up. And each day I record a gratitude. What am I grateful for today? And it doesn't have to be anything huge. It can just be that we got rain because I live on an island and we need water. It can be that I had a great evening hanging out with my wife, or I enjoy spending some time with our dogs, or I went for a wonderful walk and just saw a sloth. It could be anything. But what is something today that I'm grateful for? And I do that first thing in the morning. That's the very first thing I do. And then I write my daily intention. What is the thing that I need to do today to move the needle forward?

And so when I'm looking at my wellness, that could be get my walk in, that could be get my lifting in, that could be whole food, it could be get myself into ketosis. It could be a number of different things. But what's my intention today? What am I going to do today? And having just one intention, because I've found if you have too many and you try to do too many things at one time, some of them get lost in the mix. So I have one major intention for each day. The next is basic logging. So if I'm doing a workout, I log my workout. If I'm looking at my nutrition, then I go ahead and I log my nutrition. And a lot of times I will do this on a hard copy just to see that I'm sticking to my goals. If I need more detail, like I need my macros or I need my calories, I typically will key that into an app like my fitness pal. But I may also record some of the results in my journal just to see how I ate today, what I ate today. And then what I do is I kind of look at how today went, and so I say, okay, based on my logging, how am I feeling?

What's my energy level? Based on how I ate yesterday, what do I feel today? And I kind of get an idea, like maybe I'm doing a really good job on my lifts. And so I'm lifting more weight. I want to tie that together with, okay, I've been consistent with my lifting for this month, and therefore my strength is going up pretty well on these particular exercises. And so I kind of take my log and I tie that into key findings, like, what are some of the takeaways that I have from what I did that lends into what went well today? So I'm always going to end a day with what do I feel like I did well on? So I can feel that success, I can celebrate that success in my journal. And then the next step, the next one is learnings. Okay, so did I do something poorly? Did I do something or something didn't go well? And I learned something from this. So what did I learn? Today is the next one, and then the final one is just wins. I finish out the day and say, okay, what are my key wins today?

And so when I talk about the seven things that are a part of my wellness journal, it includes the global, which is number one is my goals and vision. Okay? And then the rest of them are daily. I do a daily gratitude. That's number two. I do a daily intention. What am I going to do today that's most important? That's number three. Number four, logging and tying. So I log what I've done, my workouts, my walks, my food, my sleep, anything I feel like I need to be working on, I'm logging that, and then I'm tying that to what is going on in my life. And then number five is the what went well today? So giving myself a what went well? I know my lifts were good, my walk was good. Maybe I bonked on my walk, and that's what I learned. So that's the next one. Six, what are things that didn't go well today? But I don't look at it from the perspective of didn't go well. It's like, what did I learn? And I learned, okay, maybe if I'm going to do a 15 miles walk, I should actually eat something before that walk because I could bonk.

It might be that I'm starting to feel a little bit of stress on one of my joints, and I might want to ratchet down on that particular lift. And so the things I'm learning today, I want to carry forward. And then my wins. It's very important to celebrate each time you do something. If you hit your goals for the day, you're working towards consistency. You're getting the things done. Celebrate those often and celebrate even the small ones. So I take some time to write those things down. Now, something I also do, which you don't necessarily have to do, is I do a weekly recap at the end of the seven days. So I'll do the global, and I'll do the dailies, and then I'll have the seven day recap. My weekly recap and that's where I kind of flip back through my week and I say, okay, what are some of the things that I did this week that were good? What are some of the things that I learned this week? And I just kind of refocus my next week and saying, okay, based on what I've learned, based on what went well, what do I want to press on?

What do I want to be more intentional on this next week? And that kind of wraps up my journal. I don't do a monthly recap, although I do go back at times and look to see that I've reached my 30 day goal. And then again, if I need to reset that goal, I will recap and reset. But generally my 30 days are probably not going to be too different from my next 30 days building towards my six months, I tend to stick with stuff a little bit longer, but you may want to periodize. You may want to do something a little different. So you may change up every 30 days or every six weeks. Whatever makes the most sense for you. I tend to be a little bit more on the consistent side of doing the same thing. As long as it's working. I don't really shake things up too much, but I hope this has been helpful for you. I do value journaling a whole lot. I do it all the time. It's a pretty regular thing for me. I don't do it all the time, but I do it quite a bit. It is a great way to keep yourself on track.

It's a great way to document what you've done and what works and what doesn't work. You can look at your food and how your energy level is. You can look at your movement and maybe some pain and things that are going on, and it can give you some great information, some great data for you to understand how your body responds to the things that you're doing. So I highly recommend that you do a journal. And if you want to do a great wellness journal, I encourage you to use all seven of the elements I talked about today

Post Show/Recap

[00:15:21.190] – Allan

Welcome back, Raz.

[00:15:22.830] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. So, fun story. I love journaling. It's a great idea, and I have all my athletes do it, although I don't really do it myself. But after listening to how you line up your journal, I think I'd like to give it a try. I know it would be beneficial for myself to do it, but I have seen how successful it is for athletes in particular to journal. So sounds like a great thing to do.

[00:15:47.470] – Allan

Yeah. This is not a boil the ocean, spend a lot of time kind of thing. This is a pretty simple thing. Like, yeah, I do spend probably about an hour, half an hour maybe, going through my goals and my vision. And that's really just every month at the end of the month. So as we're recording this, I'm sitting down thinking about what I want to do for June, what I want the last half of this year to look like. And so as I go through that, I'm like, okay, here's what that looks like. Here's what I want to accomplish in 30 days. And that gives me a good idea of what each day needs to look like. And so that kind of helps with the motivation to know, okay, for me to meet this goal, I've got to look at each day, and this is the contribution that day makes to that goal. And then the only two things that I think are non negotiable is the first one is the gratitude. And the reason for that is if you express gratitude, you cut through stress, you cut through all the down talk, all the negative self talk.

[00:16:49.860] – Allan

All that stuff goes away, even if it's just for an instant. When you're in a state of gratitude, you just set yourself up to be in a really good mindset. And it doesn't have to be big. It can be just the morning you woke up, your dog was sitting there and looked up at you, and you got down on the floor and petted him, and you just felt that connection with him all over again. He's excited and happy to be in your life, and you're happy to have him in your life. And so you write that gratitude down, and for that instant, your stress is gone. For that instant, all the negative self talk is gone. And then you use that instant to set an intention for that day. And the intention can be something as simple as knowing, okay, this is going to be extremely busy day. I've got all these client meetings, so it's really going to be hard for me to get a workout in, but I want to get something in. So it could be as simple as saying, I'm going to put in five to ten minutes right before breakfast or right before my first call, I'm going to go for a walk, and then I know I've got to walk to my office is five minutes, and I got to walk back after it's five minutes.

[00:17:54.700] – Allan

So it's 20 minutes of walking. And if that's all I can do. And I know that I'm not going to have time to cook dinner because I've only got a little block of time on Mondays to eat dinner, then it might be good for me to pull something out of the freezer that I already had prepped from Sunday. So my intention is pull that out of the freezer and get in at that 20 minutes, and maybe it's broken the way I just tried to break it up. But I set my intention for that. That's my intention for the day, is to do those things. I say usually one thing. Occasionally, yes, I'll throw in a second one. But it's like, that's my intention and what it does, it keeps me on track. It keeps me from having to call out and order pizza. I'm satisfied with 20 minutes of walking when I know I could do 3 hours of walking, but I have to be satisfied with 20 minutes because that's where I am with what I have. And so I just think those two things can help you set up each day to be successful and then to measure that success with, okay, did I meet my intention today?

[00:18:58.730] – Rachel

Well, I love how you said right off the bat that you don't have to boil the ocean. And I think that's a lot of the problem that some people have with Journaling is that like, well, what do I write down? What do I need to focus on? And people get all anxious about it. And secondly, starting with the gratitude part, what's going right? Something positive. And the reason why I think that's particularly important is that it is really easy to find in our lives all the things that have gone wrong or things that are going sideways or things that are just being a pain in the side. But when you start with something that's positive, that things that are going right, something that you feel gratified for, that can learn how to look for happiness and realize some things that bring you joy that you may not instantly think of. So I think that's a really helpful practice. And then you went on to say that I always like to say, if you can't measure it, you can't monitor it. So if you're actually writing things down, what you ate that day and how you feel the next day, well, that could bring some really great insight, right?

[00:20:04.180] – Allan

Because most of us are here. We're here to make ourselves better. We're here to improve our health and fitness. And so data can drive decisions, and without the data, then you're winging it. And for a lot of people, that works. I just keep doing more, and sometimes that works. But for a lot of people, if you're wanting to improve your performance or you're wanting to lose weight, you're wanting to know that you're improving, you need to see it somewhere. So you talked about you keep data on your runs, but you're not really tying that back to, well, what is a bad performance day? What may have caused that that I can stop doing? And so if you find yourself binge eating or eating at midnight, waking up in the middle of night eating, or you're pulling into a drive through that you didn't intend to pull into, what was going on? What was going on when that happened? I'm reading a book with a guy we'll talk about in probably a couple of weeks, and he has this thing for Krispy Kreme, and he was living in a city that didn't have them, but there was one a few miles south of where he lived on a certain highway.

[00:21:13.850] – Allan

And every time he got on that highway, whether it was the intent was Krispy Kreme or not, his internal brain took him to that store. It was almost like automatic. He didn't want to stop. Even if he told himself he wasn't going to stop. He found himself in that parking lot. And so it was a question of him thinking through, why am I sitting where I'm sitting? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I getting the results I'm getting? And he had to come to that. Self awareness and a journal is a great tool to take you through that process of learning what's going wrong and how you can prevent it, seeing what's going well. So not just thinking, oh, I ruined everything with that one meal. And I can't tell you how many times I see that on social media of someone saying, I've destroyed three weeks worth of work in one day or one meal. But they feel that way. But when you actually sit there and say, well, what did I actually do? And what did I learn from it?

[00:22:17.630] – Rachel

Well, that's an interesting part of the written word, too, is that if you're truthful in your journaling, so you went out and had a wonderful birthday dinner with a loved one and celebrated with a wonderful dinner and delicious dessert. There's a lot to be grateful for and happy about in that moment. And when you write that down in your journal, you can tell yourself that you did not just sabotage everything you've been working for. That was one meal. And then you could write down what you're going to do the next day. You're going to have your normal, healthy breakfast and your normal, healthy lunch and your normal, healthy dinner, and you're back on track. Literally one meal is gone. You could be fine about having done that and move on to the next day. And maybe if you see it down in writing, you'll feel better about it.

[00:23:04.750] – Allan

Yeah. And then again, I always like to close out on a positive note. I like to start on a positive note with the gratitude, and I like to close this out the day out with what were one of my wins. And so if my intention was just to walk the 20 minutes and eat the prepared meal, pull it out of the fridge and have freezer and have it ready for tonight, and I did that, that's a win. Those are both wins. And so I can say I walked my intention and I ate my intention, and I met my intention. That's the day. And so, again, if I can stack more days like that on top of each other across those 30 days and those six months, I'm going to be where I want to be.

[00:23:45.660] – Rachel

That's awesome.

[00:23:46.500] – Allan

Or really darn close, for sure.

[00:23:49.390] – Rachel

Now, when you have clients Allan do you have them do a journal or write anything in a journal?

[00:23:55.060] – Allan

I've talked through it with them. I'm not a prescriptive coach, so I can tell them. It's like I think that there'd be a lot of value to you journaling and I think a lot of them poo poo the idea because it sounds like work, always asking me to do work, but I do hold them accountable. And we do talk about these different tools because what's going to work for me might not work for you, but I strongly encourage most people. It's like if you're trying to figure something out, you want to have a plan, you want to measure to it and you want to learn from it. And so the weight loss and fitness thing is a learning exercise. And we talked about this before we came on air. Was it's important? Because we're not going to stay the same. We might know ourselves today, but tomorrow we might find ourselves in a whole different body, a whole different set of circumstances.

[00:24:55.380] – Rachel

That is right.

[00:24:56.460] – Allan

And if that were to happen, then we would need to relearn some things. We need to reapply and approach things from a different way. And so it's a consistent as we age, growing, changing, evolving, and hopefully evolving, like really getting better. Because we learn these tricks, we learn these tools, we learn what works and then we keep applying and we keep learning and we keep getting better. And a journal is kind of the key tool it is to make that happen. Because your inner dialogue is often going to tell you, oh, you had a horrible day, go eat some chocolate. And there you are eating chocolate at the end of the day, which was actually a really good day, except for one thing, and your whole internal dialogue focused on that one thing. You still got your 20 minutes in. You still did this. Okay, this went off the rails. And so now you're punishing yourself effectively for that. And that's that internal I call the fat bastard doing that thing. And so you just keep pushing gratitude, intention and learn. And that's the value of a journal is it gives us a tool to do that.

[00:26:13.180] – Rachel

I love that. Plus the positivity how you start with a gratitude and end with a win. I think that's so helpful. I think we can be our own worst critics, but when we write something of gratitude and write down one of our wins, we can quickly change our critic into our best cheerleader.

[00:26:31.160] – Allan

Yeah, well, it's been great. I'll talk to you next week.

[00:26:34.910] – Rachel

Rachel take care. Allan you too.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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