Tag Archives for " weight loss "
On episode 659 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we meet Dr. Stewart Lonky and discuss his book, Outsmarting Obesity: A Doctor Reveals Why We Gain Weight, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do About It.
Allan [00:03:07]:
Hey, Raz. How are you?
Rachel [00:03:09]:
Good, Allan. How are you today?
Allan [00:03:11]:
I'm doing alright. It's been busy weeks, Busy weeks. I just you know, because, I've I've done a few things. We did the, the workshop last week, and so that was that was really, really good. I enjoyed doing that. You know, of course, did a ton of promotion for it to get out there that I was doing this. You know, right now, looks you know, we've got great turnout for it. So it was a, you know, really good event.
Allan [00:03:35]:
I'm I'm glad I was able to do that, and that's probably I don't know if I'll do it live again like that, but, I'll definitely save those recordings, and I may make a product or something out of that to go forward. Cool. Definitely share it with all of my clients because it's it's one of the best things I've done to date. And then, yeah, I've launched, and I'm in the process of a launch for my new program. And, it's kind of interesting because I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking, you know, I've got these ideas for the new program and what I want to incorporate. And I'm like, but I've always come up with these names, you know, like 8 weeks to Wow and to shed the fat and all that stuff. And I'm like, Well, but here's the problem. The way I'm coaching now is so different than the way I was coaching for those, especially for the 8 weeks to Wow.
Allan [00:04:21]:
It's a totally different way of coaching. And it's now almost all custom. So when I'm coaching someone, you know, like, if if I were coaching, your program would be Rachel's program. It wouldn't be some wonky name that I decided I wanted to call it. It's your program. I'm writing it for you almost on the spot. And so I said, well, what do I name something that is unnameable? Mhmm. Until I know the name of the client that I'm coaching, and I that's it.
Allan [00:04:48]:
You know? It's the your name here moniker thing, that, you know, that when you're gonna get a form and, you know, you this is just where you're gonna insert your name, your name here, program. And I'm like, so that's what I'm gonna do is when I'm talking to people about it, their program, it's their program. And that's what it's gonna be named and that's what it's gonna be is their program. And and, you know, generally, I'm I'm still targeting 12 weeks. That's, I think, a solid way to look at it to start. Mhmm. But, you know, just look at it and say, what do you need? What do you want? What do you what are your goals? And then from there, build out their program right there on the, discovery and planning call. That's what I'm launching right now, and, I'm taking applications for it because I can't obviously get on the call with with everybody.
Allan [00:05:33]:
Mhmm. So there is an application. That's 40plusfitness.com/apply. That'll take you to the application to let you know if that my approach is appropriate for you. But that's generally what I'm doing this week is basically that launch. So I've been really, really busy with that. And it cuts off on 15th. So anyone that hasn't applied by 15th, you'll miss this round and there's some pretty significant bonuses in this round that include some bonus weeks, some freezes, which I've never done before.
Allan [00:06:04]:
So this will be interesting. But if they sign up, obviously, we've been going through the holidays and some people do want to take a week off. And so I'm like, well, if you want to use a freeze week, you use a freeze week, and we add that week to the end. I've never done that before, but I know people want to need to take detours from time to time. So they can take a detour, and I'll pay for it.
Rachel [00:06:27]:
That sounds neat.
Allan [00:06:28]:
Yeah. And there's some other things that I'll throw in there as bonuses for folks that come in for this particular launch because, like I said, it's a new way that I'm going to put us all together. So, while I'm doing this launch, which will go into 15th, this is this is your time to apply. So
Rachel [00:06:45]:
That sounds great.
Allan [00:06:46]:
You can apply for it. So how are things up there?
Rachel [00:06:49]:
Good. Warm and toasty even through the end of this summer, bare getting into fall. But I'm I'm just gonna say I'm glad my camper has air conditioning.
Allan [00:06:59]:
Well, you you know, again, you only have a couple weeks, a few weeks, I guess, until, until we get to the actual fall. So it it it'll cool down. It'll cool.
Rachel [00:07:08]:
I can't wait because fall makes for the best running season ever. So, yeah, I can't wait.
Allan [00:07:14]:
Especially, like, you you get a lot of color change up there with yours.
Rachel [00:07:17]:
We do. Yep. That'll be coming. I I don't know when our peak is this year in my area, but I think it's mid to late October is what they're predicting. So
Allan [00:07:24]:
I always thought it had something to do with the temperature and the rain.
Rachel [00:07:28]:
Mhmm. Yep. Yep. 2 BD. Yes. See what happens.
Allan [00:07:32]:
Alright. Alright. So are you ready to have a conversation with doctor Lankey?
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:07:36]:
Sure.
Allan [00:07:38]:
Our guest today is a double board certified physician and expert in medical toxicology. In his new book, Outsmarting Obesity, he challenges the status quo about weight gain and obesity. With no further ado, here's doctor Stuart Lankey. Doctor Lankey, welcome to 40 Plus Fitness.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:07:57]:
Well, thank you. It's great to be here.
Allan [00:07:59]:
So, you know, as I as I go through and I read books to prepare for these conversations, typically, I'll sit down with a piece of paper, and I'll start writing down a note. You know, like, oh, this is an interesting thing. And so it's one thing. And then it's so it ends up being like a list. And I'll end up I might end up with 4, 5, 6, 7 things. And then when I see a study, I, like, I'll follow that study, and I'll go read the study because that was interesting. And I end up over there. And so I'm gonna show this to you, and there's very few people are gonna see this.
Allan [00:08:27]:
But this is more
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:08:30]:
Looks like my looks like my desktop.
Allan [00:08:32]:
Yeah. But it's literally, it's a word cloud. It's like I sat down. I started writing all this stuff down. Like, okay. This and this. And then I'm trying to tie them all together. And so, you know, I'm like, okay.
Allan [00:08:42]:
This goes to this, and that's over here. And I it was like I was trying to solve a big puzzle. And then you put it together and, and literally solve the puzzle for me in literally one sentence. So all those words I wrote down, they came down to one sentence, which I thought was just brilliant. Obesity promotes systemic inflammation, and inflammation promotes obesity.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:09:07]:
That's an excellent conclusion to come to because that is kind of the secret of obesity and why it is medically a challenging situation for physicians, particularly we learned that lesson with the SARS COV 2 pandemic. People wondered why obese individuals didn't do as well. And for me, it was pretty straightforward. They were already in an inflammatory state, so their immune system was being overtaxed on a daily basis. Their ability to cope with a virus that was novel, that was unlike anything they'd seen before, they were not going to do well when the cytokine storm happened.
Allan [00:09:57]:
Yeah. And and there were other things to us. Like I said, I it was it was fascinating. And I I enjoyed I enjoyed that. I enjoyed going through that and really diving into the science of it. One of the things, you know, obviously, of course, we all hear this. It's kind of a common thing. Okay.
Allan [00:10:13]:
You're overweight. You're obese. Just stop eating crap. Eat less. You know, the whole individual agency. You're a grown man. Just just stop.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:10:24]:
I gave some examples with a patient of mine that's a real patient. It is very commonplace for people to look at, morbidly obese individuals and state that, boy, that person should stop eating so much. And that individual agency being responsible for the obesity epidemic doesn't make any sense, first of all. And number 2, it's it's erroneous. What we've learned and what I've learned in 10 years of doing this work and talking to people, reviewing articles, going through the literature is that, unfortunately, the die is cast fairly early. And if we if if we wanna be smart about this, and that's why I named the book, Outsmarting Obesity. I named it that because if you're not smart and you don't know what the root cause is, you'll never understand why when we diet, we can lose weight. I mean, you can restrict your calories and lose weight.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:11:23]:
But the minute you stop that crazy restriction or whatever it is that you're doing, you're gonna gain it right back because you haven't addressed the real issue, which isn't individual agency. It is, unfortunately, as I like to say, it's it's a chemistry set within the body. It's chemical things that are happening and that have been happening now for generations.
Allan [00:11:47]:
You know, a lot of times we'll we'll talk about fat, and there's a kind of a thing in in my industry that they love, love, love to talk about. They're like, well, add muscle because that's more bioactive than fat. And from a from a calorie expenditure perspective, that's that's true statement. But fat's pretty busy.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:12:07]:
Yeah. Fat, I you know, it's interesting. I started medical school. And to me, fat was just you know, it was there. It was insulation in a sense. Got into dissections and realized, very early in my 1st year of medical school, it was not of a mental fat. There was fat throughout the body. And I happened to be in a medical school where one of the leading researchers, a fellow named, doctor Scott Grundy was, a professor.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:12:37]:
And Scott really taught us how fat was really an active endocrine organ, And it was just becoming understood how fat really is very important in communicating with the brain, secreting a number of different, hormones that tell you are hypothalamus, stop eating. You're full. Or eat something. And communicating with other organs like pancreas and dealing with glucose metabolism, insulin secretion, all of these things are the general in charge, sort of the catcher on the baseball team who's the really the captain of the team on the field is fat. So fat's a very active biological tissue. Don't wanna eliminate all fat. It serves a real purpose, but too much of it is obviously what we're talking about.
Allan [00:13:35]:
Yes. And so, yeah, it, you know, it'll tell you your if when it when it's functioning the way it's supposed to, which is a very important part of this whole conversation, when it's doing what it's supposed to, it's telling you that you're full. Go ahead and stop eating. We've got plenty of fat. We're good. It's it's kinda running a lot of other endocrine functions, communicating throughout the body and kinda helping like you said, it's a perfect analogy, the catcher on a on a baseball field, you know, making sure everybody's where they're supposed to be and doing the things they're supposed to do. But every once in a while and the way I've heard it before, it was really in the context of insulin resistance and and dealing with die you know, diabetes, prediabetes is okay. So we're eating, and the body has more blood sugar more than it needs, and it's gotta store this somewhere.
Allan [00:14:25]:
Can't store it in liver. Can't store it in the muscle. So it's gonna try to store it in fat. And then at some level, it begins to try to force the it has to almost force the fat to take this energy. And so it keeps forcing it. And then and then what happens then is this the fat cells, because we really aren't making a whole lot of these things where that we have what we have, They get bigger and bigger. And even though they're fighting back to say, no. No more.
Allan [00:14:48]:
No more. They get overstuffed. And and the way you said it here was, it was sick fat.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:14:54]:
Yes. And I, you know, I think that fat cells becoming larger is a real problem. And I go into it discussing something that, you know, I've never seen anyone discuss before and you understand my subspecialty in internal medicine is pulmonary and critical care medicine. So I think in terms of oxygenation always and oxygen has to diffuse into a fat cell and it can't diffuse. There are elaborate studies showing how far oxygen can diffuse into the fat cell to nourish it Plus the fat cell needs oxygen just like your brain needs oxygen and your heart's muscle needs oxygen. And as the fat cell gets bigger and bigger, that diffusion of oxygen can't happen. And so the fat cells endocrine function becomes disturbed. Add to that something I think we're gonna talk a little bit more about, and that is the fact that many chemicals that are in our bodies are not water soluble.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:16:00]:
So if we talk about heavy metals like lead and mercury and cadmium and so on, they're water soluble. So we get lead in our body. We try to excrete most of it. Some of it will store because we can't get it all out, and tomorrow we get exposed to some more. And that's how lead toxicity or mercury toxicity happens in industry, in people that are exposed to high levels, etcetera. But most of the organitins, all all of the organic molecules that were exposed to it, you know, I need to tell you that there are 85,000 chemicals that are currently used in the United States. Eighty 5,000 different chemicals approved for use by the Federal Trade Commission, not by FDA. And that's what most people don't understand.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:16:49]:
Those chemicals have never gone through any testing at FDA. And if they do, it's maybe a handful of them, but they are not water soluble. So they require the liver to break them down into water soluble pieces. There's only once you're in the body, once a chemical is in the body, the only way out is through the urine or sweat. So that's it. There's no other way out. You're either gonna urinate it out or you're gonna sweat it out. And sweating is very inefficient, but it can help.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:17:23]:
The fact is, is that the liver is sometimes quote, otherwise occupied, close quote. You're taking a pill. It's gonna break that down. You're drinking some alcohol. A lot of the liver says, Hey, you know what? Come back later. Go someplace and hide. Well, it's not water soluble, but it's fat soluble. So the fat cell becomes occupied.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:17:46]:
Not only not only is it getting bigger, not only is it not getting enough oxygen, but now it's got bisphenol a sitting in there. It's got fluorochemicals sitting in there. It's got a whole lot of other organic molecules that don't belong there. And that screws up the fat cell communicating with the hypothalamus, getting signals. That is the definition of a sick fat cell and obese individuals have sick fat cells. That's the problem. Too much time with the accumulation of these different chemicals, too little oxygen, And that's one of the many reasons. If there's something that you learned if you've gone through the book, Allan, is and your readers and your listeners too, as they go through it, they realize what I said at the very beginning.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:18:41]:
It's a highly complex issue. And what I've tried to do in the book is make it simple so that people understand a sick fat cell. It's not normal. It's not communicating. It's not serving its function. That's one point against you. That's a negative. You know, there there's nothing good about a fat a fat cell that's too big and that's toxic.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:19:05]:
But there are other factors too, which we'll talk about.
Allan [00:19:08]:
Yeah. And I think that was what was kind of the the shocking thing. As we we're gonna go through the process that you have here to solve this problem. Obviously, that's the promise of the book. But I wanna talk about the 2 core things that are that are kinda behind why we are where we are and and how why what you're gonna tell us to do is gonna work. But it was the toxic exposures, and, you know, I think we know some of them. You talked about chemicals, and some of it might be viral, and some of it's the artificial life. So there's a lot of different things that are going on that are disrupting our our system, the way everything else works.
Allan [00:19:47]:
And then we start you start talking about again, you got deeper into obesogens, which, again, are the kind of the the things that are making us get fat. I was really surprised, you know, as I went through well, not I guess I wasn't surprised because I'm I'm a eat real food kind of guy. I talk about that all the time. And people will say, well, okay. I, you know, I'm going to cut my calories. I'm going to drink diet Coke. And I'm going to eat the low fat yogurt. We talk about, you know, just even meeting meat, buying it in a grocery store.
Allan [00:20:16]:
Some of these things and then personal care products, household all this. So all this stuff is not it's not like this occasionally or we're just accidentally finding it here and there. It's, like, everywhere.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:20:28]:
Everywhere. Read a label. My wife is is my number one, proponent of everything. If there's a chemical name on it, she hardly ever buys it. You know, even even for my dog, which is another thing I talk about in the book. You know, I talk about the fact that something's going on here besides calories in and calories out. It it can't be that. It's got to be, as you were just mentioning, these chemical obesogens and and how they affect how a gene expresses itself.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:21:02]:
And that's the key. The key message of this book is our genetics are our genetics. They haven't changed. It's not that there's a fat gene. There are probably 200 genes that are involved in obesity, maybe more. It is whether the gene is being expressed or not and whether it's a favorable gene. For example, the developing fetus has a what we call a pluripotential cell. Plurium meaning that cell can become a fat cell or a muscle cell.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:21:40]:
There's a gene that directs it to become a muscle cell, But if it's turned off, it's gonna make a fat cell. And these obesogens create changes on the surface of that gene that are unfavorable. And so we have statistics, which I quote in the book, you know, John Kennedy, when he was inaugurated, we had a 14%, 11 to 14% obesity rate. That was it. And he was aghast. It's now 47%. 47% of our population is clinically obese. 70% is overweight, are overweight or obese.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:22:25]:
That's frightening. Talk about a pandemic, and it's not just here. It's everywhere. And and the thing that that stimulated me years ago was looking at the obesity epidemic and saying, what is it? Why are we getting fat? Guess what? It's not just us. It's our pets. It's marmosets. It's wild mice. It's monkeys.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:22:48]:
Everything that you can think of. Newborns are getting fatter. Children are obese. That that number is frightening. It's over 20% of children are now obese, and people wonder why this is happening. And it's happening because of these quote, unquote, obesogens in our environment. You see, if you go back to John f Kennedy's days, we didn't have Teflon. We didn't have nonstick cookware.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:23:19]:
It was just beginning. When I was a kid, you stay in the couch, it was stained forever. Now we have stain repellents and everything else and all of these are we didn't use hormones to this extent that we use them to feed chickens, cattle, and so on and so forth. And so all of these chemicals get into our body. They create these epigenetic, that's what it's called, epigenetic surface of the gene, changes that unfortunately are transgenerational, which means they're inheritable. That's how that happens. This is why it's an inexorable climb into, I think, medical bankruptcy, treating complications of obesity. But there was just an article in The Lancet.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:24:12]:
I I read it yesterday about the increase in, cancers now in young people that was just in, in Lancet just came out yesterday. There's a tripling of the rate since the 1980s, Tripling. That's pretty scary. So young people are getting cancers earlier. I mean, obviously, at a rate that is much higher, including pancreatic, testicular, colon, and it's linked to obesity. And that's what the conclusion of The Lancet article was. And if you look at the complications of obesity, they are diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. So it's a long winded statement to say how these obesogens, they're everywhere.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:25:04]:
They're in all of us, and we have to come to grips with that. And that's part of what I realized as I was saying, well, how do you solve this? How do you begin to solve it? And that was the question that I asked myself and, a couple of my advisers that were working with me on the book said, you better have an answer. Otherwise, you don't you don't you don't really have
Allan [00:25:28]:
promise. Hey. Hey.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:25:30]:
You gotta be able to say something here. And so it took a while to take a look, and see what what what what are the steps that people would have to take, but we'll maybe getting ahead of ourselves.
Allan [00:25:42]:
Yeah. We'll we'll definitely get there because that's I think that is you yeah. You you can you can do a study and and and not give them an answer, but you can't you can't write a book and not not tell us something. And, yeah, you can't be on this podcast and not not tell us something too. So we'll we'll get there. We'll definitely get there. Okay. The the other side of this was was our behavior.
Allan [00:26:06]:
But the the nature of our behavior is is not one of, as we mentioned earlier, individual agency where we're saying, you know, okay. This is what I'm gonna do, and this is why I'm gonna do it is it's much more complex than that. Can you talk about toxic behaviors and how that's a part of this problem?
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:26:27]:
Yes. And and it took me a while to get there. I got a lot of prodding from my advisers, to look at the behavioral literature. You know, it was interesting, but what really pushed me into it was why how can we change and reverse these epigenetic changes? Are they reversible? Because although what I'd like to do is prevent obesity from happening in the next generation and the generation after that, No. In other words, reverse the trend. I realized people also who are struggling with weight want to find out what I can do to at least stabilize, lose, and stabilize, lose, and stabilize. And I realized that that behavior must play a role. And the thing that stimulated me is very interesting.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:27:21]:
We I just talked about epigenetic changes and that are unfavorable. And I looked at some data on this may seem a little off off balance with the question, but people who undergo gastric bypass surgery reverse their epigenetic changes. And I said, wow, you mean a surgeon's knife and doing a gastrogegenostomy, which is what it is, reverses epigenetics? That's strange. And then I said, well, what else does it? And looking at the animal studies first, it seems that consistent behavior, changing toxic behaviors, let me mention some toxic behaviors. Eating when you're not hungry. You have your fat sends out a signal. There's a normal signal that goes out to tell you you are hungry. And that doesn't mean that if somebody puts a plate of pasta in front of you and you're a pasta fanatic, you know, you're not hungry, but you're gonna taste it.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:28:30]:
Tasting it is one thing. Eating the whole plate is another thing. Ben, as I say in the book, we we are good finishers. We are really good finishers.
Allan [00:28:38]:
Yeah. Starving kids in India. Yeah. Right. Right.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:28:41]:
Our mothers told us that. Right? But the fact is those kinds of eating when you're not hungry, eating really late at night, eating the wrong types of foods on a regular basis. And there is where we come into not only densely processed foods, but those that have 37 different ingredients, plus the chocolate, which is what you thought it was. Right? Yeah. But, you know, it's got stabilized or it's got this. Those toxic behaviors using skincare product in excess that are not really, should I say, for your internal environment, they're not safe. They have things like parabens, which are known obesogens. And, you know, we we wanna decrease the amount of sunscreen that we use that has parabens.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:29:39]:
And and there are places you can look and you can find, and I list some of them in the book as references to go to, to buy those products that work just as well. And those kind of toxic behaviors are what we need to attack. The problem with most people, Aaron, is that they try to attack them all at once. Yeah. And you can't do that. And I tell my patients that the first thing I want you to do is make a list of those behaviors that you think are really bad. Bring them back. Let's look at them.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:30:18]:
Okay? And we'll go over that. Then I want you to tackle 1 at a time. I want you to master 1 at a time. I want you to find a substitute or reverse that behavior, but here's the key. You have to be consistent. So what do I mean by that? Studies show that occasional exercise over a 1 or 2 year period of time doesn't really have an effect on your weight loss program. But consistent exercise actually changes epigenetics. That could be you set up your body is now gonna be messaged that you do your cardio workouts at the gym or at home on a on a on a elliptical trainer 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the mornings.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:31:14]:
Your body actually recognizes that. And that consistency for reasons that you and I will never understand, probably at least not during our lifetimes, that that changes your epigenetics favorably. So consistent behavior, a part of that is not getting depressed, staying positive. You're gonna have a bad day. You're gonna eat some dessert. You're gonna have something that's, you know, 4 French fries, whatever. A whole bag of French fries. You're gonna do it.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:31:56]:
What happens to dieters is they get depressed. What do they do? They eat more. And that because the fat, the salt tastes good. The sugar stimulates parts of the brain that says you're okay. And so people start to feel better. So behavior modification becomes a critical point to anyone who's gonna do weight loss. And that's one of the things that became extraordinarily important. And I dedicated a whole chapter in the book to this whole behavioral thing, this whole behavioral aspect of weight gain and weight loss and how in that case, the only agency that's important and is taking personal responsibility is not beating yourself up.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:32:54]:
It's really important that you stay positive. And, you know, think of Tony Robbins in a sense. I mean, just stay positive, you know, picture that picture. I mean, he wasn't wrong. He's not wrong. Yeah. I mean, if you can do that, it turns out you favorably affect your own epigenetics.
Allan [00:33:14]:
Yeah. I appreciate that. And one of the things you got into in the toxic behaviors that I think is really, really important, I wanna highlight this, is I think a lot of times we want we wanna do something. Okay. So I wanna lose weight, and we go into this thing. And we're like, okay. You know, I think the patient you had, it was it was ice cream. But I see this sometimes with clients with alcohol.
Allan [00:33:37]:
I wanna I wanna I wanna quit, but I I don't wanna quit. And I wanna wanna figure out what my my moderation, my line is. But sometimes we're not the kind of person who's going to play by the rules all the time, you know, even when we made the rules. And so you you called it negotiating with food. Right. We try to set a rule for ourselves. Okay. Well, I can I can have a couple drinks on a weekend or I can have ice cream on these days for these reasons?
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:34:12]:
It's like the the everything in moderation, you've heard that term. Right?
Allan [00:34:16]:
Yeah.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:34:16]:
What's moderation for you is not moderation for me. And that's the problem. So it's important to realize going in that you can't negotiate with the donut. You just, you're not gonna have, you're gonna lose. So I think I said a cookie. You can't negotiate with a cookie. I mean, you know, I'll just have the top half of this Oreo. Now you won't.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:34:39]:
You'll come back and get to a bottom half later. Don't kill yourself over it. Okay? Recognize that everything in moderation doesn't work. It's not, it's not a workable solution in reality. And studies have shown that over and over and over again. The interesting study sometimes in young kids, in young, you know, in kids, really youngsters, kindergarteners, 1st graders, they will choose healthy foods a lot of the time before they're inundated with TV and all the ads for all the Cocoa Puffs and whatever it is, that's out there. Remember, and I talk about this in the book, the food companies are not your friend. Okay? They're in they're in alliance with the diet companies.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:35:29]:
So together, they they make a a cabal, if you will, as far as I'm concerned.
Allan [00:35:34]:
Well, you can throw in the pharmaceuticals and much of the medical establishment as well. So they're they're they're all making money off the same thing.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:35:42]:
I think that my my colleagues are really not as well informed about obesity as they should be and as they want to be. I believe that there are a number of physicians who are perplexed and tear their hair out over the fact that no matter how much they admonish their patients, their patients continue to fail. And we talk about that in the book a little bit. But I wrote this book, Outsmarting Obesity, because I I really thought that it would appeal not only to the public, and I wrote it at a level that, not to to mean you, but you picked it up and read it.
Allan [00:36:25]:
I read it.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:36:25]:
And that's and that's great and probably enjoyed it and chuckled a little bit at it because I tried to add some humor. But, I I did also write it for the medical profession to to at least pick it up, read a chapter or 2, and and and think about the fact that they're battling maybe they're fighting the wrong battle with patients. I get the question all the time. Doctor Larkey, what do you think about GLP ones? What do you think about, you know, Ozempic and Wegovy and all of this? It's it's like a diet. It's gonna work as long as you take it. I think if you're not a diabetic and you're taking it, you're you're playing with fire. You know, you you if you don't need it, why would you take a chemical? And some of the people taking it with the people that say, woah. I don't wanna take this, COVID vaccine.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:37:16]:
I don't know what that is. Injecting it into my body. Maybe it's a and here they are injecting with Ovi to lose £5 to fit into that dress for the Oscars or whatever it is. And the fact that Chris Talley, who worked on this book with me, and he's a sports nutritionist, and a Hollywood nutritionist. So he, he really is dealing with all the professional sports teams. He's the guy. And, these are problems that, for example, athletes have when they stop playing. I mean, here, talk about regular exercise.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:37:55]:
Alright? I I have a grandson who plays hockey. He's now 16. He's playing travel hockey. He's looking to college. He wants to play college hockey. There isn't a moment in his life that he isn't active, but, you know, you get to be 40 and 45 and you're not out on the ice and playing hockey every day. You can't eat the same way. He could he could eat 3 people's meals for lunch and then dinner.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:38:24]:
And he's too thin. His coaches want him to put weight on. He's gotta eat protein, protein, protein. So our behaviors have to adjust to where we are in life. And that's the important message of the book, having Chris involved putting vignettes in every chapter.
Allan [00:38:45]:
Yeah. I I think that was that was fascinating to have him involved because you don't really I mean, yes. I I know Hollywood actresses and actors, they wanna look a certain they need to look a certain way for a part, and they need to do certain things. And some of it's some of it's okay, but some of it is just you shouldn't lose that much weight that fast. You shouldn't put on that much weight that fast. But you wanna give me $10,000,000? Okay. I'll put on $50,000,000.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:39:08]:
But I but I think the point I'm trying to make is that whatever plan you come up with has to be well thought out. It has to be smart, you know? Okay. I'm going to I I'm I'm morbidly obese. I need to do something. I'll start with with GoVy for 3 months. That will be the kickstart I need to lose 11, 12, £13 and know that I can do it. And now that I've read this book, I know step 2 is my behavior is gonna change and my relationship with food is going to change. Now people say when they're on the GLP inhibitors and so on and so forth, they they change their relationship with food.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:39:51]:
But basically, it makes you nauseated. That's what it does. It fills your stomach and, it makes you feel full. And, it does a lot of other not so good things. And I I see a lot of side effects now, with this. But any plan that you have to re restrict your calories for a 3 month or 6 month period, I wouldn't go longer than that because you're gonna be disappointed. You're gonna lose £25 and stop, and you're gonna gain 30. That's what's gonna happen.
Allan [00:40:23]:
Yeah. I think most of us have actually that that lost wanted to lose weight, started losing weight, experienced that that very thing. We lost the weight. We gained back more. And you you even explained in the book that yo yo dieting, yo yo weight loss is probably the worst thing we could do for ourselves from a health perspective. But, I want to dive into the process that you've put forward as the solution of what we can do to outsmart obesity. And the acronym is AIPE. And I want I look at that, and I and my head wants to say AIPE.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:41:00]:
Well, that's what I say. So you're okay.
Allan [00:41:02]:
It's ape It's okay. But I don't want we cannot ignore the I because
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:41:07]:
Right. So AIPE is accept, identify, prevent, and eliminate. And think of it in terms of toxic exposures, first of all. First of all, you've got to come to the acceptance that you're carrying a toxic burden. If you don't accept that, none of this means anything to you. Every one of us is carrying a burden of toxins, probably in the neighborhood of 2 to 300 different toxins if you did the entire blood panel, which would cost a fortune because we only do it for research purposes. But when they have done it, for example, newborns have over 200 toxins in their blood. A newborn baby is born with over 200 toxic chemicals in their blood.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:41:55]:
Well, they got it from mom. Okay. So they cross the placenta. The rest of us are just accumulating toxins. So accept the fact that you are carrying a toxic load. And on behavioral side, accept the fact that you have toxic behaviors with food. You have a toxic relationship with food. The second is identify, and I gave you a little insight to that with the behaviors.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:42:21]:
Make a list. Where are you getting exposed that you can do something about? You wanna change your cookware? That would be good. If you're using nonstick cookware that's chemically coated, they're perfluorochemicals. And, you know, those are chemicals that are obesogens. You cook an egg on it and it's going to get into your food. So identify, are you storing your cleaning goods in the kitchen? Don't, don't do that. Simple things like coming home from the dry cleaners and people that use a dry cleaner. If it's not a, a, a new wave green dry cleaner, and it's the old, you know, perchloric, perc cleaners using chemicals, you know, that that plastic covering on it be before you hang it in your closet, take the plastic covering, you know, outside.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:43:24]:
Let let it air out. Don't put it in your closet because those are chemicals that are getting on your other clothing. Try and avoid, you know, as many of these pitfalls as you can. Some you can't escape. And I tell people we eliminated all of our non stick cookware. I mean, they make good cookware that doesn't get screwed up and and works without chemical coating. But if I go to a restaurant, do I know what they use? I have no idea what they use. Go to Starbucks.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:43:54]:
Did they use a nonstick pan to make those muffins? Probably. So you're you're never going to be free of these chemicals, but you're gonna decrease your burden. So identify where things are going wrong. And I give lists of things in the book to identify and identify the behaviors as well. Now the next becomes interesting because they're different. For chemical exposures, you wanna prevent the absorption of these things that you can't get out of your life into your bloodstream. We should state for most of us, 80% of the chemicals get into our body because we put them in our mouth. We eat them or drink them.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:44:45]:
Those that use skincare, maybe it's 70% and more comes from from, the skin. We absorb them. The rest we inhale, but the inhalation part is not that important as it is eating. And so I tell people, if you wanna prevent the absorption, then the regular use of absorbance for the gut, in other words, to take along with your food so that these chemicals are bound in your gut and they go out the back end, so to speak, and they never become absorbed. They don't get into your bloodstream in the first place. Those are good products to be on your shelf for all of us because we are exposed no matter what happens. So this is the prevent absorption. That's what the prevention was all about.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:45:44]:
The prevention for behavior is once you have that list, tackling it one step at a time in a logical sequence. And we go through some examples in the book of how that could work. And the last is eliminate. There is the rub. So you have chemicals in your body. How am I gonna get them out? Well, it turns out there are a couple of ways. We talked about obviously sweat and using infrared sauna because you can stay in the sauna longer. That's the only reason infrared works.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:46:23]:
You know, any sauna, anything that makes you sweat a lot will obviously take it out of the fat because that's where that sweat is coming from. It's coming from fat cells, much of it. And so you can sweat out some of these toxins. Otherwise, we have to look at certain molecules. There are some unique molecules that you can take by mouth. You know, you you can obviously have them infused intravenously, but they have a lot of different complications. But taking them by mouth, they absorb into the bloodstream, and they will help solubilize these insoluble chemicals. Certainly, those that are heavy metals will go out immediately.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:47:12]:
And I I did a study, in coal miners, that looked like, you know, the these guys had lead levels and mercury levels and cadmium, and they just we gave them this this one concoction and it just woo. It poured out at the urine. It just and their levels came down and down and down because it's a chelator. It chelates the metals and doesn't chelate the ones you need, which is cool because you don't wanna do that with calcium because you need that. You don't wanna do that with magnesium. You kinda need that. Yeah. You don't wanna do it with potassium or sodium.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:47:49]:
Those are big molecules. They don't fit in there. But the smaller ones like mercury and and and and cadmium and the bad stuff, lead, they're smaller molecules. They fit right into the matrix and they're eliminated quickly. But because these chemicals, this this, compound has a net charge on it, it also attracts a lot of these organic molecules to stick, and they get eliminated too. Is this the only thing out there right now? It would appear that there are a few other thing, and this is a zeolite. It's it's it's called clinoptilawite, and I mentioned it. There are some that are absorbed into your body and others that are not.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:48:39]:
There's really, really good ones and really, really bad ones, so on and so forth. But even the bad zeolites, if you take them, by mouth, they will at least bind these toxins in your gut. So eliminating these toxins, it doesn't happen overnight, can make your fat, and it draws it out of the fat, which is cool. And that's really nice. So really, basically, what you're doing is looking at a system where, okay, I'm going to detoxify myself. It's not a weekend detox, you know, weekend at Bernie's, whatever it is. It's not that. It's continual and you use it.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:49:26]:
There are people that are putting it in drinks. There are people that are talking about putting it in haircare product because it can be absorbed. It it would be a a tremendous advantage for people to have their hands on this. From a behavioral standpoint, obviously preventing and eliminating kind of go close together. You're preventing the behavior. You've kind of once you've eliminated it, it's really it's really great. It's a great feeling. I'm one of the people that the ice cream thing.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:49:58]:
I I mean, I you put I I can't say no to ice cream. I don't know why. So I don't keep any in the house. That was my solution. There's none in the house.
Allan [00:50:09]:
Yeah.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:50:10]:
You know, that's and that was my solution. It may not be your solution, but I can't negotiate with with a pint of ice cream. I'm sorry. I just I lose that negotiation. Well, just it was in Italy, and every time they had dessert, everybody had gelato. I didn't have any. Do you wanna know something? I don't crave it anymore. It's a funny thing.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:50:33]:
I used to, but now I don't. For my wife, it's that toffee. Oh my god. She's if it's toffee in the house, she'll eat the whole can. So we don't allow it in the house. That that was her solution too. But everybody the AIPE approach is not an overnight lose a lot of weight. It is AIPE means I'm going to lose weight.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:51:00]:
I'm going to consistently exercise. My behavior modification is gonna be such that I'm gonna set up a schedule. I'm gonna stick to it. I'm going to eliminate some of these toxic behaviors that I have, and I'm going to go on a calorie restricted diet for 90 days. You can buy a plan. You could do whatever it is. And once you've done the plan and you've lost your 7, 10, £12, now you're going to put in place AIP. You're going to say, okay.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:51:37]:
I know now that I don't wanna gain the weight. My goal right now isn't more weight loss. It is to prevent the weight gain. And I have to be smart about it because I understand that my genes are telling my body to do something, and I need to try and reverse that as much as I can. And that combination of limiting the calories in and understanding why you're obese in the first place and why you're gonna gain it back if you don't do something, Modifying your behavior, eliminating these toxins from your body, doing all of this stuff, that is a prevention of the regaining of the weight. That was what the plan was all about.
Allan [00:52:22]:
I really, really wish that our government would be a big part of the solution for eliminate on this, but, I'm not gonna hold my breath. So this is something that we need to do. One of the core things I did wanna say is, like, okay. Because we're storing these things in our fat, when we're losing the fat, our basically load that's live at this given point in time in our body is there. This book is coming out. So having a good process through this whole thing and, you know, preventing more from coming in, eliminating it as it's being released, I think that's really a a great way to go through this. But, again, it's acceptance and and it's identification. So it is 8, but don't don't forget any one of these because all 4 of them are really, really important to get to the solution.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:53:14]:
Well, I'm glad you went through that. You know, I think it's important for the listener to understand, that, you know, forearmed is forewarned. That's the way I look at it. If you understand what's going on with your body, you're not gonna be so afraid of the fact that that that, you know, okay. I I went on a diet. I lost £20. I gained 1 or 2 back. You're not gonna exercise the rest of the way.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:53:41]:
You're going to have to have a better strategy than that. And that's what, you know, I wrote the book partly because I wanted to really help with people who struggle with this. So many of my patients just struggle with it. And, it is a source of tremendous anxiety and and it promotes abnormal behavior, not to mention, obviously, all the diseases that go along with it. And I wanna mention something quickly because I know we're running out of time, but I I would like to mention the fact that when you hear these people talk about healthy at any size, there is no such thing. You could be physically fit at any size. There's a big difference between physical fitness and health. All of the data point to the fact that obesity leads to a shortened life and obesity leads to illness.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:54:43]:
And days lost from work, days lost from your life, not to mention diabetic limb loss and so on and so forth. It's just it is not there is no such thing as healthy at any size. Physically fit at any size? Yes. Some of these people are fairly stable. That is they they haven't yet gotten diabetes, but they will. They will. And if you take a look at these large populations of people who feel that they're healthy, that is size, and they do all this, if they're obese, study after study, whether it's in the US, Great Britain, China, all these studies show they have a shortened life expectancy. They have a higher cardiovascular risk profile, and the cancer profile is at least twice what it is for non obese individual.
Allan [00:55:36]:
So doctor Langhi, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are 3 strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:55:46]:
From me from my point Yeah. Of view?
Allan [00:55:48]:
Yeah. Absolutely. That's why I'm asking you.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:55:50]:
First of all, accept yourself. I think that's the most important thing. People who don't accept it. So okay. I'm I'm I'm overweight. I'm personally overweight. I'm not obese, but I'm overweight. I would love to get rid of more pounds.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:56:09]:
Am I gonna go on a diet? No. I'm I'm going to continue to use the strategies that I mentioned. So be happy with yourself. Number 2, diminish the number of chemical products that you consume. And I mean, read labels, not the calories. Look at the ingredients. All those chemicals. If you can't yeah.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:56:36]:
Sodium chloride is okay. That's salt. It could be too much salt, but that's that's that's the number. The number 2 thing is read labels and understand that these are chemicals that really don't do anything great for you. And, number 3, I think that eating fresh food from, you know, to achieve wellness and having a a plan, an exercise plan that goes together for me. And that's how you achieve that happiness and wellness.
Allan [00:57:13]:
Thank you. Doctor Lonky, if someone wanted to learn more about you and your book, Outsmarting Obesity, where would you like for me to send them?
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:57:22]:
Obviously, it's it's available on Amazon now for preorder. It will be out on the on 10th September, in bookstores. They can go to my website, doctorlarke.com. That's probably the best place to go. I'm on Twitter and I'm on Facebook. There's Doctor Lonky. I'm all on, LinkedIn, which is more professional, but still fairly active. But I would ask them to go to the website first and, that'll link you to all the other all the other places, and you can order the book there.
Allan [00:57:55]:
Excellent. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.comforward/659, and I'll be sure to have the links there. Doctor Langhi, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Dr. Stewart Lonky [00:58:07]:
Allan, thank you for inviting me. Been a pleasure.
Allan [00:58:11]:
Welcome back, Rachel.
Rachel [00:58:12]:
Hey, Allan. That was an amazing interview. I mean, there's just so many big things that we could talk about. I can't even imagine reading his book. I'm sure it was incredible to get through. But my goodness. I mean, so much has changed. The obesity rate's going up.
Rachel [00:58:28]:
We know more about fat as a working for you or against you. I mean, just it's just overwhelming.
Allan [00:58:34]:
Yeah. Well, this is this is the book where I I learned that there's a 1,000,000,000 obese people on the planet, which I just thought was you know, when it first hit me, I'm like, well, that's insane. And then I It is. Think, well, the United States has probably 20% of them, which is true. And it's not just an adult thing anymore.
Rachel [00:58:52]:
No. Younger and younger. Yeah.
Allan [00:58:54]:
And so, yeah, this is a problem. And, you know, a lot of people will just say, well, it's just calories. You know, if you just do the do the things, if you just do the things, and they don't recognize that there are all of these other aspects to why we're carrying this extra extra fat that have absolutely nothing to do with what we're eating or when we're eating or how much we're eating. Some people are just going to have this propensity to store more fat because of the other things that are going on, that they haven't addressed yet. But a core thing I wanted to get into with you. We were talking offline a minute ago, is that I think a lot of people, like, look at fat and say, oh, fat bad. You know?
Rachel [00:59:38]:
Right. Yeah.
Allan [00:59:39]:
You know, insulin bad. And it's not that simple. Fat is an organ. It has specific purposes in our body, and so we need some fat. We need an amount, a healthy amount of fat. So it we we can't go out at that. And then, you know, they for a while, they're well, they they still did. There are 2 basic types of fat.
Allan [01:00:00]:
There's brown fat, and there's white fat. And so we know, like, babies are born with more more of the brown fat, and that helps them stay warm, and it helps do some other things for them. As we get older, we end up with, you know, more white fat. And so that's the fat and the visceral fat. So, you know, they're they've labeled fat to try to lead us down the line of saying this is the good fat and that's the bad fat. But the point that's the point being, though, is I think people just say fat is fat is bad.
Rachel [01:00:26]:
Bad is bad. Yep.
Allan [01:00:27]:
Yeah. And and and it's a little bit more complex than that.
Rachel [01:00:30]:
It is. Oh, it is. And we were talking about the chemicals all around us. It's not simply what you eat or how much you exercise. We're exposed to all these different, chemicals in our environment that, you know, it's it's they could play a big role as to how healthy we are overall or how much fat that we manage on a day to day basis. I mean, it's concerning sometimes how many chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis and what role it can play.
Allan [01:01:00]:
Yeah. I mean, you know, something as simple as as buying a new couch, Mhmm. And and the chemicals that they use to make it flame retardant. Are are off gassing in your in your house or apartment. Mhmm. Those could potentially be chemicals that will cause your body to want to store more fat. Mhmm. And one of the things that happens in the body is that the liver, which is primarily responsible for dealing with these chemicals that we're intaking, it's a pretty smart organ.
Allan [01:01:30]:
And so it can clean. It can do its job. But when it's overwhelmed, it has it has a bypass. And the bypass is to store the stuff in fat. And so for it to do its job, you may need to store more fat, to store more chemicals, because the liver's overwhelmed. And so it's just this balance of saying, okay, yes, nutrition is important for weight loss. We know movement is important to aid in weight loss. We know sleep is important to aid in weight loss.
Allan [01:02:01]:
And we know stress management is important for managing weight loss. And now there's a whole nother list of things that are also important. You need to be, Look at what chemicals are you and hormones and things you're exposed to. What's in your household cleaners? What's in your personal care products? I mean, you might love, love, love that face cream. Mhmm. But what's in it that could be a problem for you? And then that's when you kick in his his Ape acronym. So you accept that that face cream is bad for you.
Rachel [01:02:33]:
Mhmm.
Allan [01:02:34]:
Okay. You might love the way it looks. It makes your face look, your skin feel. But if it's causing you to put on body fat Mhmm. Then you have to come to terms with that, accept it, identify that that's what it is. Mhmm. Stop using it. You know? Yeah.
Allan [01:02:51]:
Find a find a face cream that doesn't have that ingredient in it, and, you know, maybe it won't work as well.
Rachel [01:02:57]:
You know? But Think about all the things you're exposed to on a daily basis. I mean, from your toothpaste in the morning, soaps, your shampoos, the makeups, of course. If you're cleaning the counter with whatever product you're cleaning the counter with. If you happen to have a nickel allergy, you probably shouldn't be drinking out of those really expensive insulated metal cups because then you're could be exposing your not just your lips and your your mouth, your palate, but also you're exposing your your insides to the nickel and and those metals. Plasticware, I drink I drink out a lot of plastic bottles when I'm on a run. I mean, just all day long, there's just all these things that you may not consider, as having an exposure to a chemical, but they're there.
Allan [01:03:44]:
Yeah. And so one of the big takeaways from the book, and, you know, because, again, he's a scientist. He's he's looking at this from a very specific point of view. Mhmm. And he's recognizing that this isn't it it is, but it it isn't just an individual problem.
Rachel [01:04:00]:
Mhmm.
Allan [01:04:00]:
There's going to have to be global, solutions to some of these problems like plastics and personal care products. And you see some of it. The European Union and Canada are a lot more stringent on what it allows to exist, for their people. United States is a little bit more lax in what's out there, so we're exposed probably to a lot more.
Rachel [01:04:26]:
Yeah.
Allan [01:04:27]:
And so it's just recognizing that this is out there. You can't totally eliminate all of it. We're just Mhmm. Any individual be impossible. But the more of those things that you're able to knock down and, you know, of course, do the do the core four first, your nutrition, your your movement, your sleep, and your stress. And then if that's not moving the needle enough for you, then you wanna start looking at other things that might be going on, like chemical exposures, hormone exposures Yeah. And the quality of, you know, and the quality of a lot of the foods and things that you're doing. So For sure.
Allan [01:05:02]:
You know, if you live in a city and, you know, there's lots of cars and you're running around, there's a lot of, you know, chemicals that are in the air that you're just running through. Oh, for sure. I used to hate running in the city. I I much prefer to run-in the country. Mhmm. It's it's it's nicer.
Rachel [01:05:18]:
It is.
Allan [01:05:19]:
But, you know, you are where you are. And so there are things that are gonna be outside your control, but then True. A lot of this is. And so this is this book's an opportunity for you to kinda go through and start doing that research that you can know. Okay. This is in this thing, and I should not be eating this. This is in this thing. I should not be putting this on my skin.
Rachel [01:05:39]:
Sure.
Allan [01:05:40]:
And then you can begin to eliminate some of those things or get filters to address some of those things so that it's not such a huge problem for you Mhmm. And you're gonna be better off for it.
Rachel [01:05:51]:
That sounds really great. His book is aptly titled, Outsmarting Obesity, because it is not just the easy things. It's not just anything. It is definitely a little complicated at times.
Allan [01:06:03]:
It can be. But start start with the big four. Mhmm. And then when you're when you're getting into this and then you wanna take it to the next level, this is a good book to get you primed on how to start that investigation.
Rachel [01:06:15]:
That sounds great. Amazing.
Allan [01:06:17]:
Alright. Well, I'll talk to you next week. Take care. You too.
Rachel [01:06:20]:
Thanks.
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
– Anne Lynch | – Ken McQuade | – Leigh Tanner |
– Eliza Lamb | – John Dachauer | – Tim Alexander |
Thank you!
On episode 653 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss strategies for losing those last 10-15 pounds (or losing weight whenever you feel stuck).
1. Allan's Personal Experience and Lifestyle Changes
– Overworking, excessive exercise, and high stress levels
– Transition from intense cardio to strength training and morning walks
– Adjusting sleep patterns and finding a beneficial walking route
– Incorporating resistance training in the afternoon
2. Body's Natural Ranges and Weight Management
– Body's functions within set ranges for health
– Weight loss triggers the body's survival instincts
– Muscle mass's impact on calorie burning
3. Factors Affecting Body Function and Weight Loss
– Nutrition, movement, stress, and sleep as key factors
– Scarcity influencing fat conservation
– Stress levels hindering weight loss
4. Model Life Concept: Unconscious Habits and Influences
– Unconscious eating habits
– Incorrect workout intensity and data
– Impact of stress and changes in sleep
– Negative self-talk
5. Tips for Addressing Lifestyle Factors
– Journaling and logging lifestyle factors
– Balancing sleep, movement, and cortisol levels
– Learning new approaches to weight loss
– Seeking help and using data for decision-making
6. Importance of Data and Individualized Approaches
– Using data for health and wellness decisions
– Tailoring approaches based on circumstances and hormone levels
– Potential need for unconventional strategies
– Differences in weight loss strategies for men and women
7. Building a Positive Relationship with Oneself
– Impact of negative inner dialogue on progress
– Building self-love and motivation
8. Misconceptions and Lack of Awareness
– Misinformation about healthy eating
– Overestimation of healthy eating habits
– Lack of awareness about exercise efficiency, recovery, and stress impact
9. Quality of Sleep and Unknowing Aspects of Modern Lifestyle
– Importance of sleep quality
– Impact of negative inner dialogue on behavior
– Recognizing and addressing areas of unknowing in modern lifestyle
10. Summary
– Allan and Rachel's personal experiences
– Introduction to the main theme of breaking weight loss plateaus
– Discussion on the body's survival instinct and set point
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
– Anne Lynch | – Ken McQuade | – Leigh Tanner |
– Eliza Lamb | – John Dachauer | – Tim Alexander |
Thank you!
On this episode, we discuss how to design your perfect mobility workout.
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
– Anne Lynch | – Ken McQuade | – Leigh Tanner |
– Eliza Lamb | – John Dachauer | – Tim Alexander |
Thank you!
On episode 597 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss the five keys to sustainable weight loss over 40.
Transcript
[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.
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.
[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.
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!
Less...
On episode 596 of 40+ Fitness, Dr. Brian King and I discuss his book, Of Bears and Weight Loss. Brian gave us some powerful insights into his weight loss journey and the challenges he faced along the way. We dove into how sleep apnea, stress, and learned behaviors contributed to his struggles with weight loss. Despite the difficulties, he shared how he's been able to make positive changes in his life and maintain a healthier lifestyle.
Transcript
Rachel Discussion
Text – https://amzn.to/44eYf6C
Post show with Rachel.
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!
Less...
Do you ever get that feeling that your body just loves putting on fat and keeping you that way? You're not wrong. Dr. Richard Johnson has uncovered a signaling system in our bodies that do just that. On episode 577 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss his book, Why Nature Wants Us Fat.
Transcript
[00:04:08.900] – Allan
Hey, Ras, how are things?
[00:04:12.650] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:04:14.520] – Allan
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. You came on to the podcast all bundled up.
[00:04:19.190] – Rachel
I am. It's only 20 degrees up here today, and we're expecting it to dip down into the single digits pretty soon. It's about to get cold.
[00:04:29.130] – Allan
Don't know why you do it. You can go up there in the summer and come down here in the winter.
[00:04:36.540] – Rachel
Yeah, it's all tempting.
[00:04:37.820] – Allan
But anyway, let's just say it's not 20 degrees here, at least not 20 Fahrenheit, which is good. Things are going pretty good here. I'm pretty excited. I've been planning the retreat, so I've been spending some time really thinking about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and how it's going to work. And so I've really gotten some of the baseline planning for the retreat together. So this will be out. And I'll just say, if you didn't already join the interest list, I hope that you didn't miss out because I offered this pre-sale to the interest list, and I'm going to give them first shot at the slots because it's limited. It's me at Lula's deck, and there's only a certain number of people we can fit on that deck and make it work. And there's only a certain number of rooms for the VIPs that are going to come in because there's a VIP level that stays at Lula's and gets included breakfast and a lot more time with me and extra workouts and extra time to do stuff.
[00:05:40.360] – Allan
So there's at least two levels, the basic and then the VIP. I've put that all together and planned that out. But if you don't get on the interest list, then you may miss your chance. And some of you may have already missed a chance. I'm not sure because we're recording this a few weeks out from when this will have already happened. The list will go live from a recording this a week, but by the time you hear this, it's already been out more than a week. So I would go out there and check out 40plusfitness.com/retreat. And by now it's not an interest list anymore. It's an actual page describing what's going on here in Bocas Del Toro in May 28 through June 2 with some activities the day before and some activities the day after that are just extras that I'm throwing in there. But it's going to be really cool. I'm going to enjoy that. But the planning is really exciting because I'm like, Okay, this is all the cool stuff we're going to do, and this is all the cool stuff we're going to talk about. So I'm excited about that.
[00:06:35.980] – Rachel
It sounds wonderful. Sounds like a really fun time in a beautiful location.
[00:06:40.320] – Allan
Oh, it is. It is. And the deck looking out over the water, it's just magical. So it's going to be a really cool time.
[00:06:47.690] – Rachel
Wonderful. Sounds great.
[00:06:49.560] – Allan
Well, how about you? The slight shivering and bumbling.
[00:06:53.460] – Rachel
Yeah, I actually ran a half marathon in the snow over the weekend, so I spent some extra time outside on the snowy, icy trails. And it was tough. I won't kid you, not every mile was magnificent, but it was actually a really good time to be out and about and enjoying the beautiful… It is beautiful. The snow is gorgeous. Cold but gorgeous. So it's a fun time.
[00:07:14.680] – Allan
I saw a picture of you in a Tshirt, maybe shorts, but I saw it out in the snow and I was like, I wouldn't even want that to be like a filter on my phone. It just looked so miserably cold. But you enjoy it.
[00:07:27.800] – Rachel
Yeah, you got to love it. Otherwise, the winners would be miserable. So got to learn to love it.
[00:07:33.760] – Allan
I learned to love it. Jesus. I can learn to love a lot of things. Cold is not one of them, but I get it. I get it. It's not mine, but good. Good. All right, are you ready to talk to Dr. Johnson?
[00:07:49.440] – Rachel
Sure.
[00:08:41.000] – Allan
Dr. Johnson, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:08:43.950] – Dr. Johnson
Allan, it's great to be here.
[00:08:46.140] – Allan
There's this book called, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat. And to be honest with you, conversations I've had with clients, things I see online, my own experiences, it made me wonder if biology was just flawed for one reason or another, and there really wasn't a way to lose the weight and keep the weight off. You can just look at the obesity levels and the overweight levels within any country that's westernized at all. And it almost looks like, yes, there's somebody out there pulling strings that's just keeping us fat.
[00:09:22.180] – Dr. Johnson
Yeah, you just have to look around and you know that nature wants us to be fat when you just see how common it is. And the truth is that there really is these pressures from nature that I should say, genetic changes that we've taken on that make us predisposed to getting fat. It's the truth. Don't feel bad if you're getting fat because nature wants you to be that way.
[00:09:45.150] – Allan
Well, and the core of it is that there can be some competitive advantages for a species that can get fat. Can we talk a little bit about that? Because I think when you're going to get to the biology of this and understanding why our body gets fat and why nature wants us fat is there's actually some benefits to it, if you will.
[00:10:05.060] – Dr. Johnson
Well, most of us, when we think about being fat, we don't see any advantage at all.
[00:10:10.230] – Allan
I can't outrun the lion anymore.
[00:10:12.240] – Dr. Johnson
Exactly. You can't. You can't outrun that lion. And not only that, being fat increases our risk for diabetes and increases our risk for fatty liver, increases our risk for high blood pressure. I mean, it's pretty hard to give an argument that fat is good. But the reality is that in nature, there are a lot of animals that will purposely try to become fat to help them during periods when there's no food around. And so when is there no food around. Well, in this dead of winter, it can be very hard for animals to find food. And so animals will hibernate and try to sleep through the winter. And in order to survive by just sleeping for four months, they have to have fat, and they use that fat to generate calories, because when they burn fat, they basically are producing energy. Fat is stored energy. Not only do they produce energy, but when you break down fat, you produce water. So these hibernating bear will get its water and energy from the fat that it's got. And so it's really important for the bear to become fat before it hibernates. So they actually maintain their normal weight throughout the summer.
[00:11:32.250] – Dr. Johnson
Spring and summer, they can run. They can evade a tiger if there was one around or fight it. But anyway, the bear will, in the fall, beginning two or three months before it hibernates, suddenly it will activate some mechanism where it will just come hungry all the time and will forge for food and it will eat as much as it can eat. It will gain 10 pounds or more a day. That's when you get fat pretty quickly. That way it'll double its fat. It'll become insulin resistant. All the things that we think of is bad, and yet it uses that to help it survive, because when it's insulin resistant, it keeps its glucose levels up and the brain uses glucose for its main fuel. And so it will keep the glucose levels up in its blood even when it's hibernating because it's insulin resistant. And that keeps the brain fueled while it's sleeping through the winter. And so it turns out that fat can be a survival mechanism. And other animals use fat, like in the desert, fat can be a source of not just calories because there's not a lot of food in the desert, but it can produce water.
[00:12:49.330] – Dr. Johnson
And so the animal has a hump of fat, and it will use that when it needs water. And the whale wants to be fat because it doesn't drink seawater, doesn't like seawater. It doesn't like seawater. And so it's too salty. So it tries to get its fresh water from the food it eats, and about a third of the water gets from the fat. So fat has a purpose. Fat can be good. And you want to have fat if you are in a period where there's no food. Now, in humans, there's pretty good data that people who are fat survive famines better than people who are not. And you certainly can show that in animals, that if you fatten a laboratory rat and then do caloric restriction, severe caloric restriction, it can survive because it can break down the fat that it has. So there's all this stuff that suggests that fat can be good. And what happened was humans in our past, it turns out evolutionarily, that there were times in our past when we went through periods of severe food shortage. And there was one period millions of years ago, there were been at least two times.
[00:13:59.960] – Dr. Johnson
And we had mutations that occurred then that increased our risk to become fat. And at that time, those mutations helped us store fat so that we could survive. And they didn't really make us fat. They just helped us store fat more effectively. But in today's society, these mutations are actually helping drive obesity because we're eating foods that are really not quite fattening and having these mutations just adds on to it. And so we have this great predisposition for fat.
[00:14:31.840] – Allan
Well, yeah. And then the key of it is not only is it easier to get fat, it's also you basically lower your energy usage. And so it's this double whammy that I think many of us have experienced. It's like my metabolism is nothing, and I'm gaining weight and I'm hungry all the time. If you've ever felt that, you've probably tripped what you call the survival switch. Can you talk a little bit about what the survival switch is? Because I've never faced a famine unless it was self induced. And then even then, I could walk away from it anytime I wanted to.
[00:15:07.630] – Dr. Johnson
Well, so we were very interested in what was this trigger that made animals gain weight. And so we've been studying this, and I've been studying this for over 20 years, and we discovered this switch, and the switch is driven. So remember that it's all about energy, right? You want to have energy to be able to do the things you want. And when you store fat, you're actually storing energy, and so you can use it. But what makes you store the energy? So it turns out that normally when an animal eats anyone, anything you eat, you get calories from it, and the calories are used to make energy. And the easiest way to think about this is that there's two types of energy. There's the energy that's immediately available that we use to do everything we want. We call that ATP. And then there's the stored energy, which is the fat. And so if you eat too much food, the extra gets turned over into fat. And if you don't eat enough food, then the fat you have gets broken down to provide the energy. And so you got the usable energy and the stored energy.
[00:16:16.150] – Dr. Johnson
Now, in most foods, the goal is to maintain high energy levels in the cell. So most animals, when they eat food, they're using it to generate high ATP levels, and the left over goes to fat. But when you eat a particular food called fructose, which is a sugar, it's present in table sugar, it's present in high fructose cornstarch. When you eat fructose, it acts differently than the other foods. And what it does is it blocks the production of ATP by knocking down the activity in the mitochondria. The mitochondria are in our cells, and that's what's making most of our ATP. And fructose induces oxidative stress and raises a substance called uric acid. And that uric acid suppresses the ATP production by the mitochondria. So now instead of the calories going to make ATP, you're blocking that so the calories get shunted to make fat. So the calories, the energy balance has to maintain. So if you're eating energy from food and you can't make the ATP, it goes into the fat. And then fructose also tries to block the fat from being turned into energy into ATP. So it blocks the burning of fat. So the fat accumulates and your ATP levels stay low.
[00:17:42.150] – Dr. Johnson
And when your ATP levels stay low, you become hungry and you have a low metabolism, just like you say. So it's really easier to gain weight because your metabolism is low, you're hungry, and the food you're eating is preferentially going to fat. And so this is like a switch. So normally, we don't have that going on. Normally it's the usual thing to try to maintain high ATP. But when you activate this switch, you suddenly are shifting the energy you eat into fat and reducing your metabolism. And so you like that bear. And that's exactly what happens to the bear. It starts eating all these berries and fruits that have a lot of fructose in it. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that fruits are necessarily bad. Often, the kinds of fruits we eat are often tart, and they have all these good vitamins like vitamin C and all these things. And they have things called flavanols, and they help neutralize the fruit dose. And then we only eat one or two fruit at a time. So we're only getting small amounts of fructose, whereas the verily 10,000 varies in a 24 hours period.
[00:18:53.720] – Dr. Johnson
And so they're getting a big dose of fructose. And when the fruit ripens, it tends to go good stuff tends to go down and the sugar goes up. So when a fruit ripens and they like really ripe fruit, we like it a little more tart. We don't like it mushy normally. And so the fruit dose is the problem. You can get it from fruit. But for us, the take home message is that eating a few natural fruits is not going to do it. But if you make a smoothie and you put 10 fruit in one, you break it down and make this big juice. With the juicer, what's happened is you end up with a fair amount of fructose and it's like drinking a soft drink. And so you can activate the switch by drinking fruit juice or drinking a soft drink. So soft drinks are the number one way to do this, but you can do it with fruit if you want.
[00:19:48.850] – Allan
Now, one of the interesting things as I was reading through your book and you were talking about fructose, I was thinking back to earlier in the book when you were talking about Emperor Penguin and how they want to put on fat because they've got to go inland and lay an egg. The one when the girl lays the egg. And of course, then the which I think is awesome, the guy, because he can put on more weight, he's going to sit there and sit on that egg and protect that egg until it's time. And then she'll come back after she's feeding and be there to feed the baby and deal with all that, then he can go eat. So they're putting on weight for survival purposes.
[00:20:20.480] – Dr. Johnson
Yeah, they're not eating fruit. Aren't they?
[00:20:23.500] – Allan
They're not eating fruit. And so a lot of people say, Well, I cut out sugar and I lost some weight, but now I'm putting it back on and I'm hungry and I want that. I want that very, very badly. And hey, we're coming up on Girl Scout cookie time.
[00:20:38.050] – Allan
So they're catching me every time I go in and out.
[00:20:42.300] – Dr. Johnson
I love Girl Scout cookies. Those thin mince cookies too.
[00:20:46.680] – Dr. Johnson
But yeah, it's depressing when you study it.
[00:20:49.580] – Allan
How is fructose playing into that?
[00:20:52.080] – Dr. Johnson
So that was the big question we had too, Allan. The question was, sure, okay, sugar can do it. I give sugar to animals to get fat. It turns out it's from the fructose. If I block the fructose because I have ways to block fructose metabolism that I can do in animals, for example, I can create an animal that can't metabolize fructose, and they stay thin and they're immune to the effects of sugar. And so I can really show that fructose can trigger this. And it explains very well how the bear activating the switch. But what about the Emperor Penguin? There's no apple trees and there's no bananas down there. So how do they do it? Well, this was a big question for us. And one of the things that we discovered was that you get fructose from food, of course, like sugar and high fructose corn syrup. And that's probably the major source of fructose for most of us. But you can also make fructose. This was so depressing, Allan, because I didn't really think that the body really made a lot of fructose. But we started studying this and we found to our amazement that the body can make a lot of fructose.
[00:22:08.860] – Dr. Johnson
And there's now data in humans showing the same. But our work initially was in laboratory animals. And one of the biggest sources is from carbs and especially these things called high glycemic carbs like cereal and bread and rice and potatoes. And all the things that I thought when I was originally studying this, I go, Oh, the problem of carbs is fructose. That's the problem. If I just take fructose out of my foods, it should solve the problem. And I knew that French fries weren't good, and they don't have fructose. But I kept thinking that it was the fructose had to be the problem because it didn't seem to be anything else. But it had to be involved something else. And it turns out that it is still fructose but it's being produced in our body. And when you eat high glycemic carbs like bread, rice, a lot of people say, Well, what's bad is blood glucose goes up in your blood and that stimulates this hormone insulin, and then the insulin makes you fat. And there may be a little bit of truth to that for sure. But when we did our experiments, we found that if we gave carbs like bread or rice or glucose to animals, they do get fat.
[00:23:29.560] – Dr. Johnson
But if we blocked fructose, we could prevent them from getting fat, and their insulin levels were still high. So this made me realize that actually the main mechanism by which carbs are causing obesity is because when the glucose goes up in the blood, that triggers some of it to be turned, converted to fructose. So it's still important to have carbs that raise glucose. It's really important. And if you have a glucose monitor and you're monitoring your glucose and you want to keep it the normal range, that's a good move. But it isn't just because you're blocking insulin, you're actually blocking the conversion of glucose to fructose. So it's the same benefit. I actually love the glucose monitor and I try to avoid eating high glycemic carbs. Really try not to eat a lot of rice and bread and potatoes because even though they taste good. And try to keep it down because they can be converted to fructose, and that is a mechanism for activating this switch. If you give bread to a bear, I bet you he'll get fat, because he'll do the same thing that we do. They'll convert that over to fructose. But the Penguin is not eating bread either.
[00:24:51.660] – Dr. Johnson
It's not eating rice and potatoes. And so it turns out there's yet a third way to do that. There's actually four big ways. And the third way is it's eating… So it turns out that the mechanism involves raising uric acid. And there are times in the year where the Penguin will start eating quill and things like this, as well as a lot of fish that are high in uric acid. And particularly, there are certain seasons where the uric acid goes up in the fish. And it's not so much the uric acid, it's like the RNA. And there are these things called the booming of the frill. And that's when the frill suddenly increase in numbers. And that's associated with a huge increase in nucleic acid in the cricket, which I don't know if we should go on into that. But then the fish eat that, and basically every animal starts feeding it and they start using it to get fatter. And then the pig will eat those fish in the frill, and it would times with the increasing of fat. And we found that is another mechanism. So I had a friend who was in the shrimp business, and shrimp is one of those foods that can also contain a lot of this stuff that makes uric acid.
[00:26:15.820] – Dr. Johnson
And he was eating fried shrimp. And I was thinking, well, he's off carbs. He's not eating a lot of carbs, but he's still gaining weight. The guy gained a lot of weight and became overweight. And I think it was because he was eating a lot of this shrimp that triggered the switch. And then having the fat in the fry was the calories that he could put on the weight quickly that way. So there are different ways to do this. But the number one way is probably from carbs and sugar. And so that's why the low carb diet works so well. The Keto diet works so well because it's blocking you from eating a lot of high glycemic carbs and also sugar and fructose.
[00:26:59.760] – Allan
Now, there was one other way that you brought up in the book that I thought was really interesting, particularly when someone goes low carb, you tell them, okay, well, because you're low carb, you're going to flush some water. And as a result, we want you to have more electrolytes so you can hold on to some of that water. And so folks are starting to salt their food a little bit more and do a little bit more. But that could also be problematic, couldn't it?
[00:27:21.220] – Dr. Johnson
Yeah. So let's talk about that. So it turns out that animals, as we mentioned, they use fat as a source of water. And actually, when you go on a low carb diet and you start burning the fat that first week and you're burning the glycogen and stored carbohydrates, they release water. And so it's very common in the first week of a low carb diet to lose a lot of water because you're basically breaking it. When you break down the fat and the carbs stored, the stored carbs like the glycogen, you release water. And so you do lose a lot of water. And it's not uncommon to become a little dehydrated the first few weeks on a low carb diet. Drinking a lot of water is very beneficial for sure. And this is well known in the low carb field. But what is not so well known is that mild dehydration can be a stimulus for obesity. And when you an animal is in the desert, they are living in a low water state, and so they tend to be mildly dehydrated. And that actually helps them store fat. If they become severely dehydrated, they'll break down the fat.
[00:28:31.080] – Dr. Johnson
But if they're just mildly dehydrated, they will gain fat. And the way that works, it's interesting. When you get mildly dehydrated, the salt concentration in your blood goes up because you're losing water. So blood is basically a combination of water and salt. And if you lose a little water, the salt concentration goes up. And when that happens, it triggers the release of a hormone called Vesopressin. And this helps you hold onto water because it concentrates the urine. And that's why when you dehydrate, the urine, it gets dark yellow. And it's because this hormone is turned on. And we found that that hormone actually triggers basically this survival switch as well. And when the hormone goes up, it tries to stimulate fat storage and so forth. Now, if you get really dehydrated, it goes into emergency mode and starts breaking down the fat. But in the mild dehydration, it actually stores fat. I don't know if you saw this, but in the last few months, there's been a number of papers that have come out showing that mild dehydration is a real risk factor for obesity, diabetes, and even premature mortality, and dementia, and all these things.
[00:29:46.370] – Dr. Johnson
It's like being associated with a lot of chronic diseases. And there was a paper from the National Institute of Health that looked at your serum salt. So whenever you get a blood test, Allan, you can get a serum salt and sodium, and no one ever looks at it because it's usually in the normal range in the vast majority of people.
[00:30:06.070] – Allan
I do because I actually like it.
[00:30:07.430] – Dr. Johnson
Good for you, man.
[00:30:08.780] – Allan
Well, okay, but only because I had an incident, an event. I went, what do they call it?
[00:30:16.000] – Allan
Hydro…
[00:30:16.130] – Dr. Johnson
Hyponatremia?
[00:30:17.360] – Allan
Yeah, basically too much water and not enough salt. And I flushed too much sodium out. And what I didn't know was I tend to be on the low end of the sodium. And so for me to lose sodium is not necessarily a good thing, and so I have to be careful with it. And yeah, my sodium dropped down to that level where I went into spasms and could have gone into a coma. But fortunately, I'm not.
[00:30:40.190] – Dr. Johnson
Oh, my gosh. Well, let's talk about that. Let's go into that a little bit.
[00:30:44.120] – Allan
Okay.
[00:30:44.720] – Dr. Johnson
So it turns out you have this thing called sodium. And when you get your blood test, it's almost everyone has this measured. And the sodium is NA, that's the symbol. And when you look at the sodium, the normal range is like 135 to 145. And what these studies show is that if you're in the 142 to 145 range, which we call normal, you actually have an increased risk for all these terrible diseases. Now, interestingly, if your sodium goes low, it also increases your risk. So if your sodium goes under 135 to a low level, it can be associated with its own problems, a lot of problems. And the most feared one is what happens to marathon runners. So when you're running a marathon, if you get a little bit behind in your fluids, you can start holding on to water because this vasopressin hormone goes up because you get dehydrated. And sometimes the vasopressin level will go up really high and you can start holding on to the water. And instead, normally the way vasopressin works is it helps you hold onto water.
[00:31:58.890] – Dr. Johnson
But when the serum sodium comes back to normal, it turns off. Then it turns off and then you just pee out the water and everything's good. But when you're a marathon runner, occasionally the vasopressin doesn't turn off. And when it doesn't turn off, the water you can… The serum sodium can actually become low and you can get into trouble. And so most people that's not the case because they're not running marathons and they're not holding on to water. But in some people, it can. And like you do, it apparently did. If that happens, you have to be very careful not to drink a lot of water. You need to talk to your doctor, maybe eat more salt and drink less water. But in most people, it turns out that we're usually on a high salt diet. We're eating a lot of salt, just like we're eating a lot of sugar. And all this processed food is injected with salt and salt and French fries and salt and pretzels and salted peanuts, and we're eating all this salt. And so most of us are eating a lot of salt, and we tend to run our sodiums. A lot of people run their sodium a little bit on the high side, mimicking dehydration.
[00:33:12.480] – Dr. Johnson
And what we found was that if you put animals on salt, that over months and months, in the first couple of months, nothing happens. But after several months, they start to become obese. And it's because they're stimulating this vasopressin chronically, and their sodium is a little high. And so they're turning on this survival switch and gaining fat. And when we looked at people who are overweight, most of them are on high salt diets, and most of them have evidence that they're eating too much salt. So it fit that that could be another risk factor for obesity. And then we found that high salt diet predicts obesity, and high salt diet predicts fatty liver, and high salt diet predicts diabetes. And then we took animals and we gave them water, and we could reduce the obesity from sugar by increasing water intake. And what we're doing is we're increasing it to eight… In a human, it would be eight eight ounce cups a day. That's where you want to go. You want to have your urine volume, like two to three liters a day. Normally, it's like one to two liters. So we're looking at trying to increase things a little bit more.
[00:34:22.430] – Dr. Johnson
So everyone is drinking four or five cups of water a day on average. And we're saying let's go up to eight, maybe 10. I'm not telling you to drink liters and liters and liters and liters because if you do, you might get hyponic traviates, spasm, and have seizures.
[00:34:41.440] – Dr. Johnson
There was a case a few years ago in the Boston Marathon where a young lady dropped dead, she was drinking huge amounts of water while she was running and she wasn't getting rid of it because her vasopressin was still turned on.
[00:34:56.820] – Allan
So we've talked about a few things here which I think are really important. So basically, these four known mechanisms. There might actually even be more. You're not done yet. So we're talking about fructose, we're talking about simple carbs, we're talking about uric acid, and we're talking about salt and making sure we get adequate water. Those are some high level things that I think a lot of us when we go on a diet of some sort or another, or our doctors talking to us about our blood pressure, we do a bit of this. And as a result, for at least a period of time, we actually see the benefits. We lose some weight, we're feeling good in spry, and lo and behold, a few months go by and something happens and we lose it all. When I say lose it all, we actually gain it all and we gain it all back and sometimes more. What are some things that we can do about that? Because I'm a solutions guy. I'm a guy who wants to have a question roll things. So what do we do to get ourselves on track here and moving in the right direction?
[00:35:55.030] – Dr. Johnson
Yeah, let's talk about that. So the way this switch works is you generate fructose, and then the fructose works on the mitochondria to block the energy production. Over time, the way it does it is it generates uric acid, which attacks the mitochondria, causes what we call oxidative stress. And initially, that is, it damages the mitochondria, but it's temporary. So it knocks down the mitochondria a bit, and then the mitochondria recover. But if you're doing this continuously with the drinking soft drinks and all these other things every day. Over time, the mitochondria becomes damaged permanently. And when they start getting permanent damage, then it's harder for them to come back up to normal. And so what happens is it's harder to lose weight because your mitochondria are low, so you're living on a low energy state. And so you can die and lose weight, but it seems like anything you eat will cause you to gain weight again. And so the question is, how do you break that? And the answer turns out to be scientifically simple, but hard to do. So let's just talk about it. So the scientific solution is to quit damaging the mitochondria. So cut out or reduce foods that can damage the mitochondria.
[00:37:15.620] – Dr. Johnson
The main thing is to reduce sugar and reduce carbs. That's difficult. But then the second big thing is to try to stimulate those mitochondria to regenerate. And there are ways to do it. And what you're doing now, this whole thing about fitness, fitness is a fantastic way to stimulate mitochondrial growth. So even just endurance exercises can stimulate those mitochondria and working, doing a stationary bike or biking or walking fast. The classic teaching is you want to exercise to the point where you can still talk, but not easily. And if you can still talk to your friend while you're jogging or walking really fast, but it's hard, that's the perfect place to be. And you want to do that for 30, 40 minutes. And regular exercise with weights, that's good too. They definitely help. But that endurance exercise can stimulate those mitochondria to come back. Taking things like vitamin C, vitamin C helps the mitochondria recover. Taking 500 milligrams twice a day, that's a wonderful way to do it. And it also lowers your acid without you having to take a drug. Another great thing to do is dark chocolate contains these things called flavanols, and they contain one that's called Epicatecan and green tea is another.
[00:38:40.680] – Dr. Johnson
It contains a similar one called Epigallic, but these flavanols helps stimulate mitochondria growth. And there's over the counter things like carnotene and some of these things are really CoQ10 or whatever. And there's a lot of these things that are probably good for mitochondria. Vitamin. Vitamin B1, 100 milligrams a day can really help stimulate energy in cells. It's an antidote we use when people have low energy from alcohol in their cells and they can get… Because vitamin can be a magical drug, and it's a vitamin. So what the heck? Anyway, so there are these things to do to try to stimulate the energy factories. And so reducing sugar, drinking more water, cutting back on salt, and following your preachings, Allan, following your preachings. And all these things can help. But even so, it's very hard if your mitochondria are knocked down, it takes months to rebuild them. So you have to have faith. You have to just keep going.
[00:39:48.440] – Allan
And that's one of the cool things with your book. This isn't just stuff you're throwing out a bunch of science at the end. You do have the switch diet, which you talk about, and that can help you. And in a sense, just really start building the platform for getting better. And then once you start losing the weight and then making sure that you're now getting the exercise to help keep it off, those are great. And that's all in your program. That's all in your book. I'd encourage someone, if you're really struggling with this and you just feel like your biology is fighting against you, this is a big part of the answer why it's hard. And if it were easy, then everybody would be thin and healthy, but it's not. So this is a challenge. And I appreciate that you've given us an opportunity book to know not just what to do, because that's what most books do. This is why it will work for you and having the patience to stick with it.
[00:40:41.510] – Allan
Dr. Johnson, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:40:51.220] – Dr. Johnson
So you want me to give you three recommendations. The first one is avoid sugary beverages. They are the number one driver. If you drink a soft drink, you're getting a big load of sugar in a very short period of time. So avoid sugary beverages. That includes sugary teas and it includes power drinks and it includes fruit juices. That's number one. Number two, drink more water. People are just not drinking enough. If you have a slow sodium problem, talk to your doctor about it. But for the vast majority of the world, people are not drinking enough water. There's so much data, eight eight ounce cups a day. They used to think it was a myth. The data now is very clear and just do that. I think the third one is develop a program for yourself that involves exercising three to four times a week and reducing those foods that we know aren't good for you, like carbs and especially high glycemic carbs and sugar, salty foods. They can do it. And there are certain meats, processed red meats in particular, a lot of seafood, especially shellfish, like shrimp and crab, those are rich foods for a reason.
[00:42:13.740] – Dr. Johnson
We call them rich foods, and they have a lot of this uric acid capability. But if you're on a low carb diet, you're probably protected from these meats because the way you make fructose is you make it from glucose. And so it turns out that a lot of if you're not eating any carbs at all, it's hard to make a lot of fructose. So you can get away with eating these foods, like a lot of them you can get away with. But still be careful not to eat too much of these really rich liver shrimp. A lot of them are. But I am a big fan of low carb food and the low carb diet. So I do like high protein diets, but there's just certain foods that are high protein that may not be the healthiest. And then also reduce alcohol, especially beer. Beer is one of the easiest ways to put on extra weight. It's similar to sugar, actually. So maybe I gave you four things.
[00:43:11.000] – Allan
That's awesome. All right. Like I said, I love the book. There's just so much in it, and I'm a geek. So if you want to just get in and really get into the biology of this and the studies he did to get to some of this information that's now been covered by others and basically verified. These are things, and I don't think any of this is really a surprise, but understanding that there is a biological switch that makes this happen for a very good reason. We just are switching it for the wrong reasons. And we need.
[00:43:44.350] – Dr. Johnson
nature wants us to be fat.
[00:43:46.560] – Allan
Nature wants us to be fat.
[00:43:49.120] – Dr. Johnson
And so don't feel bad if you're fat. Nature wants us to be fat. But there are things we can do.
[00:43:54.270] – Allan
Dr. Johnson, if someone wanted to learn more about you and learn more about your book, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:44:01.780] – Dr. Johnson
So I have a website, drrichardjohnson.com, and it's kept up to date with a lot of information. And then my book is available through any bookstore, Amazon, Books a million, it's very easy to find. I do have an Instagram, Dr. Richard J. Johnson, that I use for a fair amount. But I think my website is probably the best place to go.
[00:44:26.350] – Allan
Okay. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/577 and I'll be sure to have links there. Dr. Johnson, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:44:37.420] – Dr. Johnson
Thank you, Allan.
[00:44:47.780] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:44:48.820] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. I probably could have listened to you guys chat for a little bit longer about all these different triggers and the reasons why our bodies want to get fat and stay fat. It was actually really fascinating. But I'm going to tell you right now that fructose was not at the top of my list of things to be concerned about. Honestly, I was thinking 20 other things before that came up, but it was an interesting discussion.
[00:45:11.330] – Allan
Well, I think a lot of people lose sight of where fructose is. I think they think, oh, well, that's fruit. That's fruit. Fructose is fruit. And that's the only… No, table sugar is 50 50, glucose and fructose. That's table sugar. High fructose corn syrup, as the name implies, has more fructose than glucose. Fructose is sweetener than glucose. That's what makes it cheaper is they put it in the food. It's also shelf stable. There's a lot of other stuff. It's in almost everything that's processed. It's crazy. It's in ketchup. It's in your spaghetti sauce. It's anything that's in a box, bag, jar, or can you want to see. And two things to look at is you can look at the order. It happens in the ingredients list. You can look at the total amount of sugars because that's also going to be on the thing. But sugar can apply in multiple levels. So you may see high fructose corn syrup, and then you're going to see agave syrup, and then you're going to see nectar. You'll see these different words, and all they're saying is fructose. There's more fructose. And then, hey, here's a little more fructose to throw in there.
[00:46:28.460] – Allan
And that's all part of it. They'll tell you how much sugar is in it. They'll tell you, you're never really going to get that breakdown. Is this mostly glucose? Is it mostly fructose? And there's no need for you to memorize all this stuff. What I would say is if it's in a box, bag, jar or can pay attention. And then if you're looking at that label, how much of it is added sugars and how much of it is sugar, because that's really where the rubber hits the road. Now, there are other triggers that he brought up because he was mentioning the Emperor Penguin. And these guys are really cool because… Well, I didn't know, but again, I love reading this stuff because I learned things. But the Emperor Penguins, okay, so the males and the females will just go get themselves morbidly obese. And then right after they do that, the women go out and they lay the eggs. And then the boys, because they can put on more fat, they're bigger and they put on a lot more fat, they can sit out there on the egg for a lot longer than the female can.
[00:47:24.380] – Allan
So they go out there and sit on the egg and the female goes back to the Coast to eat and feed and then comes back and then the chicks are born and then she can regurgitate fish and stuff and feed the animal, feed the baby. But it's like, so they have to get morbidly obese so that they can survive. And if for one reason or another that the male didn't get fat enough, he has to leave the egg and go back to the Coast so he can feed because he can't feed out there. So it's a cycle that keeps them alive. But then you say, Okay, well, wait a minute, they are not eating fruit. This doesn't look like this is a great plan. Oh, wow. Here's this Emperor Penguin eating apples. It's like they don't even have hands, but they're eating apples. No, but that's why our bodies can create fructose. It can create those things. And so there's other triggers that are happening that are creating this environment in our body that says, get fat because something bad is about to happen. The famine is about to happen. The cold weather, the lack of food is going to happen and we need the excess or lack of water because we talked about how you look at a whale, there's no fresh water out in the ocean.
[00:48:37.780] – Allan
So the whale can't drink saltwater either. You think, okay, is a fish thirsty?
[00:48:47.760] – Rachel
What a concept.
[00:48:49.460] – Allan
Whales are thirsty and so they're not drinking enough water. They're not drinking water. And since they're not drinking water, well, because they can actually do ice and stuff like that, but they're not that much. So they're eating fish and all that. They're getting some water from that. But building fat in their fat stores then provide the same thing with camels. The hump in their back is not some water tank that they just fill up. It's fat. It's a series of fat that collects, and then they use that for water. So apparently, I guess when they're out of water, their little lumps are floppy. So again, it's this whole biological process where our body is triggering us to put on body fat to protect us from a coming winter or whatever. And unfortunately, we don't have those anymore. I mean, obviously, yeah, it's 20 degrees up there and it's 24 degrees down here. So we do have winters, but you're able to be in a house bundled up. You are not out in the elements nearly as more than most because you've got your running thing. But you don't need a whole bunch of body fat to survive the winter because you've got the manmade stuff that keeps you alive despite it.
[00:49:59.080] – Allan
So because we're not in that environment, because we're in a food abundant environment, we don't need those triggers. We don't need them, but we keep doing it. We keep triggering it and we don't understand. It's like, Well, I'm not. I look at the calories. I don't understand, or I'm always hungry. I don't know why I'm always hungry. And it's because you've triggered. And the trigger says, eat more. Just eat more.
[00:50:23.800] – Rachel
And hold on to it.
[00:50:25.190] – Allan
And hold on to that body fat. So it lowers your metabolism. It's not that you're not eating enough and that's lowering your metabolism. It's not that you're getting older and that's lowering your metabolism. Yes, our metabolism does start to slow down a little bit, but it's actually not that big until you're like 90. So a 90 year old's metabolism relative to a 40 year old's metabolism is lower, like maybe 20 % lower. But it's not this drastic number where you're like, when I was a kid, I could eat anything, and now I can't. It's not that drastic, but it does lower it when you got the trigger on because the process requires, the nature requires, the biology requires you to put on body fat. So it's doing both, lower the metabolism and increase your hunger. And that's what makes this so hard.
[00:51:17.460] – Rachel
But there's more to it. It's not just the fructose, it's all of the simple carbs, the high glycemic food items that we eat. And you also discuss uric acid and their level of hydration or dehydration has an impact as well.
[00:51:34.790] – Allan
Yeah. All of those are signals, I would say. I think anyone listen to this podcast that didn't know sugar was on that list, shocker, because he brought up, he was doing the research and it was like, Oh, wow. Everything's pointing to fructose. But then it didn't make sense what's going on with some animals that aren't eating fruit. How is that happening for them? And it was like, okay, there's something else going on. And he even talked to someone who was popular in the online space in podcasts and books around the low carb stuff. And he's like, the guy told him, he's like, I can't just cut out fructose. I have to cut out all carbs because otherwise, I don't lose weight at all. And so he was like, well, okay. At the time, they didn't jive with his model, his scientific model. But then he came back to realize it's like, what happens when we eat excess glucose? So it's high glycemic index foods. So bread, potatoes, rice, white rice. So anything that would come up as high in the glycemic index, or in some cases, glycemic load, if you're eating a mix of foods.
[00:52:46.320] – Allan
But if it's high in that glycemic index, then that's excess glucose. And your body will say, We can convert some of this to fructose.
[00:52:54.840] – Allan
And then it's going to trigger all those same things. And then if you're someone who's struggling with gout and you know your uric acid levels are high because this is another trigger high uric acid. And if you have gout, then you realize, okay, you know that it basically, because there's this excess uric acid, it turns into crystals. And so most people know and experience the arthritis that comes from having those crystals embedded in their joints and how painful that is. Here's what I got from the book. Those are also being embedded inside your arteries and inside your heart. And so if you're high in uric acid, if you've had episodes of gout, you're probably also having higher issues with cardiovascular problems. And so, again, another reason, even if you aren't overweight, but you do have uric acid issues and gout to keep those under control, which interestingly enough, fructose is one of the things that makes that happen as sometimes does red meat. So not that you have to avoid those things, but just knowing your status and how it's triggering. And then, yeah, it was the hydration.
[00:54:07.220] – Allan
And beyond just that of seeing that that could be your trigger, there's a lot of other reasons to stay hydrated. One is a lot of times we get hungry because we're dehydrated and we're actually thirsty, but we experience it as hunger because a lot of our water actually does come from the food. So you get a cucumber or watermelon or even most meats, there's a lot of water content in those things. And you see that, like, okay, if you dehydrate a stake to make jerky, the mass of it, the size of it, you're like, Well, where did the volume go? Well, the water. That much water was in that stake. So it gives you an idea of how much water, if you dehydrate something, how much smaller it is. But you can see how that's happening. So we eat those things for water. And so you need to make sure that you're drinking plenty of water so that you're not overly hungry, even though it's really thirst. And then the other side of it is when our liver is this really cool thing, it's smart. And I'm going to be talking to Dave Asprey in a few weeks.
[00:55:08.300] – Allan
And it's one of the things he puts out there is this laziness principle. And I think our liver is exactly like that. And what it is is that you're… And it sounds terrible, but it's actually how things work is everything's going to want to use as little power, as little effort, as little anything as it can to still get the job done. That's just smart. That's not dumb. And it's not things say lazy, but the reality is it's just smart. Our liver is the same way. And so we put all these chemicals in our liver based on what we're eating, drinking, smelling, and of course, what industry and everything else is putting in our environment. Thousands and thousands of chemicals and those get into our body and our liver is responsible for helping us deal with that. And if we're putting on body fat, our liver says, Well, I can just store this in this body fat. It's actually the easiest way for me to do this. So this person is eating plenty of fructose and all these chemicals because this and that. And I got to get rid of these, but I'm just over here building this fat for this person because they want me to.
[00:56:10.120] – Allan
And then it just says, Let's put those in there, too. So it just puts those toxins in the fat. And it's efficient because now I don't have to do anything about it. It's like you lift up the carpet and you sweep that dirt under there. Or you guys remember, clean up your room and you took everything and threw it in the closet and shut the door. I'm done. It's like, oh, wait, you're done. And it was just we covered it up and therefore, out of sight, out of mind, it's the same thing. But the problem then is when you do actually start losing the weight.
[00:56:41.100] – Allan
You're going to start what? Hitting that fat and processing it and using it for energy, which means it's going to get released. So you may notice you start a diet, you start losing a little bit of body fat, you got a headache. Not just Keto, but a lot of them, you start getting headaches. You're like, why am I so headic here? It's like you've released those chemicals into your system because you're now mobilizing that fat. So drinking plenty of water helps your kidneys, helps your liver, helps the whole process, lymph nodes, and everything else work better because you're not dehydrated. When you're dehydrated, then we got other things to worry about. We don't need to be worrying about lymph and getting rid of this stuff in the liver and all that. It's like, yeah, well, we'll keep them alive, but that's about it. And so that's the whole process is to make sure you're getting plenty to drink, you're eating whole foods. So if you need to, paying attention to the glycemic index of the food you're eating and potentially what it's doing for your uric acid levels.
[00:57:45.120] – Rachel
Perfect. Those are all great triggers to keep an eye on and to change. If you're stuck at a weight and you are trying to lose it, then these are the things you might want to look into.
[00:57:56.050] – Allan
If your body is constantly telling you you're hungry, even though you know you're eating enough and you're not losing the weight, in fact, you're putting it on and you're like, I'm not eating enough to get fat, but yet here we are, then that's something you want to pay attention to. It's not just calories in, calories out. Your body will make you eat more and it will make you stored as fat because it'll lower your metabolism and be pushing you to be hungry all the time. And that's a miserable way to be. So make sure you're giving yourself really good quality food where you can, dang off the high glycemic stuff and the added sugars and the fructose and all that and stay hydrated. And this is going to be a thousand fold easier for you. And so as Dr. Johnson says, nature wants us to be fat, but nature really wants us to be fat when we need to be fat.
[00:58:49.070] – Allan
And we don't need to be fat, so you can do something about it.
[00:58:54.920] – Rachel
That sounds great. Great interview.
[00:58:57.200] – Allan
I enjoyed it a lot. It was a really good book. You're interested in all of that. He did a lot of rat studies. And so he talks about his rats or the rats he has to get to be able to study how these different biological functions are happening of fructose and glucose and rats that can't process it, rats that don't like it, rats.
[00:59:19.900] – Rachel
Oh, my gosh. It's like a nightmare.
[00:59:23.710] – Allan
Yeah. Well, can he genetically modify me to not like sugar? That'd be great.
[00:59:30.040] – Rachel
If only it was that easy.
[00:59:31.400] – Allan
If only it was that easy. But we're not there yet. And so from a health perspective, what you can do right now, he does give you an idea of what those triggers are. And then you can structure your own self-experiment and figure out what works best for you.
[00:59:47.000] – Rachel
That's awesome. Fascinating.
[00:59:48.320] – Allan
All right. Well, Rachel, I'll talk to you next week.
[00:59:51.720] – Rachel
Take care, Allan.
[00:59:52.820] – Allan
You too.
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
– Anne Lynch | – Ken McQuade | – Melissa Ball |
– Debbie Ralston | – John Dachauer | – Tim Alexander |
– Eliza Lamb | – Leigh Tanner | |
– Eric More | – Margaret Bakalian |
Thank you!
Less...
If you're over 40, you've probably seen how hard it is to lose weight. In her book, Why Women Over 40 Can't Lose Weight, Gabrielle O'Hare explains why this is so hard, and she gives us practical advice to change that.
Transcript
[00:03:14.990] – Allan
Hey, Ras, how are you?
[00:03:16.540] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:03:18.270] – Allan
My head hurts.
[00:03:19.460] – Rachel
Oh, no, why is that?
[00:03:22.610] – Allan
Well, I had someone that was doing the audio processing for the show. They've done it forever, sort of forever? Really? Yeah, since the beginning. But they sold their business to another business. And so it was the same people.
[00:03:35.000] – Allan
Sort of supposed to be the same people.
[00:03:36.360] – Allan
I think it was the same workers that were doing the work. And then they come around and they roll around like, okay, we're going to have to raise your rate. And they raised it like 60%, so I've been paying that, but it's very expensive, all things considered, to do the editing on this podcast. And they did a great job, don't get me wrong, but it was just a lot of money. So I was like, okay, we had a problem. We had a communication problem. And so I was like, I get all these emails from other companies that want my business. Maybe it's worth me having a conversation. There was one company, and I liked the guy we got on the phone, and the guy is sharp, and he was aggressive and wanted to really want my business. So we had the conversation like, okay, I'll give this a shot. And maybe the first couple of episodes, they did well. They did really well on. They were faster, they were cheaper, and they were doing good. Okay, this is good. And then they'd make a mistake. And to be a simple thing like leaving out the author's bio, all the files are numbered.
[00:04:33.150] – Allan
So a kid would know, okay, you don't skip file four. You just don't skip it. You don't skip file five. Go from four to six. There's a file there, you put it in there, and then when you're proofing it, you're like, oh, there's no bio. He always has a bio. And then I had one where I had a midroll ad and they put it at the end of the interview. Well, that's not where it's supposed to be. That's not where I told them to put it. And so there was that. And then lately there's just been some quality issues, and you guys have probably heard those things. I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is, the low cost provider. And I'm getting, I guess, what I paid for. So anyway, I decided, okay, I'm not going to go back to the expensive one because it's just way too much money. And I'm like, okay. I've tried this with GarageBand, which was free on my Mac, and before on my computer, I had everything set and I could actually edit a podcast pretty well. I have not been able to match those settings on my new computer, which is not new anymore.
[00:05:31.940] – Allan
It's a year old. I can't get it to sound the same with my computer now. And I'm like, I don't know what the problem is, but I just couldn't use GarageBand, which wasn't cutting it for me on the new computer. And I'm not sure why, but it is what it is. So I said, okay, I'll buy the more expensive software and then I'll just try to do it myself. But it's called Adobe Audition and it has all the bells and whistles. You can do a lot with it, but it's much more complex. The Apple product, GarageBand is very intuitive, very easy to understand. I switched to that from Audible. Audible was a free software that I was using. Again, the quality wasn't as good. And then when I switched to GarageBand, it was really good. Then when I changed computers, I lost that and like, okay, got to just continue to outsource all of them and not doing any of them myself. Because sometimes I'll get behind and schedule and I'm like, okay, I don't have time to send this to them. That's four days. I don't have time. I need to do it myself.
[00:06:25.150] – Allan
And so everyone knew I was going to be doing one myself and I couldn't do it. So now I'm trying to learn Audible and it's old dog, new trick kind of stuff. I'm watching a YouTube video and then I'm trying to do it, and then I'm watching a YouTube video and trying to do it. So I only say that to say that the quality of my podcast, this podcast might be a little off, has been off. It's going to probably be off for a few more weeks to figure out the software and get my systems and processes going. But I'm going to work on it. And so, yeah, it's just one of those things where I got a lot going on already. But I need to learn this software and get this done because quite literally, it takes me not a whole lot of time. And considering what I was paying them to do, it, particularly the expensive company, it's worth my time to do it rather than hire that out. So it's just been one of those things where I've been sitting there this morning watching a YouTube video, doing a little bit editing, watching a YouTube video, doing a little bit of editing, stop and start, stop and start.
[00:07:21.520] – Allan
I'm figuring it out, so just give me a little bit of time. These will get better and better as I figure out what I'm doing wrong and that type of thing.
[00:07:28.900] – Rachel
My gosh. Well, good luck with that.
[00:07:32.830] – Allan
They say you need to be trying to learn new things all the time.
[00:07:35.570] – Rachel
That's true.
[00:07:36.310] – Allan
But yeah, it doesn't mean it's supposed to be fun, right?
[00:07:40.080] – Rachel
Oh, my gosh. Well, good luck.
[00:07:41.910] – Allan
How are things up there?
[00:07:43.060] – Rachel
Good. Over the weekends, I helped my brother kind of move a couple of boxes. He shipped a pod over an eight by eight by eight pod storage unit that we unloaded and put into a more permanent storage unit until he can finally make his move cross country. And I was really worried about it about lifting heavy boxes, heavy furniture, all the awkwardness of moving again. And I'm so happy to say that I feel great that I am not sore. My back doesn't hurt. And my parents did okay with it as well because they were helping with a couple of their friends. And it went a lot more smoothly than I had expected, actually. I don't know why. I expected to be in a lot more pain than I am.
[00:08:29.970] – Allan
It is even with the weight lifting that you do I do. It is a different movement pattern. And you do have to watch what you're doing, because you're lifting something that's awkward and not necessarily bars and dumbbells and kettlebells are all built to be lifted. They're ergonomic as much as they can be. But, yeah, when you try to lift a big box heavy, you have to be smart about it and do it the right way. You probably learned a lot from lifting, but beyond that, you were smart about what you want.
[00:09:02.380] – Rachel
We were all being very careful, and it was just in the forefront of my mind about lifting properly and just taking my time. And it went really well. So I'll be ready for his next shipment.
[00:09:15.090] – Allan
I got to find people like you.
[00:09:19.410] – Rachel
Yeah, I'll help move.
[00:09:22.530] – Allan
All right. Are you ready to talk about weight loss?
[00:09:25.360] – Rachel
Sure.
[00:10:36.610] – Allan
Gabrielle, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:10:39.300] – Gabrielle
Hello. Thank you very much for having me here.
[00:10:41.260] – Allan
Now, the book is going to get any woman's attention if she's over 40 and wants to lose weight. And the name of the book is Why Women Over 40 Can't Lose Weight. Well, yes, but you also then give us a solution or at least some things that we can think about. Because the thing is, I read this and I'm a man, obviously, but I train a lot of women. I'm married to one. And so as I go through my life, I'm like, okay, this is real stuff, this is the real experience. I can be empathetic, but I can't experience it. And so I know that it's a struggle and yeah, you're watching your husband and the two of you start eating the same thing. Maybe he's eating more. Yeah, he's hitting the crisps and the cookies and all the other things and he manages to be able to lose the weight and you're not. That can be quite discouraging.
[00:11:32.170] – Gabrielle
Absolutely.
[00:11:33.090] – Allan
And that discouragement I don't mean this in a different way, but once you're discouraged, it's almost like digging out kind of thing, isn't it?
[00:11:41.840] – Gabrielle
Absolutely. I think it can feel like a very lonely place to be. I think a lot of the fitness industry is a lot of the marketing materials focused on before and after photos and success stories and you can feel like you're the only person failing or the only person who can't do it. And one of the things that I've noticed about women and men may well find this, but my work primarily is with women who were in the late 40s. They sort of can be quite hard on themselves. They don't realize everyone's having the same problem as you tend to internalize things and blame yourself for being lazy, for having no motivation for, I don't know, just being late. Just assume it's their own fault and it's a personal failing or it's a character failing and they don't realize that so many other people share the same problems. So you just have this lonely battle where you're really giving yourself a hard time.
[00:12:32.620] – Allan
as women reach this particular age group. For some women it happens a little earlier than others. For some it's a little bit later and there's no rhyme or reason for it exactly. You can ask your mother when she started change and you might genetically kind of fall in the same line. But women can start towards menopause at any age that a menopause, but it's around this time. And so at this point your body is changing and that's going to put some obstacles, if you will, in your way that you need to be able to think through and work through. And it's also a time when it's kind of hard to work through because there's so much else going on in your life. In the book, you mentioned six reasons and I wrote in my notes, impossible to stick to a diet. But I think, fine, it's not impossible.
[00:13:21.300] – Allan
If you approach this the right way. But what are six reasons that women really struggle with their diet? Because I think once they hear this, they're going to realize that's me. She's talking about me.
[00:13:32.950] – Gabrielle
a big one, is self neglect. And that's not an intentional problem. Women aren't ignoring themselves, but what happens over the years. You have children, you get married, you advance on your career, your parents can get older. There can be so many things that are vying for your attention and women quite often want to be the givers and the carers they're very focused on. They want to do things for the people, people pleasers, they don't want to say no. And that can all start to over the years just become a really big list of priorities and big demands on the time. And women have it all these days. We run families, we manage relationships, we run children, we have successful careers. We've got to cut some corners somewhere because we haven't got time to fit everything in and it tends to be that we leave ourselves and our own needs to the end. And that's why I wanted to call that self neglect because we've become so focused. This is a gradual thing but we've become so focused on looking after others we put ourselves last. And it's not uncommon for women to get up, make the breakfast, grab something quick themselves, not have time to eat lunch properly, and find that they're just grabbing snacks and end up with Ravenous in the evening and they just are running on empty all the time.
[00:14:50.990] – Gabrielle
And that's just leading them to make not bad choices because you're just where you are, but you make choices that aren't great for your health and great for your weight because you're just having to grab what you can when you can. So self neglect is one of the main ones and that really just comes from the circumstance of having really busy lives and being more prioritized and focused on other people.
[00:15:11.400] – Gabrielle
Stress is a generic one that affects everybody really. Again it's a gradual build over time. Your lives get busier and menopause, some people may or may not realize this but menopause can make it harder for you to cope with a managed stress so you can become more stressed at this time of your life. Work can become quite stressful. Women get along discriminated against as they get older or really feel the pressure that they're not as young and as attractive as some of the counterparts. So there's a lot of things that can build up the levels of stress that you're experiencing. But we know that when you're stressed it increases your body fat and particularly the fat around the middle. It can affect your sleep, it can affect your food choices.
[00:15:51.320] – Gabrielle
If people eat to cope with stress, emotional eating. So there's a number of ways that stress can then affect your diet and therefore your weight loss. Menopause you touched on and there are hormonal changes that are taking place. One of them is that another source of estrogen for your body as your own, your overall stop producing it is fat cells. So if your body can start to lay down more fat because it can provide you with a weak source of estrogen that it needs. Estrogen isn't just for making babies or having periods, it has many, many other functions in your body. So you still need it beyond that time. Another bit more scientific, I'll try and simplify it, but another way that you can create estrogen in your body is by your adrenal glands. So your adrenal glands have got two functions. They can produce your stress hormones and they can also produce your estrogen or a source of estrogen for your body. But if you're stressed all the time, it defaults to the stress hormones, which is default position. So it's going to fall short on topping up your estrogen, which then can lead back onto that cycle to the fast accumulation, particularly around your waist.
[00:17:00.940] – Gabrielle
So that's really what's going on with menopause over time. This one's going to be familiar. We live in a society where we don't eat because we're hungry. We eat to cope with feeling lonely, to cope with anxiety, because we're upset because it's there. And those can become very invisible habits that we don't notice that of topping up our calorie supplies all day long. And then another one is sabotage. You mentioned at the beginning about the husband at home eating the crisps and the kids can want pizza, your mother in law can want to feed you her cake, your colleagues can put you under a lot of pressure to eat the things that they've brought in. And I found as a sort of trained more and more women, that people that had a huge impact on weight and sometimes it can be well meaning. Someone has brought something in for a birthday at work and they want you to partake in it. Or other times your friends and your families can deliberately sabotage you because they worry how you may see them. If you're losing weights or you're improving your health and they're not, it shows them up in a negative light.
[00:18:09.050] – Gabrielle
So that can be a tricky thing for people to deal with. And then the last one is the fact that we are so heavily targeted by the food industry, by advertising for retailers, for fast food outlets, for apps, for junk food. We just do not realize how bombarded we are by messages that are persuading us to fill our trolleys, our cupboards, with those sort of foods. And that has a big impact. I've seen some data that suggests that in some supermarkets, more than 90% of the food on the shelves is highly processed. And the more we're surrounded by, the more of it we eat. So there is a bigger issue going on there when you think about these six factors that are really going to give us lots of opportunity to eat the wrong things and eat more than we need.
[00:18:55.930] – Allan
Yeah, and I think it's easy to see where that multiple challenges in there. And I think the only one I'd say that men don't have to deal with is the menopause, but we also absolutely. And when you start putting fat, then you are creating extra estrogen, and that's what creates Moobs and everything else that men deal with as we age and why we need to be fit and healthy ourselves. You started out this whole because I want to shift, because this is not all bad news. There's good news in this book, okay, despite the title, there's good news. You can in fact, to lose weight, but you have to do, I think, this one thing first, particularly for a woman that finds herself being the caretaker, dying the food and doing the things and stressed out and overworked and maybe somewhere along the spectrum of going into menopause. And that is your mindset. Can you talk about the mindset that a woman needs, particularly a woman that I think both of us, but that a woman would need going into this? I'm going to call it a battle front for right now, but what kind of mindset does she need?
[00:20:02.740] – Gabrielle
I've talked about having a priority mindset, and it's a shift where you become your own priority. And I've used those words together because quite often you've got other priorities in your life, your family, your parents, your relationship, your career. You've got to turn that around. But you become your own priority, and that's really important. Until that truly happens, you aren't going to be able to make the changes that you need to create a healthier lifestyle, to lose weight, to get more energy, whatever it is, because you'll relate to this. Changing your diet, doing more exercise, improving your sleep, reducing stress, whatever it is that you need to do. It takes effort, it takes work. You're having to flip out of your normal routine and make changes, and that's hard. And unless you're really, truly committed to making yourself that priority and your health and your goals, it's not going to happen. And one of the things that just to try and help people understand what that really means because it can be easy to say, yes, that's my priority, well, then you don't follow through. And you've got to look, maybe listen to your language when you shouldn't have eaten that or I should work out tonight, but you're not doing it.
[00:21:12.580] – Gabrielle
And if you're using language like that, then that's a sign that you're not actually really prioritizing it. You just pay a lip service to the fact that that's something that you should do, but it's not high enough on your to do list right now for you to make consistent action and consistent changes. And we can all do this when we want to. I ask people to maybe think back to a time in their lives where they've made a really strong decision about something that you've really wanted. It could have been getting married or starting a family, buying a house, getting a promotion at work. Everyone will be able to relate to something that they didn't just decide I'd like to do that. You think, no, I am going to do that. And it becomes really certain and really absolute. You don't even have to think about it too much. You just make this decision and you cross the line and then you are going to make sure that happens. You're not going to let anything stand in your way until you've done that thing that you want to do. And that has to be the same to make these changes for your life.
[00:22:10.140] – Gabrielle
And if you have had a problem with losing weight because you can't stick to a diet, then you have to be committed to understanding what your blockers have been in the past and learning how to dismantle those and create the new habits that are going to last you a lifetime. And that's why you need that priority mindset. Because without that the kids will want something, your parents will want you to do something, your boss will want you to drop everything you'll have housework to do. And we can make ourselves busy because we don't want to address those things for ourselves or we can let other people steal our time from us. When you become a priority, you then start to be able to say no me first, you just hang on a minute, I'll get around to you later. And that's the difference.
[00:22:49.910] – Allan
Yeah. There's two really big things that I think roll into this that I think are important. Okay. One is that you're not asking them to do more, ask you to decide they are the priority and they're going to do this first and do that later.
[00:23:09.120] – Gabrielle
Absolutely.
[00:23:09.770] – Allan
And the reality I think most of us sit there and say is, well okay, if I don't answer these emails this morning before I go into the office, is anybody going to die? No, absolutely not. Now does it make my little morning hours where I can sit there and have some tea and maybe biscuits and hang out and talk to the people at the washroom by the break room, now have more time to do that because I'm not answering emails. And maybe the answer is yes. But does that serve you better than getting this workout in or preparing your lunch so you have a healthy lunch available to you?
[00:23:47.160] – Gabrielle
Absolutely.
[00:23:47.900] – Allan
Function of prioritizing and it's not about putting something new in, it's about pushing bad stuff out because it's not priority and it's not really serving you.
[00:23:57.690] – Gabrielle
That's absolutely right.
[00:23:59.340] – Allan
I think that's a big part of this priority mindset. And then another thing you said when you put yourself first I know sometimes that can feel kind of selfish. Who am I to put myself first? And you can go into the airline thing and put your mask on things, but that just goes in one here and out the other.
[00:24:17.760] – Allan
But the reality is this if you love someone and you needed to do something for them, like, needed to carry your spouse to the airport. And I know the traffic that heathrow is like, insane. So you can the airport by 05:00 in the morning. Where are you at 05:00 in the morning? You're at departures dropping off your significant other. If your kids really need to be somewhere, like go to school or do this and they need to be there at a certain time, we have no problem dropping everything to make that happen. So the question comes up is, why wouldn't we do that for ourselves? Why wouldn't we schedule a workout and say, this is like a meeting with my boss. I'm not going to diss my boss and skip it. I'm going to do the work because I'm my boss. My boss said, be here at this time, and I love myself enough to make that happen.
[00:25:10.020] – Gabrielle
It's absolutely key. And they are the conversations that you have to be having with yourself. And that's how you're going to have to be figuring out how to just move your time around so that you can fit yourself in and make that happen.
[00:25:22.710] – Allan
You have a dozen priorities and you're trying to juggle or as you said in the book, spin the plates. But the reality is you only have one priority, and that's the plate you're dealing with right now. So plate means that it's focusing on you getting healthy and fit, because guess what? Your kids are still going to need you 20 years from now. Yeah, that's it needs you 20 years from now. And if you're not taking care of yourself now, what kind of shape are you going to be in then to do it then? So there's just a lot in that of having that priority mindset. A prit one. You, this moment, eat the right king. Or in this moment, do the workout, get it done, because you know the payoff is worth it.
[00:26:08.020] – Gabrielle
Yeah. And it's just it's making it simple, isn't it? And keeping that focus. And I like the way you said that in this moment, just that one thing. We sometimes have so much baggage we wrangle with ourselves and we procrastinate. We can just make those decisions quite easy and then simplify it, do it, get on with the rest of your day, go back to the rest of your to do list.
[00:26:26.510] – Allan
Yeah. Good.
[00:26:27.470] – Allan
Now, you mentioned earlier processed food or ultra processed, I believe. If my great grandmother walked into a grocery store right now, where's the food? This is not a food market. This is something else. Why is processed food such a problem?
[00:26:44.600] – Gabrielle
Okay, well, there's a couple of reasons, and one of them is the fact that actually relative to natural and unprocessed food, it's got a lot less nutrition. So the processing methods that they use to create these foods strip out a lot of the nutrition. They often not always, but quite often ultra processed foods can be low in. Protein. So you've got something that's low in protein and low in nutrition. And what we're starting to understand that is your body doesn't just need calories, it also needs certain amounts of nutrients. And if you're not getting enough nutrients for your body, then it craves more. So I think we've lost a little bit of the connection with food and what it does because food is just the building blocks of our body. We're constantly regenerating our skin, our organs, our skeletons. There's thousands, millions of functions going on all the time. And we need food and the nutrients that we get from food to do all that. So that we're now starting to understand that as we get smaller amounts of smaller concentrations of nutrition in these ultraprocessed foods, which are relatively high in calories, our bodies are actually sending a signal, hey, we've not had enough.
[00:27:53.400] – Gabrielle
Eat more, eat more. So we're trying to eat more of these foods that are actually high in calories to try and get the nutrients because they're so scarce. So that's one of the theories of why we crave when we overeat these ultraprocessed foods. The other thing is that they are deliberately created their recipes to be really highly palatable and highly pleasurable. You can't deny that a slice of cheesecake or a donut or a fast food burger tastes amazing. We all recognize that the appeal of those things, they're designed to be very intense in terms of the flavor, and they give us like a big sort of pleasure hit in our brain. And that, again, makes us think, oh, that's amazing. I want more. I want a bigger portion. I want it tomorrow. So it does actually, though, these taste sensations are a lot higher and a lot more intense than natural foods are, and therefore we want more. The other thing as well is that with, you know, if your diet is heavy in auto processed foods, you're going to have a higher percentage of calories from carbohydrates. And that's the sort of food component that spikes your blood sugar.
[00:28:57.840] – Gabrielle
That in itself causes cravings as you spending more time in fat storage mode. So it's not just calories that influence whether you're overweight or not. It's actually the carbohydrates because of the effect that they have on your hormones. So you've got this whole thing going on where there's not enough nutrition recreating cravings. And it really is very difficult then to control the amount of calories that you eat. That's the problem. Your blood sugar becomes really unstable and you're just constantly craving more and more, and you're just locked in this overeating cycle.
[00:29:27.490] – Allan
Yeah, I see it all the time. It's funny because you'll have this group that will say, well, no, you've got to eat low carb and this and that. And then before too long, well, the food companies figured out, okay, we need keto friendly snacks, and it's still processed. It's still refined stuff. And maybe it doesn't have sugar, but maybe not as much, but doesn't have any protein either. So it's devoid of anything that calories useful. Got it. And then over here, they're like, no, you need to be vegan, but we're going to make vegan hamburgers and hot dogs and vegan and duly sausage. And you're like, okay. The food companies know that this is a marketing ploy, and they know they play with you. And I had a guy on a long time ago, but the book stands out because the cover was so special. It was called the Dorito effect. And literally, these food companies have food scientists that their sole job is to make you eat more. Yeah, they're like, how do we make this so hyperpalatable that nobody's going to want anything else but this? And they're going to actually eat it so fast, they won't actually taste it after the first bite.
[00:30:38.310] – Allan
And I know, I've been there. I've eaten a whole equal sleeve of Pringles. It's a potato chips, as we call in the United States, like, just fat. And it's like, what did I just do? And I hardly remember eating them. It does draw us in. And so the more you can rely on whole food. Okay. And the way I kind of say this is if it comes in a bag box jar or can be leery, you said in the book, look at the ingredients and see what's in this. There are some exceptions. They'll freeze berries. They'll freeze vegetables. They'll ban meat. So there are exceptions to this. But if it's stable and can sit on a shelf and you see the expiry date for this thing is three years away, you got to ask questions because most of the food that's around the exterior of a grocery store in the United States, and I think it's the same there
[00:31:28.880] – Gabrielle
very much the same in the UK.
[00:31:31.130] – Allan
And walk through, and it's kind of the same. As long as you stay to the outside, you're mostly under the whole food stuff. It doesn't sit long. It has to be refrigerated. That's why all refrigerators are on the outside of the store, because most of that stuff has to be refrigerated or will go bad pretty quickly.
[00:31:46.520] – Allan
Now, in the book, you went through two things. You went through weight loss by counting calories, which I think is exceptionally hard unless you're someone who like I came from an accounting background, so keeping data, doing data, I can do that. My first accounting, when I was keeping up with my own finances, I was like General Motors. And I actually enjoyed doing that because I'm an accountant. And when I first started trying to count calories, it was like, okay, exciting. I was at the scales and I'm measuring everything, but I just know that that's not sustainable and it's not the way that I think we were intended to eat generally, because great grandparents didn't even know what a calorie was and didn't have scale. And somehow or another they managed to not… Processed food may have had a little bit to do with that, but beyond that, if you want to lose weight without counting calories, what's a good approach for someone to take to do that?
[00:32:43.540] – Gabrielle
Okay, well, I think the first thing to do is really go back to eating natural, unprocessed food. That's the biggest thing. And protein is really important. We tend to undereat protein and particularly as we get older, and this goes for men and women, we do need to eat more protein. So there's again better understanding that the needs that older adults have, and I'm talking about people really in the sort of 50 plus need to eat more protein. And protein is really important anyway because it helps to stabilize your appetite. And if you're going from eating a diet mainly based on ultra processed foods, the first things that you want to do is try and keep yourself full and eliminate cravings. And the best way to do that is by having a diet that's got having meals that have protein at each one, plenty of veg, don't be frightened of fat. And the thing you do want to watch out for is having fewer empty carbs on your plates. So that's your bread, your pasta, your rice, your noodles, your potatoes, they're the things that have got no nutrition. They're the things that are going to spike your blood sugar.
[00:33:46.370] – Gabrielle
If you had a steak and a salad with olive oil and maybe a little bit of Parmesan cheese, you tell me that you're hungry after that meal because you're not going to be. Yeah, that's ticking. So many boxes, so packed with nutrition, slow to digest, that will keep you going for hours. So this is really where you want to start with. And then the second step is to really try and get that down to just eating three meals a day. So you want to be thinking that you leave maybe four or at 5 hours in between meals. And again, if the main meals that you have are filling and satisfying and you're enjoying them, you should find it fairly easy then to get to that four or 5 hours before your next meal. And by leaving yourself a gap, you're allowing your body to digest the last meal properly. You're giving yourself more chance to dip into your fat stores. If we're constantly snacking in and eating food all of the time, then it's like having your phone plugged into your charger. You're never digging into the battery. Our body fat is like an energy battery and we're just popping up and giving our body like a very easy to use energy store and never touching the fat.
[00:34:53.530] – Gabrielle
And that's what we want to get rid of. So if you can have good decent meals, leave for four to 5 hours between each one, then really you should be working towards eliminating snacks. And when I coach sort of coach clients. Just making those changes can be enough for them to start losing weight. That's all it takes. And sometimes they can't believe how easy it is. Sometimes the meals that they're already making are 80% nair. Usually it's just a bit more protein on your plate. Get rid of a few of those potatoes, and they can do it. For others, that's not enough and go down to that. But they want to lose weight, and it's not moving. So the next stage, the next level to go to if that's not working, is to just pay attention to your portion sizes. And you want to make sure or focus on maybe just dropping the fat slightly on whatever you're eating, making the pasta, the rice, the potato component smaller, or eliminating it altogether for a while and see how that works, and then packing it out with plenty of eggs so it's filling. And then the next level to go to if that's still not working, but it should be, is to start to pay attention to your appetite.
[00:36:02.890] – Gabrielle
And the golden rule is, when you're hungry, you start when you fall. And you mentioned before we didn't need to count calories once upon a time because we were more in tune with our natural appetites. We knew when we needed something, we knew when we'd had enough. And a lot of the ultra processed foods that we have as led us to really not being tuned into our natural hunger signals and our fullness signals. So there's a reeducation process that you get from eating post natural foods and giving yourself not snacking and giving yourself plenty of time in between, you're allowing your appetite to reset.
[00:36:37.000] – Allan
Yeah. And it's kind of one of the special things that I really like about the human body is that if we give it what it needs, it gives us what we need. Communicate good things through food, through movement, through reduced stress, through sleep. And our body realizes, hey, we're in a pretty good place. We're pretty safe.
[00:36:55.240] – Allan
I don't have to really be stressed all the time. I don't have buy or sell looking for food all the time because it's plentiful and I'm getting good nutrition. It kind of falls in line, your hormones somewhat more fall in line, and everything just gets easier.
[00:37:08.830] – Gabrielle
Absolutely.
[00:37:09.690] – Allan
One of the things you said in the book, and I really can't leave this interview without kind of putting this in there, was you said that we should be paying more attention to how we feel and look than what we weigh. And I think that's just really a cool thing because too often we're like using the scale as this metric of worth when food and movement and all these other things that we're doing in our lives are really meant to just be energies and build ups and just part of putting together a platform for you to be better.
[00:37:40.630] – Gabrielle
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lovely opportunity for men and women at this age to really start to reconnect with themselves and how they feel. And when our kids are growing up, we can find that we've got a little bit more time to ourselves and we can sort of take this journey. And the conversations often start about with weight because that's what people are looking for. But once you start to make these changes, you realize that you've got more energy or you sleeping better or you're not bloated anymore. And once people latch onto these things, they suddenly realize they're not bothered about weight anymore because the game changer for anyone who's tired and struggling is more energy, not smaller waste. And once you start when she sort of maybe go on this weight loss journey doesn't even take long. That's the amazing thing. When you change your diet, you can have a benefit that day. You know, it started for me when I had to remember why. But for some reason I used to have a sandwich from my lunch every day and for some reason I didn't have it. I think the shop where I went was closed, so all I could buy was some cottage cheese and some nuts.
[00:38:41.310] – Gabrielle
And every day at work at 03:00, I could not keep my head off the desk. Just was fighting, falling asleep. And this one day I had cottage cheese and nuts for my lunch. I was wide awake all afternoon. And that's how quickly the effect of food can change how you feel. And that's when people start to recognize that they can't believe it. I had a client and her and her husband went, young kids. It was a big change for them to go and make all the food from scratch. And a couple of weeks in they decided to order a takeaway. And the next day they couldn't believe how awful they felt. They didn't have the energy to play with the kids. They just felt really below par and they hadn't put a weight in one night, but they felt awful. And there's things like that that the penny starts to drop and the sort of jigsaw puzzle pieces start to fit together and you say, I know, I don't want to feel like that anymore. I want to feel like this. Because when you feel great, when you've got good energy, when you get in good sleep, your mind gets in a better place and you want to go and live your life and do more things, you've got that capability to go and do things and you wait something that becomes less important to you because you're busy doing other things.
[00:39:50.640] – Allan
Gabrielle I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:39:58.930] – Gabrielle
First one, I think would be and I love that. I love the healthy, I love putting those things together. And I think if you align your health and fitness goals with your happiness goals, then that's the best way to start because they're all related. I think there's far too much focus on health and fitness. There's weight loss tools or all of our calories. The combination of getting fitter, eating better, gives you the energy, gives you the drive, gives you the confidence, then you start to feel happy. You can start to pursue the things that you're interested in. That's a really powerful way of connecting all of those things together. One of the other things that sort of links into that as well actually, is the idea of learning how to eliminate useless thoughts from your mind. And food and eating can take up far too much head space. We think about what we're going to eat next, we feel guilty about eating something else. We're trying to sort of resist a craving that can all add up to thinking about food 24/7. And once you start working on putting food in its rightful place, it's something there to give you energy to make you feel good.
[00:41:07.700] – Gabrielle
It can actually start to free up your mind. And that's quite something when suddenly you're not constantly thinking about food anymore or fighting hunger or cravings. There's an empty space, so you can have a lot more peace in your mind. One of my clients recently was saying, I don't understand it, I just want to clean the house. I've done loads of jobs and I'm just going through everything and sorting everything out. And that's because she didn't think about food. She was suddenly being able to use that attention, free up that space to think about other things. And that's one of the massive benefit of just changing that relationship with food. Gives you more mental, it gives you more capacity, gives you more head space. And my last one is you've got to learn to love and accept yourself as you are. Now, when we're always critical of ourselves, when we're always in a position where we're unhappy with how we look and always trying to change, then we just have this sort of it just puts a cloud over the whole of your life every day. You can be self conscious or you can be hiding your stomach or worrying what people are thinking about you.
[00:42:10.460] – Gabrielle
It just takes a lot of enjoyment, a lot of pleasure out of your life. And it can be quite hard for people to let go of that self hate because they feel if they accept themselves as they are, they're suddenly going to eat everything and go out of control. But really, when you start to be kind to yourself, to think about doing things to yourself that make you feel better, we go back to feel and being guided by how you feel you are actually then start to create more respect for yourself. You get that freedom in your mind and you start to be able to shift your attention onto doing things that you enjoy and becoming happier. So that's how that all links in.
[00:42:48.520] – Allan
Great.
[00:42:49.000] – Allan
Gabrielle, if someone wanted to learn more about you or learn more about the book, Why Women Can't Lose Weight, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:42:57.180] – Gabrielle
Well, the book is available on Amazon, so that's an easy one. If you just put the title into Amazon, you'll find that if you want to find more about me and my online products and my coaching, then I've got a website, which is gabrielleohare.com nice and simple.
[00:43:11.680] – Allan
All right, well, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/575. And I'll be sure to have links there to the book and to your website. Gabrielle, thank you so much for being on 40+ Fitness.
[00:43:23.320] – Gabrielle
Thank you very much for having me. I've really enjoyed this today, Allan
[00:43:35.510] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:43:36.960] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. What a great interview. My goodness. Why women over 40 can't lose weight. I mean, the headline right off the bat is very intriguing, but your discussion was very intriguing as well.
[00:43:48.350] – Allan
Yeah, I wish she had a subtitle of some sort, because it is an attention grabbing headline, but it leaves you in, I think, a negative thought space of, oh, well, yeah, okay. If that were a newspaper article, you'd be like, okay, what do I expect this newspaper article to tell me all the reasons why I'm failing at what I'm trying to do here? And she does that, don't get me wrong. She goes through that and lets you know that okay, that you're not alone. These are happening to women everywhere. There's case studies all the way through this of women. The six reasons she's got case studies of every single one of them, of women she's known or worked with or herself that have struggled with these things, because they're real. They're not imaginary. We're not making these things up in our head. They are real obstacles. They're in your way. The good news is she shifts in the book, which is why I think there should have been some form of subtitle. But that said, she didn't. But in the book, she did shift gears and go towards the way you overcome those objectives, those obstacles.
[00:44:54.470] – Rachel
Obstacles, yeah. Number one, though, self neglect. I mean, that was the biggest shining light, neon, fireworks reason that a lot of us who in our 40s struggle is self neglect. And the word neglect really hurts because no woman wants to neglect anybody, let alone themselves. But that's really a good word because we do prioritize everybody else over us. We've got kids that get on the bus in the morning and take care of in the evenings and dinners to cook and a house to clean, and not to mention our own 40 hours a week job. It is really hard to change that mindset of looking after everybody else and actually try and take a look at what we need to do for our own health and well being.
[00:45:37.640] – Allan
Yeah, but no, neglect is the right word.
[00:45:40.140] – Rachel
It is. As much as it hurts.
[00:45:42.680] – Allan
It's like, okay, the kids want Hot Pockets for dinner, and so you're having Hot Pockets for dinner.
[00:45:48.950] – Rachel
Yeah.
[00:45:49.420] – Allan
That's neglect. You know, that's not serving you. You've made the conscious decision to do it anyway. That's neglect. The definition of the word neglect is doing things to yourself or to anybody without regard to them and what their needs are. That's neglect.
[00:46:05.320] – Rachel
And I've done that. I have absolutely said to my kids, I am not cooking two different meals. And I've gone through that. But the fact of the matter is that I need to eat in a way that benefits my health and well being, and they need to eat in a way that they'll eat something before going to bed at night. So it is difficult, but it is important to look at all those obstacles and then decide how to navigate around them, to put yourself as a priority.
[00:46:32.690] – Allan
Well, even men struggle with some of these things. I mean, when we start talking about self neglect, for me, it was my career. It wasn't the kids, it was the career. And what I needed from a lifestyle to be successful at what I was doing was 16 17 18 hours days. You know, I was on six, seven days a week, 16 18 at one point 20 hours days, six days a week. And then I even came in on Sundays some days, sometimes just to catch up. As much as you think, how would you be behind? There was so much work to do. In fact, when I left and they hired the new guy, he worked for about three months, and then he quit because he said there's just no way he could keep up with that volume. But that was my career. That was my focus. In fact, as a result, I was neglecting everything else. I was neglecting my family, I was neglecting my health, neglecting my fitness, everything. And that's where I was. And it wasn't until I got a priority mindset, the way she phrases it. But it wasn't until I had that priority set my priority, and said, no, I have to be healthy and fit.
[00:47:38.340] – Allan
There's no other answer. And that's what I did.
[00:47:42.130] – Rachel
I think that a lot of women, too, need to get to that point where they make that decision. It was hard for me to make that decision. That, okay, what has to give? What do I need to do? What can I renegotiate with my husband? What can I do for the kids, but then take back some time for myself? How to make that decision, and then get creative about doing it, about finding a solution. And when the kids were young, I would wake them up from school, I would go do my workout, made sure they had breakfast and got on the bus. It's those weird moments of time, or when they were in babies, I would tuck them in bed at night. And then between 8:30 and 09:00, I met another lady in my subdivision for a run around the subdivision. So it's not the best time of the night to be working out, but I took the time when I could. And that's just how life goes. Your schedule changes. Negotiate with your husband for different chores or whatnot, maybe even work with your job to shift hours if you could, or take a working lunch break and go to the gym on your lunch break.
[00:48:44.230] – Rachel
I mean, it's just the point of you got to put yourself first and then figure out how to make that a priority, how to get in your workout, how to get in the good meals and things like that.
[00:48:53.480] – Allan
Yeah. And until you're doing it, you haven't prioritized yourself. So the thought of, well, I want this isn't enough. Your actions are your priority. I'm just going to put that out there. So if you're not doing it, don't say this is your priority. Don't say your health and fitness is your priority because you're not doing it. You do your priority. You do it. You just do. And so with the way you're talking about with kids and family and other obligations is like, you're doing that stuff, why are you doing that? It's because that's your priority. And I get it that there are times when that needs to be your priority. But if you haven't had the conversation with your significant other about the fact that you need a tag team partner, that you join this relationship to be partners, and that you need some help from them to get these things done, then you haven't prioritized yourself. Because I'll ask women, like, how does your husband get his workouts? And, well, he just goes and it's like, well, what does he do for selfcare? It's like, well, he likes to play golf and he'll go fishing.
[00:49:59.940] – Allan
I'm like, okay. So he just goes, yeah, he just goes, okay, priority. And that's only you haven't said anything, and so you can't expect mind reading and just say, so going to set a priority. Your actions have to follow through, or it really wasn't a priority. It was just a nice to have.
[00:50:16.570] – Rachel
Yeah. And it's just a matter of having that conversation with your husband or spouse or friends, your parents, anybody that could give you a hand so that you can keep up with things and take care of yourself.
[00:50:29.710] – Allan
And there are all kinds of strategies that you can take. Eat better, to move more, to do these other things that aren't going to blow you out of the water by adding tons and tons of hours onto your time. And I think that's where a lot of people get lost, is like, well, I don't like doing this. And I'm like, well, guess what? Yeah, I've had people that I don't like batch cooking. I'm like. Okay, then this isn't a priority for you. If eating out is something you have to do every night, or eating Hot Pockets from a microwave is what you have to do, then that's your priority. Your priority is not what you say it is. And so I don't mean that in a bad way, but I just really want you looking at your actions and looking for those disconnects over what you want and what you do. Because that's where the rubber hits the road, and that's where you're going to make changes. Because you aren't going to change until it's a priority. And it isn't a priority until you start doing it. We Talk About how we need motivation and all these Other things, but the gross reality of it is motivation is not something that comes.
[00:51:39.070] – Allan
Motivation is something that you earn. You do the action, you get the reward that Motivates you. There's other things you can do to Put in there coaching, social accountability, things like that, that can help get this all started. You got to do the do first, and then the motivation will build. You wait for the motivation, you're going to still be waiting there a year later?
[00:52:04.820] – Rachel
No. Yeah. Sometimes it's really hard. But I think that if you can really get creative, put your workouts on the calendar, and just be diligent with taking the time that you need to take care of yourself. I mean, it's just it's the mindset. You just need to make yourself just as big of a priority as everybody else in your life.
[00:52:23.390] – Allan
Absolutely. All right. Well, Ras, I'll talk to you next week.
[00:52:27.630] – Rachel
Awesome. Take care, Allan.
[00:52:29.110] – Allan
You Too. Thanks.
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
– Anne Lynch | – Ken McQuade | – Melissa Ball |
– Debbie Ralston | – John Dachauer | – Tim Alexander |
– Eliza Lamb | – Leigh Tanner | |
– Eric More | – Margaret Bakalian |
Thank you!
Less...