Weight Loss

What are the main pains for weight loss? If you're not doing it right, you're likely to be experiencing hunger, energy dips and cravings. Sounds like an uphill battle relying on way too much willpower to sustain for most people. No wonder it's a challenge to stick to a diet! However, hunger and cravings don't need to be the enemy. I've recently heard some clever people reframing these challenges as part of being “your own metabolic detective”, and I think that's a great idea.

So, these diet ‘pains' are actually the clues to reading your own metabolism, that will lead to long-term weight loss and a good relationship with food.

So, What Does Hunger Tell Us?

Hunger is essentially a measure of how satiated (content might be another word) you are with what you have in your belly. How your mix of protein, fibre, carbohydrates, water and fats on your plate sustains you through the day. Some of these are more satisfying than others. Fibre and protein are good at signaling to your body that you have had enough to eat, and generally sustain this feeling for longer.

What About Cravings?

Cravings, however, are related to how satisfied we are with our meals, how tasty they are, how much pleasure is derived from eating them. In this case, it's the fat and carbohydrate component that have the most bearing here. The idea is to mix in just enough of these to make your meals taste great. Your cravings are telling you that you need to think of some ways to add some healthy oils or good low-GI carbohydrates to your meals. Willpower is a limited commodity, so adding in a little bit of what you love, can help keep cravings at bay and make weight loss more enjoyable.

Weight Loss Energy Dips

If you cut back your energy intake too suddenly or you are eating less and exercising more, you may end up feeling tired. The key is to keep your metabolism happy and not put it into starvation mode. This can cause a general slowing down of your body's processes as your body prepares to endure what may seem like some global crisis of food shortage. Another thing to look out for on an exercise more, eat less approach to weight loss is getting enough nutrients. It goes to reason that you need highly nutritious foods to keep up your daily requirement of B vitamins, Magnesium and everything else that keeps your body running smoothly if you are eating less in general. Another alternative is to take a good quality supplement to make sure you are covering all the bases for energy production.

Tips To Stick To Your Diet

Changing it up is a good way to respond to a craving, hunger and energy clue your body is sending you. This may mean eating more some days, exercising more some days, changing what you eat for breakfast to make sure you're sustaining your energy better and generally listening to what your body is telling you. Sounds like a great start to me!

Sticking to your diet and weight loss can be supported by a good detoxification program, metabolic or hormonal treatments and stress reduction. If you are looking at your health and deciding a weight loss program is the priority for you, come have a chat to me about putting these types of supports in place. Book online or call 0402 097 028 to get started today.

 Why is pre-conception care important?

Amazingly, it takes just two cells to build a baby and what most of us don’t realise is that these two cells contain all the energy and nutrition needed for your growing baby for the first 4 weeks of its life. It’s at this point that the foetus, which has been nourished by the egg sack during those first 4 weeks, begins to be fed directly from the blood supply of its mother. So making sure you have the healthiest, most nutrition-packed eggs and sperm makes a lot of sense when you think about this crucial developmental period.

To give you an idea of what happens in these first 4 weeks, take a look at a few of the milestones the foetus hits it this short period:

• At day 7 the embryo attaches to the uterus.
• During the next week, the basic placenta develops.
• By the end of the 3^rd week, the rudimentary digestive system has developed.
• At 22-23 days, the heart begins to beat.
• By the end of the 4^th week, the neural tube has closed. It is an abnormality here which leads to spina bifida and related conditions. Fortunately, adequate nutrition in the pre-conception period has been found to reduce the occurrence of this condition.

So, how long should we allow for a pre-conception program?

This question may be influenced by factors related to your unique situation, but in most situations, we would allow 3-6 months for preparing your body for conception. Why so long? Well, sperm need at least 86 days to mature and eggs mature over a period of 90 days before ovulation. Thus, this is the length of time we have to influence the quality of your genetic blueprint and see the difference in terms of healthy lifestyles on the sperm and egg. Sometimes, a program for improving your diet, lifestyle, and supporting egg and sperm quality will happen alongside actively trying to conceive, but in the ideal scenario, this would happen some months earlier.

It’s not just all about the ladies…

It makes total sense that healthy men pass on the best genetic material to their babies. Having a nutritionally replete diet means better stats in terms of conceiving, placenta development and having a healthy baby. There are even studies that show a link to reduced risk of cancer and diabetes genes with proper pre-conception care! The basics are the same for both partners – lots of fruit and vegies, limiting saturated fats, topping up on fish, exercising, sleeping well, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding toxins (such as chemicals, drugs, and alcohol) and taking a good quality pre-conception multivitamin designed especially for men. In addition, because sperm is sensitive to heat, wearing loose clothing and avoiding saunas and hot tubs in the pre-conception period is a good idea. Small studies suggest carrying a mobile phone in your pants pockets can influence sperm health too. For this reason, we suggest storing your phone away from your body as much as possible.

Maximum nutrition for making babies

It makes sense to eat foods with the highest nutritional benefit, as these foods give you the most bang for your calorie. Weight maintenance is important in preparation for conception and eating high-quality foods is a great way to ensure you are maintaining a healthy diet.

What are the best foods to eat for fertility?

1. Fish is an excellent source of clean protein and 3-5 serves a week gives you a rich source of omega 3 fatty acids. Eat larger fish such as tuna, swordfish and shark only occasionally (maximum of once every 2-3 weeks) to avoid potential mercury contamination. For convenience tinned sardines can be a good choice and also provides you with a source of calcium. Wild salmon is also an excellent choice. Check out my blog on the humble sardine here, for some ideas on including them in meals.
2. Fresh seasonal bio-dynamic/ organic fruits & vegies where accessible and affordable, increase your access to essential vitamins and minerals and reduce the toxic load on your body.
3. Lean organic meats, organic eggs and organic dairy. Animal products are more likely to have pesticide residues stored in fats, so it is particularly important to choose organic where possible. The lean products also help you minimise saturated fats and support your fertility.
4. Good fats and oil such as those found in seeds and nuts, flaxseed oil and avocados provide vegetarian sources of omega 3 oils.

The basics of nutrition for making healthy babies is the same as being healthy yourself. In fact, couples embarking on a pre-conception program often find they feel the best they have ever felt, full of energy and vitality, well rested and exercised with their eye on providing the best start they possibly can for themselves and their baby.

Being at a healthy weight helps reduce your risk of chronic illness, helps you maintain an active lifestyle and seems to be recommended by all health experts. Right? So, why is it that dieting is so often linked to yo-yo successes? Sometimes quickly gaining weight and then gaining some more? Research is coming out now saying that the standard recommendation to lose weight by eating less and exercising more, could actually be damaging to our ability to maintain a healthy weight long term.

Starving Yourself is Not the Answer

It sounds great to quickly achieve the healthy weight you dreamed of, and the drastic weight loss attained by the contestants on controversial reality tv show, The Biggest Loser, is an example of the results that can be achieved through this type of eat less, exercise more diet and exercise regime. However, research published in The New York Times, suggests that the US contestants who lose weight in this way are up against some major metabolic hurdles to maintain their ideal weight. In fact, the question could be posed, does this type of weight loss regime result in permanent injury to your ability to maintain weight?

It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes.

Read more about the experience of The Biggest Loser contestants here: After ‘The Biggest Loser’, Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight – The New York Times

Healing the Metabolic Thermostat for Weight Loss

No doubt you've heard experts talk about the metabolism as being like a thermostat? It strives to become more efficient in the face of scarcity, which in an eat less, exercise more environment, is exactly what your thermostat is sensing. The trouble seems to be that your thermostat resets to maintain your body functions on less food. Approaching weight loss with an eat less, exercise more approach, which is the most common regime followed, resulted in their contestants finishing The Biggest Loser program with a resting metabolism of between 250-800 calories (1,050-3,350 kilojoules) less, than a person of the same size who has not dieted in this way. It's not all about willpower keeping weight off, there are powerful metabolic compensations making regaining weight almost certain to occur.

The answer? The old approach isn't working, let's try something new.

Health at Every Size

Adopting behaviours that support health, regardless of size is in the best interests of everyone. The truth is, people of size are stigmatised for being ‘unhealthy', when weight alone has little to do with health. Health has more to do with:

1. Regular movement and exercise.
2. Getting 5 serves of vegies and 2 serves of fruit each day.
3. Quitting smoking if you smoke.
4. Drinking alcohol in moderation.

Science doesn't support the commonly held idea that normal weight is the only healthy size to be either. A 2013 Systematic Review and Meta-analysis found

Relative to normal weight [BMI of >18.5-25]… Grade 1 obesity [BMI of >30-35] overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight [BMI of >25-30] was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality.

Curated from Association of All-Cause Mortality With Overweight and Obesity Using Standard Body Mass Index Categories

So let's shake the status quo. Stigma about weight harms everyone. People in larger bodies experience discrimination and shame, while people of normal and underweight are afraid of gaining weight, which contributes to the prevalence and harm of eating disorders in people of all sizes. Being comfortable with your weight, regardless of size is important for our overall health.

Greater satisfaction with one’s weight was associated with positive health behaviors and health outcomes in both men and women and across weight status groups.

Curated from Adults with Greater Weight Satisfaction Report More Positive Health Behaviors and Have Better Health Status Regardless of BMI

Seeking good medical care, being active, eating nutritious food, avoiding weight cycling and shielding yourself from weight stigma we now know is what contributes to ideal health. Much more than size.

You might have noticed the lovely article I recently shared on my Facebook page highlighting the benefits of probiotics. Probiotics are a tool that are hugely helpful in the world of natural medicine for a multitude of ailments, and the emerging list of benefits of probiotics is in no way limited to the important benefits listed in the article:

1. Healing your gut
2. A healthy metabolism
3. Being able to absorb nutrients from your diet
4. Brain and mood function
5. Convenient topping up of good bacteria in therapeutic doses
6. Reducing the risk of sinus inflammation
7. Protecting your gums and teeth from disease. Read more about that in my article on Keeping Your Mouth Healthy.
8. Clearer skin
9. Fewer sick days
10. Probiotics are proven to provide these benefits

The gut is lined with hundreds of trillions of microorganisms that make up your intestinal flora. Throughout the course of a day (and certainly a lifetime) those bacteria change, grow, and deplete based on a host of outside factors like diet, lifestyle and environment. The one constant you can provide for your gut? Taking a probiotic.

Read more about the benefits of probiotics in the full article here: 10 Reasons You Need a Probiotic in Your Life

While I do take a probiotic on most days, and in certain cases would take more than one a day, as required, there is an honest imperative to look after this investment. If you planted a seed and didn't water it, give it some plant food and avoid putting poisons on it, would you expect it to grow? Well, the same can be said for probiotics. These little bacteria will do all the wonderful things described above if they are nurtured and encouraged to thrive in our digestive system.

How do you make sure your probiotics thrive?

I don't know about you, but leaving your healthy earth worm farm with a person who lives on chips and maccas, is a sure fire way to return to find all your worms starving to death! No, vegie scraps in that household! Well, in this scenario, your gut is the healthy earth worm farm, you just have to decide what sort of caretaker you are. The best, most caring thing you can do for your probiotics once you have taken them is to:

Get to know your prebiotic and colonic foods

These feed your good bacteria and ensure they multiply and live a good life. Your probiotics like variety, so feel free to eat your way through the list! Some to get to know include:

1. Garlic, onions, Jerusalem artichokes and chicory root. Care should be taken here if you are fructose intolerant, as these are also high in fructose.
2. Oats
3. Legumes
4. Beetroot
5. Slippery elm
6. Guar gum
7. Pectin
8. Psyllium husk

Protect your investment, eat your vegies and feed them well and you are one step closer to all the benefits above, and more bestowed by a healthy digestive ecology.

Can People Really Change?

All of us come into contact with people whose lives and families have been torn apart by bad habits: people addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs; over-spenders, overeaters, and chronic worriers; negative thinkers, procrastinators, and people who won’t forgive themselves for something that happened long ago.

Bad habits can keep ordinary people from living happier and healthier lives. Everywhere you look, people want to know why they are unhappy. And they want to know what they can do about it. My personal addiction is sugar. I consider myself a recovering sugar junkie.

The talk shows offer a constant menu of miracle cures for every type of bad habit imaginable—everything from quick weight-loss programs to 20-minute lessons in positive thinking that promise to cure depression. We are constantly bombarded by programs that promise effortless and immediate results: Lose weight fast, while eating as much as you want! Guaranteed to work! Sure.

We are overwhelmed with solutions today. And the more solutions there are, the harder it is to find one that works. Many people have failed so many times that they’ve almost given up the battle. Others gave up a long time ago.

Establishing new priorities

Is it possible to free yourself from bad habits? Can people really change in any meaningful and lost-lasting way? Can I change myself? The answer to each of these questions is “yes.” But you can’t change in 24 hours, as some programs and self-help books promise. My own experience and common sense, tell me that anyone can change, but you need a compelling reason to change.

Alice:                             Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cheshire Cat:       That depends a good deal on where you want to go.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Learning how to free yourself from bad habits starts with the realization that the situation can't stay the same and that you have the power to make a major difference in your life. The moment I grasp that simple fact, I’m ready to step into the process of self-change that will lead to freedom from the habits that keep me from living a more satisfying life. And when I’m free from my bad habits, the people around me will be free from the person I used to be.

All people can bring about superficial changes in themselves. But freeing yourself from a self-destructive habit like smoking or overeating requires a deep, long-lasting change. A bad habit is like an iceberg. You can’t beat the habit if you approach it as if it were only as large as what you can see on the surface.

Franz Kafka said, “a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Any book or program that aims to help people break bad habits must reveal the whole iceberg that lies below the surface. Realising the effect sugar had on my anxiety levels, my energy and my ability to eat a balanced healthy diet, to keep myself well, revealed the iceberg of denial I had been living with.

You can’t eliminate the whole thing in one day, but if you take a step-by-step approach, you can eliminate the bad habit sooner than you thought possible. It is going to take effort on your part. You can’t eat whatever you want and lose weight, no matter how many times you hear it on the talk shows. But you can lose weight, and you can learn to enjoy healthy foods more than the unhealthy foods you’re eating now. Whatever your addiction, finding something worthwhile to replace it with, is a good first step to crowd your habit out of your life. In the case of sugar addiction, I found new, healthier treats to enjoy before refined sugar was banished from my taste buds.

Overeaters, smokers, and chronic procrastinators have a lot in common. We all go to great lengths to hide the truth from ourselves about the destructive nature of our bad habits; too often, lives and families are destroyed before we become aware of the verbal cages that keep us trapped in self-destructive behavior.

Does professional therapy work? Can it help people break bad habits before the habit destroys their lives? The dropout rate is astonishing: 45% of clients who seek a professional therapist drop out of therapy after two or three sessions. Committing to the process is essential to success.

Do programs help? Millions of smokers have quit forever without following a treatment program. On the other hand, many people who try a smoking-cessation program are not able to quit, no matter how many different programs they try.

Some research suggests that for every person who quits smoking by following a treatment program, there are almost twenty people who quit on their own.

What conclusion should we draw from all of this? It’s pretty clear, I think. You have a better chance of freeing yourself from a bad habit by becoming your own coach, by taking responsibility for your own program. Millions of people have succeeded in breaking a bad habit, and so can you.

Going on a ‘detox' is something we often hear from friends and acquaintances keen to kick off the New Year with a clean bill of health. Perhaps inspired by a few too many hangovers during the party season or feeling sluggish after the Christmas feasting, there is a sense of turning over a new leaf and committing to a cleaner lifestyle at this time of year in particular. And what better time to start? The weather is warming up in Melbourne so lighter eating and fresh foods are on the menu anyway!

So what are we really talking about when we say ‘detox'? Well, in essence, this is a way to support the healing and elimination systems of the body. It is gentle – unlike anything medieval you may have been imagining, it doesn't involve powerful purgatives or attacking your gall bladder with lemon juice and olive oil concoctions. Your body is comprised of a multitude of organs and processes designed to guide harmful substances out and maintain health and vitality. A program to support this process, simply helps the body do what it does best – detox!

One of the best things you can do for your body is to get enough sleep. Sleeping early while on a detox regime is particularly important. Specifically, this is because many of your natural detoxification processes occur while you are asleep. Without enough sleep, these processes can be short changed and you will feel, sluggish and under par. The inability to shake extra kilos can also be linked to poor sleep habits. So, detoxing your sleep routine is an essential part of the process.

Your liver is one of the primary organs of detoxification and its function can be compromised by loading up on foods with flavour enhancers, alcohol, caffeine, panadol or even necessary prescription medications. Many people see a detox as a once a year spring clean, but in essence, a detox where you focus on eating, at least five servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day, good quality proteins, essential fatty acids from nuts, seeds and fish, Supplement with probiotics (yoghurt, kefir, etc.) to improve digestive function is, is an excellent way to maintain your health any time of year.

If willpower only gets you so far, what happens to the rest of our well meaning intentions and well planned diets? Unfortunately, for most of us this leads to disappointment, harsh self reprimands and secretly, a little inner loathing.

Most of us do better with encouragement and coaching, someone to be accountable to and to check in with us regularly. This helps us reach our goals and feel good about meeting our own expectations. This is why I schedule check-ins with my clients regularly. Small steps are great for getting started as regularity is the key to changing habits and behaviour long term.

NLP goes that step further by tapping into your subconscious associations to link your desired outcomes to positive thoughts and memories that are already strongly anchored in your mind. This by-passes the poo-pooers that live alongside your cheer squad in your internal dialogue, which makes it easier to cruise past subconscious or even conscious objections to achieving your goals and dreams, whether these are simple things like eating more veggies to taking over the world.

This month Make Changes is hosting a ‘Highway to SUCCESS!!’ weekend workshop so you can experience the powerful benefits of using hypnotherapy and NLP to achieve your goals. Better yet, Wendy Gadsby is offering us a special booking discount – if you bring 2 friends your ticket for the weekend is half price and if you can bring 3 friends your weekend ticket is free! Check Wendy's Highway to SUCCESS!! – Personal Development Workshop for more information.