Real Food for Weight Loss

January 8, 2018

Are you struggling with weight loss? Do you wonder if the foods you are eating are helping or hurting you? Listen in and you will learn how eating real food will help with successful weight loss. Listen in!

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Transcript

KARA: Good morning and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. This is brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. I'm Kara Carper and I will be co-hosting Dishing Up Nutrition today. I'm a licensed nutritionist and I work with clients individually. I also teach a variety of nutrition classes in many different settings. One of the classes is the Nutrition 4 Weight Loss series at our offices. Sometimes I'll teach a Lunch and Learn class. We also do that as an organization. We'll do that for a variety of businesses. And I also will teach community ed classes. So, as nutritionists, we don't just see clients, we do a lot of teaching as well. But mostly I love my job because I like to help people understand the importance of eating real food, and I'm pleased to say that this is my 10th year as a nutritionist at Nutritional Weight & Wellness.

NELL:   Just to highlight another milestone, this is our 13th year presenting Dishing Up Nutrition worldwide. We continually encourage listeners to eat real food for weight loss for cancer prevention, for energy, to avoid aches and pains, to have a better memory, and just to be healthier. Yet the sales of processed foods continually increase. Maybe it is telling us that the Dishing Up Nutrition message needs to reach more people so they can understand why real food is the answer. I am Nell Kahls and almost ten years ago Kara told me to switch from low-fat, processed foods to eating real foods to lose weight. And I did so over the next two years. I lost 90 pounds of body fat and went from a size 22 to a size 8 just eating real food.

KARA:  Now that is something to say. Congratulations.

NELL:  Yes. I looked at that number this morning and I could hardly believe it myself. But I remember purchasing those size 22 pants and I think the next day I made that phone call to Nutritional Weight & Wellness to get that appointment.

KARA:  I mean that's just amazing. And you know, not just the weight loss, but the maintenance.

NELL:  Exactly. And it's 90 pounds of body fat. So, when I would lose weight before the Weight & Wellness way it was always lots of water, lots of muscle. And then I would get so hungry I would want to eat the cupboards bare. And now I know that that 90 pounds was 90 pounds of body fat, because I lost it while maintaining my muscle mass.

KARA: And all of that in eating real food, which is what we’re going to talk about today-- eating real food to lose weight or to have a better memory. You know that might actually sound like Facebook ad or something that's promising you a magic cure by taking a special, just-discovered herb, but it's not. Eating real food for weight loss is not a gimmick. Now, hundreds of our other clients are living proof that real food is the long-term answer to weight loss.

NELL:  Yeah, when I first sat down with Kara and she became my nutritionist for my first appointment at Nutritional Weight & Wellness she said, “You should eat butter to lose weight.” And I looked at her and I thought to myself, “Where did this girl get her nutrition training!?”

KARA: You’re not the only one.

NELL: All the other programs since I was eight years old when I first started dieting told me that butter and most of the fats to lose weight were the way to go. I certainly followed the low-fat, no-fat plans, and I remember eating lots of tuna with no mayo with crackers or rice cakes or something. And so those no-fat plans when I stepped on the scale, I would always show being heavier than I'd ever been, or if I temporarily lost weight, I would gain it right back. And the reason I was so overweight by the time I came to see you was because I would lose weight and then it would be like a boomerang effect where I would lose some weight, but then I would gain almost twice that when I would go off the plan.

KARA:  And that was probably because you were feeling so deprived. Basically starving.

NELL: No fat. I had nothing telling me to stop eating. So, you're constantly hungry. So, I thought, “What do I have to lose?” I really did. Maybe a few pounds. I had really given up on weight loss at that point, but I really wanted to get healthy. So, I said, “If I can lose weight eating butter, bring it on.” Kara kept talking to me about eating real food to lose weight. I thought, “Well, I guess butter is real and low-fat margarine spreads are fake. They have a lot of chemicals in them. Maybe it will work.” So, I decided to listen to Kara and give it a try. And two years later I weighed 90 pounds less and eight years later I'm still weighing 90 pounds less. So, not only did I lose the weight, I maintained it. All the time I have to think, “Eat real food, because processed foods are all around us.” They're everywhere. In the bookstore, they’re everywhere you look. At work. And they're all saying, “Just try me.” But my cravings come back and so do the pounds.

KARA: Isn't that the truth that these foods are everywhere and to not eat them, you have to make a really conscious decision.

NELL:  Right. I call it my cravings prevention plan, and it's all about making sure that I am getting my meals and that I'm eating enough food to be able to resist the candy counter. I mean, I work at a company where there are doughnuts almost every day. I could go on any floor of my building and find doughnuts if I were looking. Or if I just were passing by somebody's desk, there's a dozen donuts there. So, that's a situation a lot of people are facing. And you need that cravings prevention plan.

KARA:  I love that you say that. To be able to avoid those things, you have to be eating real food several times per day. You have to have just had a really satiating snack of chili with a little sour cream or avocado. Your cravings get the better of you if you're not staying ahead of them.

KARA: And we won't get to that too much right now, but that's because of low blood sugar. And the brain and the body are starving for something. For over 30 years, we have all been told that in order to lose weight, we should cut the fat out of our diet. But did it work? No. Because people stopped eating fat. And today three quarters of the population are overweight or obese. And now because of scientific evidence, there's been a slow shift in how nutrition experts are thinking about fat. To remain healthy, we really need to include healthy fats in our diet. So, what would you think if I told you that butter might be one of the best fats to eat for weight loss? I wonder what the listeners are thinking.

NELL:  Yeah, that's probably what I thought the first time you told me. But butter works for me. When I sauté my vegetables in butter I eat more of them because they taste so good. Gone are the days of those gross steamed vegetables with no fat. When I cook my eggs in butter, I never get tired of eggs for breakfast.

KARA:  I agree, and can I just say that I sometimes I do get a little tired of eggs like seven days in a row, however, my husband made bacon the other day and left the bacon grease in the pan. So, I cooked up my three eggs in the bacon grease and it was like a whole new world.

NELL: Yeah, you just figure out ways to make it new. I love that.

KARA: Let's look at the science, though, of why butter may be the best fat for weight loss. And I know this goes against the 30 to 40 years of supposed nutrition experts telling us to avoid animal fat like butter or lard like bacon grease.

NELL: When we look at the breakdown of butter we find that it is 50 percent saturated fat, 30 percent mono unsaturated fat, so that's the kind of fat in olive oil and avocados, and 13 percent short- and medium- chain fatty acids. So, you might be asking, “What does the composition of butter have to do with how butter supports my metabolism and weight loss?”

KARA: The body uses short- and medium- chain fatty acids in butter for energy, and these fatty acids actually boost the metabolism. So, it's this specific type of medium-chain fat in butter that does not get stored as body fat, which is so great.

NELL: That is such a light bulb moment.

KARA: Yes. In addition, the fatty acids in butter stimulate the immune system, which helps the immune system to fight off things like cancer. So, butter is a real food. It's a real, healthy fat to support metabolism. So, it's going to be easier to lose weight eating butter.

NELL: And I can't wait to talk more about butter. But first, we have to take our first break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness.

Did the holidays bring out your sweet tooth? And now you're struggling to get it back down again? For me, just a few sugar treats turn my brain on to say, “I want more sugar.” During the holidays, we should be careful, but not perfect. Today we want to share with you some tips and tricks we use to calm down the sugar monster. The first tip is eat every three hours. Don't skip a meal or snack.

BREAK

KARA: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Again, like we talked about before break, if you are struggling with sugar or processed carbohydrate cravings, there are three supplements that are really going to help you to overcome those sugar and carbohydrate cravings. The first step is to take one bifido bacteria, which is a probiotic, before each meal, because your gut microbiome might be the problem. Maybe over the holidays you picked up some kind of a bacteria or virus and a good bacteria or good probiotic, like bifido bacteria, is really going to help to rebalance the intestinal tract. Poor intestinal health actually leads to sugar and carb cravings.

The second step is to take to L-glutamine capsules before each meal. L-glutamine is an amino acid, which has been shown to really reduce sugar cravings. Step three is to take three of a product called Crave Control Plus before each meal. Now, that's going to support brain health and reduce cravings for carbohydrates, especially for things like cookies, cakes, pie, things like that. So, just to repeat that protocol: supplement 3 bifido balance, 6 capsules of L-glutamine, and nine capsules of Crave Control Plus daily. And I would say within three days to a week, your cravings will be under control. Sounds like a lot of supplements, but when you're having cravings like that, the body is missing something. And this is just replacing what's missing. And it's really going to help to get rid of those cravings.

NELL:  Yeah, and actually that is the magic protocol for me. I do that exact thing. And I did it starting back at the holidays. So, how I use that is when I know that there's going to be challenging times coming up, I start that protocol again. And that got me through the holidays, where I was in taking two big helpings of mashed potatoes or I didn't fall prey to a lot of the sweets. And it's largely because I do things like that because I know that's part of my cravings prevention plan. Because if I have a cravings prevention plan, I can go anywhere without that anxiety that I'm going to go off track.

KARA: Did you proactively do that or do it after you got cravings?

NELL: I know now there are there are times during the year that are very difficult for me. Christmas/Thanksgiving is typically a time, and when we say I've been maintaining my weight for eight years, yes that is true, but there have been times when I would have a particularly indulgent holiday season and I would go very much off track and 10 pounds would come back like that. And so, I have learned over the years that when it comes to the holiday season, Thanksgiving to Christmas, as well as the Fourth of July time, those are my two kind of times when I'm at risk. And so, then I double down on my cravings protection plan. I make sure I'm eating all my good fats and all of everything, but I do that protocol periodically, just throughout the year just to keep my cravings at bay.

KARA: That's great. Thanks for sharing that. So, you had to do it for like two weeks?

NELL:   I'm still doing it right now. I usually do it for about a month during this time, and I'm at the point where I've been taking bifido and my gut is in very good shape and that kind of thing. But that doesn't mean, as I've said in past shows, I maintain my obesity as a chronic disease. I treat it like I need to attend to it every single day. So that's one thing that I do.

KARA:   Just like someone would be attending to diabetes on a daily basis.

NELL:  Yeah or high blood pressure or any of those. Any condition.

KARA:  That’s a great example.

NELL:  So again, before the break, we were talking about butter, and I will say it again that butter works for me as part of my cravings prevention plan and just to make me feel good and lose weight. Butter supports my metabolism, which for years was wrecked by all the low-fat dieting I was doing. So, it is very still very difficult for me to totally believe butter is good for my health. I think I've turned a corner, but it creeps up every now and again. But, we were told over and over that saturated fats, especially butter and lard, were responsible for heart disease, obesity, and other chronic diseases. So, this information was not true and was based on poor quality research. So, in fact, the research erroneously supported the use of factory fats. Those are manufactured fats, such as soy bean oil, corn oil, canola oil, and cottonseed oil.

KARA:  And this is not the first time that we've said, “Eat real food for weight loss. We know butter is real. It's not processed.”

NELL: Yeah. In fact, in our Weight & Wellness classes we teach people how to make butter at home. So, here's a fun project to try with your children or your grandchildren. You put about a cup of heavy cream in a quart jar with a lid and just start shaking it. After a few minutes, what do you have? Butter. And it's delicious.

KARA: I love doing that in the Weight & Wellness class and people usually say, “Oh, my daughter did that in first grade.” But what about soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, or cottonseed oil. These are not real fats. Soybean, corn, canola, and cottonseed oil are very processed, damaged fats. Now, how do they affect metabolism?

NELL: So, I am not a nutritionist, but I do understand how real food operates in my body and supports my metabolism. So, I eat real food and I lose weight. Bottom line. So let's think about how we get oil from different sources. We shake heavy cream and we get butter. Simple. We squeeze an olive and we get olive oil. Simple. What about corn or soybeans or cotton seeds or even rape seeds that we eat canola oil from? Can we just squeeze these seeds with our fingers and get oil? Of course not. These seeds are not high in fats, so it takes a lot of processing to get oil from corn or soybeans.

KARA:   That is so true. It takes a lot of processing. Just squeeze a kernel of corn or a soybean and see how much oil comes out. When you can visualize on the flip side squeezing an olive, it's very oily and fatty, so very easy to obtain that oil, but not for corn and soybean oil. And actually, the manufactured oil industry uses a lot of different processes to get the oil out of corn or soybeans. I mean they might press it, crush it, grind it. They also would use hexane-type solvents. That's a chemical that is similar to gasoline. So, then we end up with this product that doesn't look good, doesn't smell good, doesn't taste good. So, it's bleached, deodorized, at that point all the nutrients are missing. So, these are the damaged, factory fats that are really found in most processed foods these days.

NELL: Yeah, they're everywhere. On my path to losing 90 pounds one of the first things Kara taught me was to avoid these refined vegetable oils, because these oils will interfere with how my cells communicate and function. Kara said purge kitchen of those refined oils. So, I opened my refrigerator. I threw away all the non-dairy creamers, all the salad dressings that have all these oils, my margarine, and even my peanut butter and mayo. My mayo was labeled that it contained olive oil, but it was really full of soybean oil. Then I went to my pantry and out came the crackers, cookies, stuffing mix, and all the boxed convenience foods. Why did I need to get rid of all these foods? Because they contained either soy bean oil, corn oil, canola oil, or cottonseed oil. I decided that if the research shows that these oils slow my metabolism, I was going to get rid of them.

KARA: Well, good for you all. I mean, I remember when you were doing that and a lot of people just say, “Use it all up!” And what's the point of that? We need to take our next break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition.

BREAK

NELL: Carrying extra weight is so frustrating and damages your self-esteem. I know. I've been there and I know I couldn't lose weight on my own. I needed and still need my nutritional support from my nutritionist, or I teach, or take the Nutrition 4 Weight Loss series of classes. It is a reality. If I want to be a normal weight I need ongoing support to keep my focus and concentration. After break, Kara will share our Go Real in 2018 special on the Nutrition 4 Weight Loss program and individual counseling.

KARA:  Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. All throughout today's show, we have been talking about how real food supports metabolism and weight loss. We believe real food is the answer. We don't believe in counting calories, counting points, gimmicks, contracts, packaged foods, bars, shakes, or starvation diets. Starting the week of January 11th, we're going to have nine Nutrition 4 Weight Loss series starting throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. So, I'm just going to tell you what Brenda said about the series that she took last fall. Brenda said, “I lost 19 pounds. My clothes fit better. My mind is clear. The brain fog is gone and I no longer get bloated.”

If you'd like to sign up you can call 651-699-3438 or you can go to our website to sign up. Save 50 dollars on our Nutrition 4 Weight Loss program with the Go Real in 2018 special. That's such an awesome deal. Take fifty dollars off.

We got a caller over break who was someone calling in on behalf of a relative who was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. And this person with congestive heart failure had gone to the doctor and the doctor recommended to use a spread. Yes. And I don't know if the doctor specifically said I'm guessing they said don't use butter. That would be my guess. I mean if they recommended a spread, the spread where it was in lieu of butter. So, the caller wanted to know can the person with congestive heart failure use butter? Absolutely yes. I mean I guess without getting into too much detail, some doctors are very up on the latest research in science with nutrition, but others really aren't. They're not required to take a lot of nutrition in medical school. So, unless they're keeping up the science on their own or making an effort to do so, they might just be under the misconception, the old low-fat myth. Yeah, the hypothesis that fat things like butter and animal fats are going to lead to higher risk of heart disease. That myth has been debunked. Thirdly, go ahead, eat butter. You want to avoid the spreads. Those are the ones we've been talking about that are so processed and damaging.

NELL:  Yeah. And if we could just take a moment to talk. So, we just got off for the holidays and we were all at different places, different times, things that we don't normally see. Kara and I were chatting about this before the show and just how many how many times I encountered spreads over the holidays. And spreads are margarine spreads. Some of them say olive oil spreads, but they happen to be everywhere and really hard to avoid sometimes. But they're not the way to weight loss. They're not real foods and we're focusing on real foods to lose weight today, and spreads just will not get you there. I always think about spreads as a key thing that is going to gum up your metabolism. So, if you almost think about throwing a monkey wrench in the works, eat spreads because they're going to make your metabolism slow and sluggish and not help you lose weight.

KARA: So, you might be wondering, “What is it in the refined vegetable oil that would slow metabolism?” like Nell just mentioned. We know that real food provides what our bodies and our cells need to determine what they should do. Food is going to tell her mitochondria what to do, and if it's a good food, it's going to tell the mitochondria to do the right thing. If it's a bad food like a spread, it's not going to tell the cells what to do properly.

NELL: It's not going to give them the accurate information. So, what is mitochondria inside your cell? You have an energy source called mitochondria, which is our cells’ furnace. When you eat inflammatory foods like a spread, especially those refined vegetable oils, the soybean oil, corn oil, the canola oil, or the cottonseed oil, you shut down the functioning of your mitochondria, shutting down your energy and slowing down your metabolism. We understand that refined oils and processed foods can shut down your metabolism. So, avoid all refined oils. Just look at the label. If you see soybean oil, corn oil, canola, and cotton seed just avoid that product. Nutrition is a science. And anyone who's giving out nutrition advice really needs to be speaking to the science and not to what is going to sell a certain food. So, we don't ever want to be getting nutrition advice from TV. We talk about that as “TV nutrition.” And I always think, “Well, who is going to benefit from the sale of that low-fat yogurt?” for example. Not us, but a manufacturing company.

NELL: Exactly. So, after losing 90 pounds and keeping it off for eight years, I really appreciate the science behind what I practice. So today, I want to share some of those basic scientific facts that affect metabolism and energy. So, fact number one: to lose weight, eat healthy fats such as butter, coconut oil, avocados, olive oil, olives, heavy cream, and nuts. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Your mitochondria, your cells’ energy furnace, will get a boost from the medium-chain fatty acids in butter, coconut oil, and MCT oil. Quick note about MCT oil-- I think both coconut oil and MCT oil, like butter, have helped me not only lose weight, they were really critical for me to lose the actual weight in the first place, but actually maintain my weight loss. Those two fats especially have helped my mitochondria do the right thing right.

KARA:  Right. Yeah. You were mentioning that you do the MCT oil, and I know we've talked about butter already.

NELL:  Yeah. MCT oil’s great.

KARA: And another quick thing before we move on to the science fact number two on nutrition, I want to just talk a little bit more about the fat piece and the benefit. There's a lot of benefits to eating healthy fat, like the MCT coconut oil, butter, avocados, nuts, seeds. First of all, they're very satiating. So, we actually produce a hormone when we eat these healthy fats, that tells us, “I'm full. I'm satisfied.” It's kind of like a shut-off valve, which we do not get from carbohydrates. So, that's why, if you're eating low-fat or fat-free, you'll probably feel hungry all the time.

NELL:   I mentioned this earlier, but I was talking about when I was on my first diet, I was in eighth grade and I remember eating romaine lettuce with a can of tuna dumped on it. And I think that was it. There was no basically zero fat. It was the ‘80s, so we are really getting the low-fat messages, the way to lose weight. And I remember fainting at the Kmart parking lot. And I actually thought that was a good thing. I was eating so little and so low fat. This is how messed up our culture is about weight loss. I started with Weight & Wellness when I was in my late 30s. It took me about 25 years to learn that I needed to eat food to lose weight and eat fat to lose weight. And eating low-fat, non-fat tuna with lettuce leaves was not going to get me there.

KARA: So, you didn't have dressing. And you didn't have avocados.

NELL:I was saving my points or I was making sure I wasn't getting too many calories or whatever system I was using to count. Because we all have, in our history, either counting points or calories or grams of fat at one point. I tell you, I could write a volume of all the different ways that I was trying to configure my food until I threw it all away and started eating real foods in balance with fat, so protein, fat, and carb in balance. And that was the thing that I thought would make me gain weight, but actually eating regularly and nourishing my body was what helped heal my metabolism and kick started that 90-pound weight loss.

KARA:  Oh my gosh. Well, we can't even talk enough about the portions of fat in real food for weight loss. You have to keep talking about it, because I think so many people are stuck in the old ways. So, fat is important. We’ll go on to nutrition fact number two.

NELL:  Let's take a break and then we can do the rest of those facts when we get back. So, you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Next week, I am sure you will want to tune in and have your family and friends tune into Dishing Up Nutrition, because Dar and Lea will be discussing a new book on Alzheimer's disease. With nutritionist Amy Berg, the author of the Alzheimer's Antidote. She uses a low-carb, high-fat diet to fight Alzheimer's disease, memory loss, and cognitive decline. It should be a powerful show.

BREAK

KARA: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. If we think of food as medicine, we need to know what foods are medicine for each of us, and we need to know how to eat to reduce inflammation, how to eat to reduce anxiety and depression, how to eat to lower our blood sugars, or how to eat for memory and focus. So, that is when making an appointment with a nutritionist for guidance really makes sense. Until January 20th of 2018, we're offering 50 dollars off the cost of an initial nutrition appointment and twenty-five dollars off of a one hour follow up appointments. You can call 6516993438 for more details. You can also learn more on our website. So that is a great deal.

NELL:  Yeah, I have to say it's the best money I've ever spent if I could go back at a time machine. To see you the first time was the best decision I ever made. So, if anyone else is on the fence, you can really change your life with nutrition. And I'm living proof here.

KARA: I’m so glad you came into it because now you teach classes and you're basically an employee.

NELL:  So yeah, it's cool. So, we were talking about facts. Do you want to go start with fact number two?

KARA: Yeah. So, fact number two is avoid processed foods high in sugar and high in flour. So, it's these high carbohydrate foods. Some examples would be cereal, crackers, bread, pasta, pizza, chips, and soda. Beverages as well like soda or juice. Those are all going to stress the mitochondria, slow energy, and slow metabolism. So, just be sure to avoid processed carbohydrates. We want to be eating real carbohydrates. Does everyone know that fruits and vegetables are real carbohydrates? A lot of people don't know that, so that is the best way to get carbohydrates: vegetables and fruits, and fresh is great. Frozen is also great. They're going to be full of antioxidants. And getting back to that mitochondria, vegetables and fruits are really essential for healthy mitochondria.

NELL: Through my journey I have come to realize that I have to be much more careful and aware of continuously eating real food-- quality protein, only good beneficial fats, and vegetables for my carbs. We all have different genetics. I was interested to learn that recent research found that if you have a parent or a sibling who has Type 2 diabetes, which I do, your mitochondria are likely to be 50 percent less efficient at burning calories than another person’s. So, some of us need to be much more careful eaters to maintain a healthy weight. It's just the fact. I am one of those people with mitochondria that burns 50 percent less calories, but I still have been successful and plan to continue to be successful.

KARA: And I like what you said earlier how you kind of go about this whole process as though it were a chronic disease.

NELL:Yeah, I have to really manage it every day and that's not a burden to me. And that's not anything that I say, like “Ugh I have to manage it every single day!” It's more that I know to be healthy and to live the life that I want to live, I have to manage this every day. And that's my real food and cravings prevention plan.

KARA: Did you figure that out because you weren't managing it every day? Like did you get kind of comfy with the whole idea of losing the weight.

NELL: Yeah it was about 2011/2012. 2012 was a year into my weight maintenance and I started to put weight back on again. It was a holiday season where I said, “Wow I had this huge accomplishment!” And I went back to celebrating with food and I wouldn’t say I went totally off the rails, but I did more of that high-sugar, maybe some processed oils, factory fats got in there too, and I put on, I would say, between 15 and 20 pounds in about a month. Anyone who struggles with their weight knows it can come on that fast. And so that was a couple of situations like that where I was kind of relapsing where it became clear if I don't manage this every day and I don't stick to my food plan, this is what's going to happen. The weight is going to come back on.

KARA:   So, you had that experience and you were like, “It's totally not worth it. I want to have a prevention plan and be paying attention and just kind of be ahead of the game.” That's great advice.

As we mentioned earlier, three out of four Americans are either overweight or obese, however, the problem is not just occurring in the United States. It's happening in developing countries, from India to Cameroon. On December 23^rd, 2017, the New York Times published a really interesting article it was titled “In Asia's Fattest Country, Nutritionists Take Money From Food Giants.” The article points out that there's really a deep financial partnership between some of the world's largest food companies and nutrition scientists, policymakers, and even academic societies, which resulted in out-of-control obesity problems in over half of the adults in these particular countries. So, it's a really interesting, well-researched article and it shows us that when corporate money influences nutrition education and nutrition science, people are just getting the wrong messages for their health. And the large companies have huge advertising budgets for the ads, so these ads are unfortunately convincing people that processed foods are healthy.

NELL:  Yeah, I think about all of the meals I put in a microwave when I was trying to lose weight. All of the little meals in the little trays, those are all marketed to me with these huge sale budgets to say, “You will lose weight if you eat these frozen meals,” when it was doing the exact opposite.

KARA: Right. And they have names, too, that lead you to believe that they’re healthy. Healthy Choice, Smart Ones.

NELL:  Smart Ones was my favorite one.

KARA:  Now, if we didn’t know better, we would just go by the name advertising and think that's good for me. I’m going to lose weight and be healthy. But, again, we can't be listening to advice from food companies like that. So, the processed foods that are marketed as healthy actually, on average, contain 28 percent sugar. So, it's a really eye-opening article and I think it really helped me to understand just yet another reason to not eat processed foods. If we want to be healthy, we don't want to be part of the population that's three out of four people are overweight or obese. So, sadly, a lot of the food companies are not interested in health. It's about making money. So, just a quick reminder at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we really are all about real food we're concerned about your health and your well-being. And I'm proud to say that the American College of Nutrition, that's something that Dar, our owner, belongs to and I do as well, and several of the nutritionists do. The American College of Nutrition has never accepted money or funding from food companies. So that's pretty cool.

And yeah and there were several countries listed in the article. I had India and Cameroon.

NELL:   And I just think we're all in a very vulnerable position when we want to lose weight.

KARA: Yeah, I guess it was kind of surprising, India. And that's just more recent, too.

NELL:  Yeah, exactly. Because as people start eating the way that Americans do, the standard American diet, it just happens that the obesity rates go up. When you look at countries like Japan, where they have such low obesity rates, but then you see more Western food coming in and you see those rates creep up, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a connection there. And I just think that people who want to lose weight and they get those messages are in a very vulnerable position. I was in that position for years where I was very, very susceptible to all of those messages about what I needed to lose weight. And people just don't know where to turn or what to do.

And so, it's really important to make a connection with a nutritionist to guide you through this process of losing weight, which is not easy. It's simple. There are some simple steps you can take, but it is not easy. Like I said, it's an everyday challenge for me to do it.

KARA:  And also there's so much information out there and so much misinformation.

NELL: Exactly. And our goal at Nutritional Weight & Wellness is to help each person every person to better health through eating real foods. It's a simple, yet powerful message: Eating real food is life changing. Thanks for tuning in. And have a great day.