by Kim Miller | Feb 19, 2014 | Uncategorized
People often ask me what a health coach does. Usually I give them the text book version. I help people implement strategies to enable them to achieve more than what one could achieve on their own. Today I thought it would be more interesting to show my readers what a typical conversation in health coaching may look like. If you read the conversation below you’ll see that it is a first meeting with a client’s husband who is interested in improving his life, by improving his tennis game. As you will see, the conversation opens up some interesting insight into exactly why Paul is failing at his tennis game.
The goal in the following dialogue is to assess where Paul is at regarding the stages of change and what he actually would like to change. It’s also designed to assess gaps in information regarding his health that he may not be aware of. The questions are open ended to give the most latitude to the person being interviewed. Open-ended questions allow the person being interviewed to speak more freely creating a relaxed atmosphere that is conducive to finding out where, and if, there is a starting point for change.
“Hi Paul, it’s nice to meet you. I am enjoying training and coaching your wife. She tells me you are a tennis player?”
“Yes. Yes, I play a little. At one time, I thought I was pretty good. But lately, not so much so, however I still enjoy the game.”
“Yes, I enjoy tennis a lot as well and play some myself.”
“Well.” said Paul, “It’s a little complicated. My wife is concerned to a degree that my energy level has been low lately. And it has been. My guess is that it that I am just getting older that causes my lethargy.”
“My weight is a little up, but frankly that does not bother me. I think I look pretty good anyways. My doctor says my blood sugar is up somewhat, but advises that we will wait and see what it is next time and to watch the sugar intake in the meantime. Nothing serious. The same with my blood pressure. A tad high but not alarming.
“I guess the reason why I am really here is that I am lethargic a good part of the day. My energy seems low and my tennis is failing because of my decreased energy. I don’t feel old but I wonder if something could be done to help me play better tennis and increase my energy during the day?”
“How great!”, I said, “Increasing energy levels is one of my favorite things to help people with! Everyone thinks I specialize in helping people lose weight and get fit, but really all I want to do is help people feel their “old self again”
“Sometimes,” I said, “feeling better is about losing weight and sometimes it has nothing to do with losing weight. It often has more to do with movement patterns and implementing just a few better eating habits. Everyone is different.”
“What do you think is causing you to lack energy and not play tennis as well as in days gone past?
“Well. I am not certain,” Paul replied. “My job is stressful and sometimes I don’t even want to play tennis because I can’t compete at the level I did before. Guys I used to beat handily are beating me now. I don’t mind losing but it just seems they are not playing any better, but I am slower or something.”
“Yes, slower is seldom a winning strategy on the tennis courts. It is especially tough when you believe your slowing up is not due to aging but rather, as you say, due to lack of energy. However, energy level can be improved. We can get to specifics later on this aspect of tennis.
“You mentioned that your doctor said your blood sugar and blood pressure are both up. Are you aware that there is a corresponding lack of energy that tends to take place when blood sugars and blood pressure are up?
“Really? I did not realize that”.
“Yes! It sounds contradictory, but that your blood pressure and blood sugars are up, in a way, is actually good news. It makes my job a little easier. If you came to me after a great physical with your health numbers and weight perfect then I would have little to work with. Your lack of energy and deteriorating tennis game would be a mystery to solve. Your situation seems to call for a straightforward fix. Fix the blood pressure and the blood sugars watch your energy soar. How does that sound?”
“It sounds great! What do I need to do?”
“Well here are a few questions I am wondering about. They are kind of cut and dry but they will help me to move you forward more quickly if that is what you choose to do of course. And if not, that’s ok too. Would it be ok for me to ask you a few questions regarding your desire to change?”
“Sure that’s fine.”
“On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highly motivated, how motivated are you to increase your energy levels?
“Well from the little I know now, reducing my blood pressure blood sugars seem doable. Unless you are going to have me running five hours a
day or something like that? What do you think I need to do to decrease these number and how long would it take?
“Those are good questions. It makes sense to know what you are getting into before you decide on how motivated you can be.
“My experience says to give us three months of weekly coaching conversations on lifestyle changes and exercise habits. The weekly conversations will help you determine what changes, changes that you will want to maintain, such as eating more vegetables, will move you towards a better tennis game and health numbers.
“Weekly, we’ll progress your exercise habits taking small incremental exercise steps that will pay off over the 12 weeks. It is finding out what you are doing now exercise-and-eating-wise then tweaking it towards your ultimate goal of more energy. It is an interesting and intriguing process because unlike a personal trainer who tells you exactly what to do, you set the stage for improvements and exercise with a little help of me at our discussions. You will be the captain of this team because that is the way that change is best made. You do not have to be concerned that you will have a will of steel to do this. You will do just fine. I am certain.
“Ok, so do you have a number between 1 to 10, regarding your on the level of motivation to make changes for increased energy?”
“I feel like a 9 or a 10 now.
“Great. I want you to feel like that. In my mind, how we feel is what it is all about- so bring on the tennis boys and give us 3 months for a better game too.
“I am curious though, why a 10 and not a 5 or 6?”
“Well, what you are saying makes sense. I would have never thought that the levels of my blood pressure and blood sugars were hurting my tennis game and causing me to feel lethargic. I thought it was just me getting older. And I have to confess, I did not tell you, but my doctor said I should lose weight and get on a diet. Right now, with your help, I feel I can do that too. They must be all connected, right?”
“Yes absolutely, we can view it that way. Personally, I dislike the word diet. I am glad you came to me more focused on improving your tennis game as opposed to losing weight. When we focus on what really matters in our life the good stuff begins to happen. This is how I see us structuring our time together. Let us not focus on weight, although the weight will come off, and yes, you guessed right, the blood pressure and blood sugar will then come down and because of that, your energy skyrockets and your guy tennis-playing friends get slaughtered! It’s my answer to all the people out there who are just focused on a number on their bathroom scale. I like your thinking. It is the right approach. Oh and by the way, I think this will really be a positive force in you and your wife helping each other to be the best you can be. What do you think?
“I think you are right. Pamela and I enjoy each other’s company. We do a lot together but we never really have been able to exercise and eat better together. I am wondering if that couples coaching would work for us?
Although the above conversation is not exact, it is typical of how I begin to help people explore the possibilities of becoming even more happy, healthy, lean and fit!
by Kim Miller | Jan 19, 2014 | Uncategorized
Exercise is about who you are. Take it up a notch this year by training for a lifetime and participating in a sport/activity that reflects your unique personality.
Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope you enjoy this article. It was a fun one to write and I hope you benefit from it. Let this new year be a fun filled year for you, as you strive to make improvements in your own health and happiness. All my best.
Thanks for reading. It makes all the difference.
As a junior in high school I wrote a paper on the psychology of the female athlete. As an aspiring athlete I knew how important physical training was in preparing for any athletic event. What I did not know was how important the psyche is in training the whole person to perform at peak performance. Today, good coaches emphasize the psychology of sports in training their athletes.
“Just Do It” Is Outdated
Whether you are training for better fitness, weight loss, improved health numbers, to look and
feel better, or for an athletic event, taking cues from top sports psychologists/coaches can help you reach your goals. The day of the “just-do-it” fitness guru is outdated. Smart fitness coaches know that enjoyment and fun is a more sustainable option than the “grit-it-out” without complaints mentality. For those of us in athletics, there are some things we must simply gut out, but unlike people who are endeavoring to obtain health and fitness for a lifetime, gutting-it-out is not the smart way to train.
Today’s savvy fitness professionals, by turning to the psychology department, are doing well in converting wanna-be-fit-and-healthy people and sport amateurs, into lifelong recruits. This perspective is in stark contrast to days gone by where coaches prescribed fitness regimens based on current physical abilities with little regard for the nuances of personality traits or individual likes and dislikes. Grant Leitma Ph. D. in his article “What is the Right Exercise for your Personality” writes, “One of the reasons many people fail to maintain an exercise regime—or even get started with one—is the failure to match their personality with an exercise pattern they will enjoy. If you are having trouble with the whole idea of exercising, it may be because you have not found the right match between your personality type and your exercise type.”
What Kind of Personality Do You Have?
Consideration of personality traits, as well as likes and dislikes, can shape a more sustainable healthy life style. The best strategy is to have a mindset that exercise, like fashion, must be ‘tried on’. Not all exercises, similar to fashions, are going to be one size fits all. Understanding this in a practical sense is where many want-to-be fitness people fail. This is not to say, however that we never change our routines/environments or activities, but it is to say that being cognizant of sustainability, likability, and the fun aspects of training is a hugely important aspect in being committed to a healthy body.
Discover the Nuances of Your Life!
Staying in the game of fitness is about awareness and knowing oneself while recognizing how we may be changing in interests and motivations as life cycles evolve. What once was appealing may lose its appeal as one journeys through life. Accepting this is an important aspect of a lifetime of staying lean, strong, happy, and fit. Months ago, a savvy recently retired traveling business gentleman consulted with me to brainstorm why, upon retirement he lost motivation to work-out. He was mystified explaining that he was avidly anticipating retirement so he could “play” a good part of his day. For years he would rise early and train at the hotel’s gym. He enjoyed it, explaining that for him doing the elliptical trainer for 25 minutes daily, 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, and 10 minutes of stretching gave him energy and kept his work day focused. “I really enjoyed doing this routine,” he said, “waking up and starting the day with exercise. Now, I just seemed to have lost all desire to move like this again. And ironically I have all the time in the world now.” Fortunately, through a few conversations he came to understand that people change. Motivations change. Personal engagements with various activities change. With this realization, boom – the lights went off! And we preceded to find several activities that he found to be fun and matched his new retired lifestyle.
Where to Start
Taking cues from our childhood is one of the best ways to begin the process of finding activity we connect with. What was your style of play as a child? Were you the jock who loved team sports? If so. joining an adult sport league may keep you motivated to move more. Undoubtedly, some sports, such as football, are unsuitable for lifetime fitness. Often, however, the culture of camaraderie and competitive play keeps many personality types healthy and active for a lifetime rather than the actual sport. For these people, finding another transitional sport such as tennis, handball, Frisbee, volleyball, or tandem biking that offers teamwork, camaraderie and an element of competitiveness can make the difference between growing older prematurely and growing older with vitality.
Not all people are drawn to team sports and competition. For some people a challenging solo activity is “fun” to them. Yoga, distance biking, weight training, running, and biking are examples. All these activities can be fun with or without groups depending on your personality type. It is important to note if you consider yourself extroverted or introverted. Typically, people have a mix of both personality types so experimenting with these activities both in group or solo form, as well as competitively or non competitively, is an important aspect to consider before deciding whether a new activity will be fun and sustainable.
What’s Right For You Is The Question.
Many other variables contribute to finding the right activity for you. What is fun or enjoyable for one person may cause another to quit on day one. Personality variables such as achievement needs, stress management, self esteem, desire for life meaning, general mood and tension, and playfulness of the person can all contribute to sustainability of an activity and in turn make or break the direction one takes in being fit, lean, healthy, and happy! Experimenting with various types of activities or sports, while considering your individual personality is vital for sustaining health and happiness throughout our lives. Best advice: Keep an upbeat perspective as you find the perfect activity. There is no hurry – fitness and vitality is for a lifetime. To get you jump-started this New Year; follow these 10 Guidelines for a healthy, happy, and successful 2014!
Gotta Do Guidelines
1. Accept the perspective that fitness should be fun and enjoyable.
2. Seek a sport or activity that offers you fun and enjoyment
3. Be active. It makes your outlook on life better.
4. Play daily while you pursue your unique activities.
5. Influence others positively including loved ones by engaging in healthy living activities.
6. Partner with a friend, coach/ trainer, or solo if you are so inclined.
7. Be consistent and persistent in your pursuit of finding the right activities for you.
8. Get started. You will be physically, mentally, and emotionally better next year than you are today.
9. Enjoy the process of seeking an activity that suits your unique personality characteristics.
10. Celebrate this time next year knowing you are better today than you were in 2013.
This year is for you! Rely on your own unique personality traits/lifestyle and never feel compelled to follow someone else’s training and fitness style. Follow these guidelines and know that finding your fitness style and enjoying exercise will have you looking good and feeling great!
by IcennaEmach | Jul 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
In my 12 years as a personal trainer and health coach, it is clear that those who lose the most weight and keep it off, those who stay trim, lean, active, and passionately enjoy life, are the ones who have learned to change behaviors.
Dr BJ Fong, a professor at Stanford University has done some fascinating work in the field of behavior. Dr Fogg states that three elements, Motivation, Ability, and Trigger, must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur. When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing
Dr Fogg’s list of the Top Ten Mistakes in Behavior Change will give more insight about our behavior. (Bodysmart comments are in italics.) for further information on Dr. Fong go to http://www.bjfogg.com/
1. Relying on willpower for long-term change
Imagine willpower does not exist. That’s step 1 to a brighter future.
When we see someone who is trim and lean, we tend to think s/he is naturally thin or must have a lot of willpower. Not so. A healthy life results from healthy habits not from continuously exercising iron willpower. Willpower — such as it is — is great for short-term emergencies but it is quickly exhausted. Better to flee temptation than try to resist it. If you do not have that wonderfully rich desert in your refrigerator you will not need willpower to not eat it! (You will also be removing a trigger for an unwanted behavior.
2. Attempting big leaps instead of baby steps
Seek tiny successes — one after another.
Success breeds success. Repetitive successes will reinforce the new behavior. Small modest goals are easier to accomplish than are ambitious large goals. Goals that are easy to accomplish require less motivation. So now that you no longer have that wonderfully rich desert in the refrigerator have a small bowl of berries or a piece of melon instead.
3. Ignoring how often environment shapes behaviors
Change your context & you change your life.
Try a “one-day experiment.” Commit to only one simple change only one day a week. On Mondays, for example, instead of going to one of your convenient fast food restaurants for a cheeseburger bring a small peanut butter sandwich and an apple from home. Walk, or drive, to the nearby park to eat the sandwich and apple. If you had to drive to the park, take a 15-minute walk in the park.
If you feel like trying two lunch-in-the-park days per week, then do so. Add more days in the park when you feel ready. The objective is to get some momentum going only progressing further as you feel comfortable.
Alternatively, instead of relaxing after your evening meal watching TV and nibbling on popcorn or a little candy take a 15-minute walk. When you return home, do not turn on TV. Pick up a book or magazine and forgo the snacking. Add more days a week to the no snacking and no TV as you feel comfortable doing so.
4. Trying to stop old behaviors instead of creating new ones
Focus on action, not avoidance.
Just as you will steer a car or throw a ball wherever it is you are looking, you will tend to do whatever it is you are focused on — even if you are focused on it because you are trying to avoid it. Find something positive to focus on and do that instead. It is a lot easier to replace a bad habit than it is to break it.
5. Blaming failures on lack of motivation
Solution: Make the behavior easier to do.
Remember, the easier it is for you to do the behavior the less you have to be motivated. If, for example, you are having difficulty in getting an exercise routine started then make it easy to do. Just commit to a single 5-minute workout. Climb on a machine or go for a walk, pick any activity of your choice, but commit only to 5-minutes.
If you end up doing more than 5 minutes – great, but the goal is just to accomplish the 5-minutes. Once you see how easy it is to do the single, one time, 5-minute workout it, add a second one a few days later. Keep adding more days as you find comfortable until you are exercising daily. In a similar manner, you can gradually increase the time you spend exercising each day and soon you will into a real training program.
6. Underestimating the power of triggers
No behavior happens without a trigger.
Are you motivated to be trimmer and a little leaner? More energetic? Keeping a rich desert in your refrigerator, or dishes of snack food in your TV room can be a powerful trigger for an unwanted behavior especially a behavior that is soooo easy to do. Get rid of triggers for unwanted behavior. Replace them with triggers for healthy living.
7. Believing that information leads to action
We humans are not so rational.
Why is it that we can be so successful in our life, yet not successful in staying lean and trim and in having the more robust, vigorous and high-energy life? Can it be that success in life is a result of personal dedication to work, family, and other ideals rather than to the pursuit of the trappings of success? Can we put healthy living into action the same way we put success in our family and work life into action?
8. Focusing on abstract goals more than concrete behaviors
Abstract: Get in shape
Concrete: Walk 15 minutes today
The abstract goal can be overwhelming. The overwhelming part is the commitment of changing behavior for life, so it may be necessary to remove some of the commitment aspect to take some pressure off. By removing the commitment, you will get an accurate assessment of just how challenging the behavior changes really are.
But how do you remove the “commitment” from something that seems to inherently require one? Try a “one-day experiment.” This is where you commit to only one single day of change. For that one day, toe the line: make healthy choices, and workout. The next day go back to your normal routine. If you feel like trying another healthy day, then do so. If not, try another one the following week. Add a second day when you feel ready. The objective is to get some momentum going by accomplishing at least one day and only progressing further as you feel comfortable.
9. Seeking to change a behavior forever, not for a short time.
A fixed period works better than “forever”.
Forever seems like such a long time that it requires huge motivation. Better to choose a fixed period that is not overwhelming – a day, a week, a month.
10. Assuming that behavior change is difficult.
Behavior change is not so hard when you have the right process. For a behavior to happen requires that Motivation, Ability and a trigger all converge.
by IcennaEmach | Jul 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Many men say they want more muscle, but rarely do we hear women say they want more muscle. For men more muscle is desirable, yet for women more muscle is not as widely accepted. In fact, depending on one’s age, it may appear a ridiculous statement. Aesthetics validate building and maintaining muscle for both genders, but in reality, muscle does much more than one might initially consider.
What Happens When You Don’t Build Muscle
When you start to lose muscle and lay down fat around the belly, it’s the first sign that your metabolism is off-track and your health is taking the slow (or fast) spiral to chronic disease. Storing fat and losing muscle is one of the most significant signs of aging, and worse, belly fat (also known as “visceral fat”) is metabolically active, impairing the ability to maintain testosterone and build muscle, and increasing the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
While this is ominous sounding, muscle actually makes one a better fat burner and more resistant to metabolic problems. The more muscle one has, the better the body balances blood glucose. The improved balance of glucose will result in feeling better and weight maintenance or loss will be easier.
Why You Should Stop Letting Cardiovascular Activities Rule
While most know that lifting weights will burn calories, people may still point out that they could easily burn more calories by jumping on the treadmill for the same amount of time. What they don’t realize is that after they finish with the weights, they continue burning more calories for the next six hours and possibly even longer (some studies suggest it can last up to 18 hours)!
After you finish a hard set, you’re probably breathing rather hard.
This is the key to why lifting weights is a great calorie-burning workout. After finishing an exercise, one enters a phase called “Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption”, or EPOC for short. This is saying that after the exercise you will need to catch your breath. However, EPOC has some amazing qualities. For starters, one burns significantly more calories after the workout has finished than while actually doing it.
Why? Well, for every liter of oxygen the body consumes, it burns about 5 calories. While were lifting weights, you probably didn’t start breathing too hard. In fact, you might even have been holding your breath (though you really shouldn’t)! You are burning calories, but when your body attempts to recover, you are consuming a whole lot more oxygen than you were when you were exercising, and your body is burning calories this whole time.
Better yet, even though you probably did not notice it, your body actually increases its oxygen consumption for hours after you finish a high-intensity exercise, which is why your heartbeat might be faster four hours after you finish exercising than it normally is. This increased oxygen consumption adds up to a whole lot of calories burned, after you finish exercising!
Furthermore……
Increases in muscle size not only increases the metabolic processes for a longer time after the workout but there is a direct correlation between muscle mass and basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR is the amount of energy expended daily by humans and other animals at rest. Of course the more energy expended, the higher our daily calorie burn is. And who doesn’t want this? I like to call this burning energy or calories in our sleep. And this is just one of the nice things that muscle mass does for us.
So to the question of why wouldn’t women want increased muscle mass too? Well why not? It looks good and it helps maintain a higher metabolic rate.
In my practice people often tell me that they hardly eat, yet they cannot lose weight. There is a reason for this, but this is for another post. Just know this, increased muscle mass for both men and women not only makes us feel better, move better, look better, but allows us to continue to eat in abundance all the nutrients that we are designed to take in, and without gaining weight.
Body and Mind
Muscle also makes routine tasks less cumbersome and reduces injuries. Our day-to-day life often involves lifting and moving heavy objects. When the body is equipped to carry these burdens then it is considerably less injury prone. It’s hard to imagine (a young) Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing out his back taking the trash out. However this is a common injury precisely because so many people have not built muscle to support their necessary daily or weekly tasks!
Muscle also provides a golden ticket to an improved sex life. It boosts immunity, and reduces the risk for dementia. In fact, studies at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that building and maintaining muscle improves balance, fall risk, blood sugar levels, sleep, and mental health.
The Hormonal Advantage
Strength training has another big advantage over endurance training athletes. In a recently published clinical trial, athletes who strength-trained over 12 weeks reported the greatest testosterone to cortisol ratio while endurance athletes experienced plummeting testosterone levels. Increased testosterone is key to building more muscle, maintaining anabolism (growth), and enhancing sex drive.
To keep this in perspective, realize I am not suggesting one eliminate cardiovascular workouts. Our heart muscle is central to good health. What I am suggesting is that you would be wise to focus on more strength training as a means to reach your desired weight and body composition rather than cardiovascular workouts. Or in other words if you are pressed for time, and your heart is in good shape, then avoid the temptation to jump on the elliptical, treadmill, bike or other cardiovascular machines, thinking that a good sweat is going to burn more calories. In the long run, and often in the short run, weight training trumps cardiovascular workouts in weight loss/maintenance, body strength, and overall functional living capacity!
An enemy of anabolism in muscle tissue is inflammation and the immune response that happens after your exercise. When you train hard, your body responds by releasing inflammatory compounds. It is your job is to manage and remove those inflammatory signals that switch off your ability to make gains from training. Reducing inflammation is important It controls everything from reflex time to stamina, and strength, and recovery time .
Controlling inflammation is another topic. For now, between posts, just remember that controlling inflammation after working out is important because it controls the muscle repair process that ultimately causes one to gain lean muscle.
by IcennaEmach | Mar 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
Since the New Year, many people have been implementing cleanses as a sort of a jump-start to feeling good and losing weight. I advocate periodic cleanses, but as you will see, not for the usual superficial reason of calorie restriction.
Many people still view calorie restriction as king when it comes to weight loss. No doubt calories are very important. They are our body’s fuel, and there will probably never be a way to over consume those calories and not put extra fuel into the storage “fat tank.”
But when it comes to losing weight successfully and quickly, it’s about a lot more than simple calorie restriction, and the difference between weight loss programs that work and those that only provide extra frustration always comes down to more than the calorie.
A properly designed weight loss approach is not just the result of taking calories out of your budget. One needs to also incorporate a food elimination program to the mix to some degree.
There are three major ways that this extra step supports fast weight loss and helps you overcome weight loss resistance:
1: Reduces inflammation.
2: Reduces glycemic load
3: Allows better control of two very important hormones.
Reducing Inflammation Makes Weight Loss Easier
Most people realize that having excess fat is not good, but many don’t realize that excess fat is actually characterized as a chronic state of low-grade inflammation. Inflammation makes it hard for our body to lose weight because it fights some of the natural hormonal responses we have to food and hunger, such as through increasing levels of IL-6 and TNF, two inflammatory cytokins which decrease insulin sensitivity signaling. Cytokins are types of signaling regulators produced throughout the body.
These cytokines make your insulin less effective, and you are more likely to store excess fuel as fat as a result.
Many common foods today contain proteins which people are often sensitive to, but not outright allergic to. These sensitivities can go undetected for years because they do not cause the same debilitating symptoms an acute allergy would, but may still undermine one’s health by increasing inflammation within the body.
For example, eliminating certain foods that doctor’s patient’s are sensitive to has been shown to be effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease with strong connections to chronic inflammation.
Even if your body does not suffer from an overt form of inflammation, chances are that increased inflammation is still adversely affecting your health and weight loss goals. My increasingly popular cabbage soup cleanse eliminates all of the common foods which provoke common inflammatory responses in the body. For many people this is the missing step standing between them and their goals.
In a few days I will expand on the cleanse I offer to my newsletter readers and go into the details for those of you that may be interested. For now it is important to understand that weight loss is about more than just calories in and calories out.
Insulin Tells Your Body To Either Use Energy Or Store It
Foods, which are high in easily digested starches and sugars, also known as high glycemic foods, cause our body to release more insulin. Insulin is not a bad hormone in and of itself–it does exactly what it is supposed to do, which is help our body get rid of excess sugar in our blood.
The problem is that the modern diet, with its highly-processed and rapidly-digested ‘foods’, causes an undue amount of sugar to be unloaded upon our blood all at once. When our blood sugar gets too high (hyperglycemia), our body releases extra insulin to counter it.
The first thing insulin wants to do is get our muscles to take that sugar up and use it for energy, but the unfortunate truth is that the highly-processed diet we eat often goes hand-in-hand with a sedentary lifestyle.
If the muscles can’t use the sugar, then insulin tells your body to store it as fat, long-term storage designed for a time when food might be scarce. For most, this time will thankfully never come, but we still have to live with the results of a diet which spikes our blood sugar and insulin levels.
Keeping insulin levels low also means our body is focusing less on storing fat and focusing more on releasing it. Why? Because…
Glucagon Tells Your Body To Take Energy Back Out Of Storage!
Insulin may be the most well-known hormone which controls blood sugar, but there is another hormone which is just as important: glucagon. Glucagon is a pancreatic hormone that raises blood sugar by promoting conversion of glycogen to glucose in the liver. Whereas insulin acts to keep your blood sugar from running too high, glucagon works to keep your blood sugar from running too low.
Where insulin tells your body to store extra energy as fat, glucagon tells your body to release extra energy from that fat. This is one reason people feel better when starting a cleanse.
Do Not Do This When Trying To Lose Weight
A myth which has been ingrained in our beliefs is that blood sugar is inherently unstable, and we need a constant stream of calories to ensure it never dips or spikes. Now people are running out to buy little snack packs and trying to eat exactly 100 calories every hour to make sure their blood sugar remains stable.
This is actually one of the worst things you can do for blood sugar stability, and worse still is that this will actually fight your ability to lose weight.
If insulin is the storage hormone, then glucagon is the “take from storage” hormone. The problem is that insulin responds rapidly to the increase in blood sugar that eating causes, allowing us to store excess energy readily, but glucagon has a much slower response which only happens after we have gone through that fuel, a process which can take up to four hours!
If you attempt to control blood sugar by eating often, the only metabolic change you are likely to make is that your body will be releasing more insulin and less glucagon. By actively suppressing glucagon secretion, your body is less likely to take energy back out of storage, and weight loss will be slow.
When you allow healthy intervals between your meals, your body gets the chance to use its own natural blood sugar stabilizer, the hormone glucagon. The result is your body spends more time in “take from storage mode” and you lose weight more readily!
Just as what you eat during a cleanse is important, a smart cleanse plan addresses the timing of when you eat allowing your hormones to work exactly as they were intended to and allowing you to experience better results.
Weight Loss Success Is Not Just About Cutting Calories
If you are only focused on reducing how many calories you are consuming, then you are missing a big piece of the puzzle! Cutting calories can only take you so far before you hit a weight-loss wall, and it’s no wonder so many programs just don’t provide long-term results.
Cutting calories is only effective if your body is capable of picking up the slack. Reducing inflammation and better regulating your blood sugar-controlling hormones allow your body to actually burn the fat it has been storing, not just reduce your overall energy levels. When these additional goals are met, weight loss occurs naturally, and you’ll actually feel great while doing it! If you are like me, feeling better is secondary to losing weight. However, a well designed jump start such as a smartly designed cleanse that address inflammation reduction, a lowered glycemic load, and the ability to control insulin and glucagon has the capacity to not only make us feel better but to lose weight as well.
My cleansing clients lose 4 – 11 pounds on a 4 day cleanse, and 6 – 14 on a week-long cleanse. This is typical, but I am not into gimmicks. I am into helping people feel good and lose weight. It’s important they know what to expect in the long run after the cleanse. Gaining half of the weight back is typical when they go back to their regular diets. But maintaining three quarters of the weight off is highly possible if they simple adhere to making a couple dietary change afterwards on a fairly consistent basis. This change can be as simple as eating protein, fiber and good fat for breakfast, and committing to a non starchy lighter than typical dinner a few days of the week.
In a few days I will provide information on the increasingly popular cabbage soup weight loss jump start plan that I have been offering to clients. I will type on the subject line, Cabbage Soup Jump Start Information, so that only those of you that have an interest will open and read. And by the way, this jump start cleanse includes protein – a necessary component to fighting inflammation and ridding toxins in the body.
by IcennaEmach | Nov 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
(Nutrient density explored and why it is absolutely necessary for losing weight.)
Today, unlike several years ago, the common theory on losing weight was considered simple, consume fewer calories than you expend in energy and you will lose fat. Unfortunately, for most people over thirty-five, that simple calculation does not hold true. Sure, it still holds true for those who are younger. It even holds true for a few over thirty-five. Unfortunately, those over approximately thirty-five who manage to lose weight primarily by reducing portion sizes, stop losing weight and come to a standstill after losing 5, 10, maybe 15 lbs. Why is that? The short answer to this question is that bodies adapt to the reduced calories and the dieters find it difficult to sustain the reduced portion sizes when nutrient density is lacking in their daily diet. Let me explain by illustrating what the scientists are saying regarding losing fat in our 30’s, 40’s and beyond.
Nutrient Density
We all know that calories are still important in losing weight, but what is not so well known and that demands our attention is that what we eat is even more important in weight loss.
A nutrient dense diet is something that helps you adhere to a diet. They say any diet will work if you stick with it. We are told to burn more calories than we consume, and that this is the fundamental science of weight loss.
Yet every single one of us who has followed this approach inevitably experiences a period where it is literally impossible to stay on this path. To make matters worse, we then feel badly about ourselves. Nutrient density is a key part of ending this cycle.
We have all been on diets and failed. In fact, people that I come in contact with in my practice are openly admitting to the notion that “diets do not work.” Yet, there are elements of dieting which I have seen in training and coaching people that really work well. For example, portion control remains an important part of the weight loss process. However, my clients realize that one must combine “nutrient density” with portion control, to get on a path to sustained weight loss.
What Is Nutrient Density?
Nutrient density is a concept pioneered by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It is simply the measurement of the concentration of micronutrients in food. Some foods, like green vegetables have very high nutrient density measurements. Processed foods have very low nutrient density measurements. Foods that are nutrient dense are associated with greater health, increased energy and weight loss.
According to Dr. Fuhrman, if you can’t stick to a diet, you cannot achieve permanent weight loss and health. If a diet does not provide the nutrients you need, then your body will demand more food and it will be nearly impossible to maintain a proper weight. From his perspective and research in this area, this is the key to permanent weight loss. It can be made part of any diet strategy.
Part of my core coaching practice utilizes the concept of nutrient density. For example, I often see that when people increase the high nutrient foods (see the chart below) and combine them with common portion control diets, weight loss becomes easier. I have seen this with people wanting to lose a little weight and also with people who have lost a lot of weight – upwards of 25 lbs.
The Science Behind Nutrient Density
It is now believed that people feel hungry on a diet because their body is not getting the nutrients it needs. More and more evidence has revealed that eating more high nutrient food is a key way to lose weight permanently. Learning how to incorporate this into your life and the diet you have chosen to follow is the secret to controlling food cravings and overeating.
Here is the formula for nutrient density:
H= N/C or Health = Nutrients Over Calories.
The scientific principle represented in this formula is known as “Nutrient Density”. It is the measure of the nutrients provided per calorie of food, or the ratio of nutrients to calories (energy).
An apple, for example, is a better choice than a bag of chips for weight loss even though both have roughly the same number of calories. The apple is a great source of fiber, vitamin C, potassium and hundreds of other beneficial phytochemicals. Therefore, the apple has a higher nutrient density. By eating the apple, you will feel fuller, have more energy, and over time, will help you lose more weight.
With more nutrient-dense food consumed, the more you will be satisfied with fewer calories, and the less you will crave fat and high-calorie foods. One of the huge benefits to high nutrient eating is that people lose their food cravings, hypoglycemic symptoms and other sensations that drive people to overeat. They are put back in touch with their body’s natural instinctive signals to eat- when food is really needed.
These natural, true hunger signals will help direct you to your true ideal body weight. You will simply desire less food. If you choose foods based on nutrient density, you will essentially be choosing foods based on their overall quality and their ability to have a positive influence on your body and overall health.
Foods That Score Highest in Nutrient Density
Which foods offer the most nutrients, and which offer the least nutrients per calorie? Most of the foods on the following chart will be of no surprise.
Vegetables, fruits, and beans score the best, by far. However, some surprises may change the way you eat forever. With Kale scoring the highest nutrient density of all 20,000 foods tested, it has the highest score of all – 1000! If a product scores 500, it offers half the nutrients of Kale.
· Strawberries, the #1 fruit, only offer one/fourth the nutrients of Kale.
· An Apple is only one/third as valuable as Strawberries.
· Apple Juice is one/fifth as nutritious as an Apple per Calorie.
This information is vital to any dieter trying to stay healthy and lose weight.
It is now estimated that less than 10% of adults and only 2% of children get the minimum daily requirement of vital nutrients their body needs to seek its ideal weight or ward off chronic illnesses. The chronic illnesses that develop as a result of poor eating have become so serious that in 2006 the Center For Disease Control and Prevention announced that this generation of children may be the first not to live as long as their parents.
Incorporate Nutrient Density for Fat Lose
My experience in the training and coaching fields has been that people quickly see the value of adding more nutrient dense foods into the diet when they experiment with foods and see the changes in their pant sizes and body weights on the scale. Inevitably, as results become obvious the motivation increases. As motivation increases, the weight continues to come off, not just temporarily, but for a lifetime.
Here is the question. Where do YOU start now that you are armed with information that when applied smartly and consistently reduces body fat?
As I sit here and write, a text has just come in from a personal training and coaching client. She sends me her picture of dinner out on her boat.
By the way, what may appear as big fat white potatoes are actually mushrooms! Not that white potatoes are bad, but when one is in the process of losing weight-and she is, and doing a great job I might add, we need to skip them!
She has lost 8 lbs in 20 days, has done nothing extreme, and sees that her middle section, hips, and inner thigh are feeling tighter and leaner. When I ask her how confident she is in maintaining and or continuing to lose weight, she indicates she is very confident. She continues by explaining that she is never hungry, has huge amounts of energy, and has a lifestyle she can easily maintain.
This is what I love to hear. And it’s happening. People are eating like they mean it. It’s out of vogue to deny hunger and it’s in vogue to be healthy. When we are eating healthy, we eat lots of high-density foods that bring nutrients to our bodies. Then we layer them with a moderate amount of good fats and proteins, and we lose fat.
Look at the picture of what my boater friend is eating. Then ask yourself if you can be that healthy person?
I had this client apply two principles of fat loss:
1. Nutrient density on a daily basis – as is discussed in this article.
2. Fighting stubborn fat with protein, fat, and fiber for quick and sustainable weight loss.
This second principle of weight loss will be the topic of my next newsletter. If you are motivated to lose weight and keep it off, and want to get a jump-start into the holiday season, then call or e mail me and I will be happy to discuss how you can be feeling good, looking good, and having enormous amounts of energy this holiday season. It will be simply. You will lose weight. You will have a huge amount of energy.
Stayed tuned. In two weeks I will discuss ways to beat stubborn fat with high quality protein, an abundance of fibrous foods, and believe it or not, fat!
