Struggling to lose a few pounds?
An excerpt from “Eat Like a Horse – a Holistic Nutrition Subscription Program” www.EatLikeaHorse.net
Welcome to Week 24 of the Eat Like a Horse Holistic Nutrition Subscription Program! This week’s topic is Weight Loss!
It’s hard to believe that I waited until the program was nearly over to talk about weight loss seeing as so many people become interested in nutrition due to a desire to lose weight. The good news is that the information you have been learning throughout the course can help you to accomplish your weight loss goals. But I want to delve further into weight loss here and talk about what I consider to be some pretty toxic weight loss programs/diets, then about healthy ways to lose weight, and finally about the elephant in the room (no pun intended)… weight loss resistance!
Since the majority of people in this country are overweight or obese, it is important to discuss the reasons why people want to lose weight. There are really only a few reasons why most people decide it’s time to drop some pounds: they don’t like how they look, they don’t like how they feel, or they are worried about their health. No matter what someone’s reason is for wanting to lose weight, I applaud them for getting to that place and I want to provide support so that not only will they be able to lose the weight and get healthy, but they will be able to maintain their results.
Diets and Finances – There’s a Connection
Let me just say that I HATE DIETS! I liken diets to this: Imagine you have built up $30,000 in credit card debt over the past 5-10 years. (Let’s say that’s like 20-40 lbs.) A financial diet would be a program to help you to pay off those credit cards and get out of debt. Now there are healthy ways and unhealthy ways to get out of debt. Healthy ways would be to create and stick to a budget, manage spending, consolidate, and generate additional income (through a part time job or something). An unhealthy way to address this kind of debt would be to prostitute yourself to make extra money, rent out your house and move into your car, or to sell your organs for cash. Now while all of these could be effective, there are strategies that will help you to reach your goal and maintain your results without making you miserable. A “diet” would be like working your tail off to pay off all that debt and once you did it, go back to the bad spending habits that got you in that mess in the first place. “Diets” are temporary… think “Lifestyle”!
Not all diets are created equal. Just like sticking to a budget and prostitution are both ways to better your financial situation, one is clearly healthier than the other. Diets I hate include: The Atkins Diet, Severely Restricted Calorie Diets (AKA starvation), and any diet that includes microwavable, processed foods. I’ll stop with those three but there are many others. And there are some healthier diets for sure. No matter what the “diet” plan is, while you are on the diet, you should be taking steps to eliminate the factors that led to your weight gain by cleaning out your cabinets, learning to cook healthy foods, and finding restaurants that offer healthy meals and sides – to name a few.
What does your diet include?
There’s a time and a place for a diet. When you are ready to make that permanent lifestyle change, a healthy weight loss program can accelerate matters and help you to get to your goal weight faster. Let me emphasize that during the weight loss program, it is imperative that you create new lifestyle habits, systems, and strategies in order to maintain the results. So when should you “diet”? When you are ready to make a change and you want to give your body a good jump-start.
Let me back up a minute and talk about why I hate the 3 types of diets I listed above:
1) The Atkins Diet – I hate this one because it leads to ketoacidosis, a metabolic condition where your body becomes acidic. This is a problem because an acidic body is prone to inflammation, disease, and weakened immunity. Secondly, constipation is common in this diet and when you are constipated your colon is marinating in, and reabsorbing toxins that your body is trying to get rid of. Yuck!
2) Severe Calorie Restriction Diets – When you start to restrict your calories to a point where you put your body into starvation mode bad things happen. When your body is starved for calories, it may also be starving for those nutrients that the calories should be bringing along with them. Additionally, in a very low calorie diet, your body thinks there is a famine going on and therefore will conserve calories by packing them away as fat while it slows down your metabolism to burn calories more slowly. These diets work short-term and often lead to a rebound effect because you have messed with your biology. Lose 50 lbs., gain back 70. Not a good deal.
3) Microwavable/Processed Food Diets – First of all, nothing that goes into your microwave should go into your mouth. Secondly, go back and read the lessons about processed foods. Those “healthy” meals may contain fewer calories but fettuccini alfredo is still white pasta in a box with synthetic sauce that has been microwaved. This is NOT health food! Many of the programs that promote/recommend frozen/pre-packaged meals are focused on calories and not on nutrients (see #2 above).
Healthy ways to lose weighthave actually been discussed throughout this program. Once again I would like to quote Michael Pollan “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Throw in the elimination of refined sugars, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, white rice, and soda and you’re off to a good start. Many people have lost weight simply by switching their usual beverage (including diet soda) to water. Some other tips include:
Are you weight loss resistant?
- Pack food and take it with you – it’s hard to eat healthy on the road.
- Use smaller plates and forks.
- The no-reload rule – you cannot put any more food on your fork until you have thoroughly chewed and swallowed the preceding bite.
- Eat Nature’s Rainbow.
- Drink Water.
- Get more exercise.
- Set positive affirmations: “I am a healthy, strong, and energetic ____ lbs.” (goal weight)
- Love yourself! Louise Hay would tell you to look in the mirror and tell yourself “(first name), I love and accept you exactly the way you are.”
- Get help! Do a weight loss program with a family member or friends. Consider working with a coach to be sure that you can achieve your lifestyle goals during your weight loss program.
So you’ve tried everything I’ve talked about and you still can’t lose weight or you always get stuck at a certain point… that’s weight loss resistance. Let’s talk about the 5 Causes of Weight Loss Resistance:
- Toxicity – one of the things your body does to protect yourself from toxins (from your food, water, or environment) is to surround those toxins with fat when you are unsuccessful at breaking them down and excreting them. Your body will not burn those fat cells until those toxins are broken down. This is especially common in women because our bodies carry the developing fetuses and nature doesn’t want to expose them to toxins. The solution… enzymes! High-quality supplemental enzymes break down the toxins so your body doesn’t need to protect you from them anymore and those fat cells can be burned.
- Adrenal Fatigue – see the previous lesson on Adrenal Fatigue – too much stress or even too much coffee can lead to this. A proper nutritional program can help to bring those adrenal glands back into balance.
- Hormone Imbalance – not just the whacky ol’ menopause hormones; thyroid hormones and other hormones (they’re all very connected) can wreak havoc on your waistline. There are strategies to naturally bring these hormones back into balance.
- Yeast Overload – These little critters are screaming “more sugar, more sugar, more sugar!” which is not conducive to weight killing off these little buggers and getting your digestive microorganisms back into balance is a good place to start.
- Calorie Excess – While I’m not a fan of severe calorie restriction diets, I’m not a fan of calories excesses either. And if you think having a salad means you’re having less calories – you may be a little off track sometimes. The Applebees Oriental Chicken Salad has 1380 calories and the dressing is made with chicken fat and sugar. That’s more calories than I eat in a day!
That’s a little information on weight loss but here’s a little more. I am part of a team of experts who have gotten behind a specific weight loss program and created a comprehensive online support package for clients who want to participate in this program. What I love about this program is that it addresses the 5 areas of weight loss resistance I mentioned above while teaching you how to make the lifestyle changes necessary to maintain success. Are the program and the website enough to help you to accomplish your goals? I believe so. However, I am offering a FREE 1-Hour Nutrition Consultation to anyone who purchases the program through my website. This is above and beyond the value of the program. The coaching session and online support are valued at over $300 – that’s more than the program itself.
If you’re interested, here’s a link: http://tinyurl.com/NUslique
Just a couple more lessons left in the program. I hope you are enjoying the content and learning a lot!
Have a healthy week!
-Patti
