Weight Loss Habits

Transcript:

LEAH: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. I am Leah Kleinschrodt. I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. And joining me in studio this morning is Teresa Wagner, who is also a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. If you listened to last week's Dishing Up Nutrition show or the podcast that we released, you know, it was all about the long-term health effects of COVID-19. I mean, the common nomenclature out there is, it's called Long Hauler Syndrome, or some people will say Post Covid Syndrome: same type of thing.

Melanie and Britni did a really wonderful job on the show, and they shared some stats about the number of people who even weeks and months after that initial infection, people still experience fatigue, aches and pains, breathing problems, higher levels of anxiety and depression, and just generally more inflamed overall. So all of those are very important health conditions and these people absolutely need help.

Many people experienced weight gain during the COVID-19 pandemic

But one thing that wasn't talked about on the show, which we're going to follow up on with this show, is another common, should we say, side effect of COVID is the weight gain that many, many people experienced during the pandemic. So it's interesting to note that many people who had COVID-19 gained weight, but also those who did not experience COVID-19 themselves, they also gained weight. And it wasn't just adults. There were many children, teenagers who gained weight during the past two or three years as well.

And there are definitely clients out there; I actually just had a client the other week who thought they were maybe the only ones that gained weight. But that's, Teresa, you're going to share some things, but that's definitely not the case. Right?

TERESA: No, that's really not true. In fact, I think more and more people know that they're not alone in this weight gain experience during the last, gosh, is it three years now since the onset?

LEAH: Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: Yeah. And it's interesting and, and you know, maybe people have noticed when you are out, you know, maybe amongst long, large groups or, you know, just out and about, that many people, you may have noticed that many people are overweight. I think with it’s thought that it's about three quarters of the population is either overweight or obese. So that's a pretty significant amount of the population; 75% of the population being in that category.

A friend of mine recently asked me if I've been busier now than before the pandemic. And the reason why she had asked is because when she was at her local government office to renew her driver's license, you know, everybody's favorite activity. We all love to be there. And during her two hour wait, which probably not an…

LEAH: Not an uncommon experience.

What are some of the reasons why people gained weight during the pandemic?

TERESA: Oh no. She noticed that it just said it looked like that both men and women were really struggling to maintain a healthy weight or be in a healthy weight range, that there was just a lot of people that were overweight. And so she was just curious if, if things have been busier for me, because, because of that. And certainly the COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of many people and their health and their weight. You know, and it's just even just a part of the society we live in. Right? We, we talk about that all the time where food, particularly highly palatable foods, things that are particularly delicious.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: Which usually means it's high in sugar, high in those fats, and not that we're against eating fat, but high in sugar and a lot of times the bad fats.

LEAH: Yep. Yep.

TERESA: But they're everywhere we go. We just can't really get away from it. There's just so much food around all the time, and in some ways it's a blessing and in some ways it's a curse.

LEAH: Yep. Absolutely. Yep. Two sides to the same coin. Right? Yeah. And yeah, when it's in your face all the time, there's only so much you can do sometimes to try to resist or try to kind of set up your environment to try to kind of stay the course with healthy eating.

TERESA: Yeah.

LEAH: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the weight gain during the pandemic is such a health concern, the NIH, National Institute of Health, they really wanted to investigate this to really figure out and get into the nitty gritty, like how many people did this affect? So they conducted a national assessment of weight gain in adults during the first year of the pandemic. So think back, you know, 2020 into 2021. And they had over 3,000 people who participated in this study. And the NIH found that 48% of adults gained weight during that first year of the pandemic.

34% of adults remained the same weight and 18% lost weight. So, I mean, it's pretty close to 50/50 as to whether you gained weight or kind of were able to maintain or lose a little bit of weight. One thing that I thought was kind of interesting was that 65% of those who were overweight before the pandemic gained even more weight. So it just kind of lends itself to say like, okay, if weight was a struggle for a person or a group of individuals beforehand, it likely continued or maybe was exacerbated with the pandemic, with the lockdowns and everything that changed during those three years.

And there was one study that I looked at. This was even a couple of months ago. We were having this conversation as our, our group, our nutritionist group of, okay, how does, how did having COVID or how did the pandemic affect people's metabolism and weight and things like that? And I found an interesting study that was published in May of 2021. So again, kind of towards the beginning of the pandemic. And what that one found is that people who had COVID so actually had the infection and they ended up in the hospital. And during that process, during their, their infection process, they lost weight. What they found is in the months following that infection, when people kind of started, were able to eat normally again and, and bring their weight back up, that most of that weight gain came from fat as opposed to putting their muscle mass back on.

So, and that has long-term consequences for our metabolism and just how our bodies look and for our body composition. So it kind of reinforces what you said, Teresa, of the bottom line is that the, that the pandemic really had a significant impact on people's weight: yes, and just overall health.

TERESA: And I think that's from my understanding too, is really when we get sick and we lose weight rapidly because we're not eating. A lot of times we don't feel like eating. And a lot that happened with a lot of people with…

LEAH: Absolutely.

TERESA: I just don't feel like eating, so sick or no sense of smell which means really no sense of taste. And so so food isn't as desirable; that what happens is that the body kind of eats itself. And it's preferred, I mean, we need protein in our, in our body to, to run our body. And so it, it disproportionately uses that muscle mass versus that fat mass like you were saying. So then when you gain that weight back, it's work to put on muscle.

LEAH: Absolutely.

TERESA: And so when the weight comes back, it comes back more as fat mass, just as you were saying, and then puts you at a metabolic disadvantage.

LEAH: Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely.

TERESA: Going back to that NIH study, they found several factors that caused weight gain. And I think that probably some of you could come up with some of these factors, you know, just without being a part of the study. But during the pandemic, many people actually probably most people experienced high levels of stress. This high stress was linked to the fear of maybe getting the virus and ending up in the hospital, being on a ventilator, perhaps even just being afraid of dying.

Many people were isolated from their friends and family, and were really lonely. And we know with working with clients that loneliness is a factor in health and weight gain. And people turn to food for comfort or for entertainment, just something to do when you're lonely and by yourself. Some people felt an increase in stress because they actually lost a friend or a family member to the disease. Some people lost their employment or other people, their stress increased because they were, you know, perhaps their profession; maybe they were nurses; they worked really long hours under pretty difficult conditions and had lots of stress.

LEAH: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: Many of us had children at home. So it, you know, we were educators. We had to juggle our kids' needs while trying to work from home.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: Even the gym shutting down. I mean, that was a place where people could go to relieve some stress. And those were shut down. So we had less physical activity and less physical activity can lead to more depression and anxiety. And so there were just a lot of stress factors that were involved there.

LEAH: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Just like a huge, perfect storm to really throw a, a lot of us off our game.

TERESA: And like you said, with it being people who, the people who tended to gain weight during the pandemic were people who had already struggled with their weight prior to the pandemic. So it really was that perfect storm of all these conditions that were maybe already challenging, even more challenging and setting up for that weight gain

LEAH: Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. It's clear that stress is a huge contributor to weight gain. And as we just discussed, it's also apparent that people need people. We just, we don't do well when we're by ourselves. And I mean, that goes back, I mean, tens of thousands of years. This is how we've, we've developed. So we're going to address more of weight and weight loss habits that we can implement to start kind of, kind of undo that, that knot that we've a lot of us have gotten in. We'll do that on the other side of break.

TERESA: You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Have you been to the farmer's market this spring? It is a favorite activity for many families. Wednesday, June 7th at 6:00 PM Marianne will teach us Kitchen Tips for Farmer's Market Vegetables. These are fun and inspiring classes that will teach us how to use all that great food that we can find at the farmer's market. She will teach you how to get your whole family loving those vegetables. So if that is a class you're interested in, call us at (651) 699-3438 to sign up or just sign up online.

Sign Up for a Cooking Class

BREAK

Weight loss tip: drink ample water

LEAH: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Here is a little known weight loss tip that drinking ample water each day can help you manage sugar cravings. So I know I, I tick those earbuds a little bit. How much water? I know everyone's out there begging to know the answer to that question. We say aim for at least your typical 64 ounces or about eight glasses of water a day. Some people may be able to push that even a little more. I, one thing we often talk about is half your body weight in water, half your body weight in ounces of water. Let me clarify that. So if you take your body weight, divide that by two, that's the number of ounces you're aiming for for water. So this can be an easy fix for sugar cravings.

And one way to get that in, I mean, we talk to our clients about this, Teresa, and we were just talking about this on break, is like, we start early and you keep going because if you wait until you know, noon or two o'clock or something like that to get started, then it gets backlogged at the end of the day. And then you get busy, you forget about it. So it's like, how can you, that's one tip for getting that water in, is how can you set yourself up in the beginning of the day to get started and once you're started, it's easier to keep going at that point.

TERESA: Yeah. So you got to create a habit around water.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: Right?

LEAH: Yeah. A habit around water in the morning. And I, we were talking like, one thing that I do the night before, I fill up kind of two big water bottles worth and just leave them on my counter. And my deal with myself is like, I have to start into both of those in the morning before I have my coffee. So it's, I mean, it's not a huge amount. I'd say I'm definitely getting in eight to 16 ounces in the morning, but I know I got to have water before I have coffee. And that's my deal with myself.

TERESA: Yeah. I'm the same. So I, I, I, I think my glass is 20 ounce, but I'm not positive on that, but it is the same sort of thing. I have to drink it before; my deal with myself too; maybe I got it from you, who knows? But I have to drink it before I have coffee because it's so easy to sit and sip on your coffee all morning long, and then you're like, then, because then you don't feel like you're thirsty because your mouth has, it's, it's wet from the coffee, right? So you don't have that thirst mechanism. And so really getting that water in right away to rehydrate the body after sleeping all night. All that breathing all night long. I mean, our lungs use a ton of water. And we wake up dehydrated. So yeah. It's a great habit to start off with and to really get hydrated to help with the cravings; sugar cravings or just energy levels, making your brain function well.

LEAH: Yep. If you're prone to headaches or migraines, like that's one of the first go-tos is just making sure that you're staying hydrated. So, yeah. Water plays a huge role in just how we feel every day. And it's, I mean, it's not super sexy, but it's, it's a foundational, it's a foundational habit for sure. So we were talking before break about weight gain during the pandemic. This is, I'm throwing it back to that NIH survey that we talked about in the beginning.

They found that about half of adults gained weight during the pandemic, and there was a lot of reasons behind that. And, you know, really extra weight does carry its own health risks. So this is our focus in today's show is, alright, what are some weight loss habits that we can start practicing now today, this weekend to start trying to unweave that web? And one of them is drinking water, and we're going to touch on a couple others throughout the show.

TERESA: Yeah. And I mean, really, what's your first thought when you've gained weight? So what, what are people thinking? Do you think as, as they're coming out of this pandemic and they've gained weight? Is it, will I have to eat less and, and exercise more?

LEAH: Yeah. Makes sense logically, right?

TERESA: Yeah. For many years, the cause of weight gain and obesity has been described as an energy imbalance between the calories consumed, so the calories we're eating and the calories expended; the calories we use to either just run our body, you know, at, in a state of rest or in exercise.

LEAH: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: So for many people, they've gone to the doctor's office. You have to step on the scale. We all love that to be weighed in public. I mean, I know it's just you and the nurse usually, but it still feels very public.

LEAH: Yep. Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: So you have to step on the scale. And if you happen to fall in the overweight or obese range, typically what you're told is something along the line of that equation of calories in, calories out. So if you are eating less calories than you're burning, then you will lose weight. And there's some truth to that. And, but there's more to that story and we'll get into that in just a minute. But that was the typical message that was taught in medical schools and actually in dietetic programs as well, is that calories in versus calories out.

LEAH: Right.

Weight loss is not as simple as calories in, calories out

TERESA: But in 2020, that old message was challenged when there was a major study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And what that study had pointed out is that obesity is not just an energy balance disorder, but more of a hormonal disorder that dictates fat storage and how well your metabolism, your, your metabolism works, regardless of the calories you're eating.

LEAH: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: So low calorie starvation type diets are not necessarily the answer or not not the answer at all, actually.

LEAH: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And I think maybe one way to summarize that is that it's not just that you can't do math. It's not just, again, a calories in, calories out, simple math equation. What we forget is that there's other inputs in there and it's what those calories are doing to your hormones that can make a world of difference in how that metabolism works.

Focus on the quality of food vs. quantity

So we can, this is one big message that we try to hammer home here on the show with our clients, with our students, is that here's a great weight loss habit of focusing on quality of the food that you're eating rather than trying to micromanage the quantity of the food that you're eating. Mel and Britni made a great point last week, and they were using this in the context of like, when you're sick and, and you don't really want to eat, that every, every bite matters at that point. And we're trying to get in as much nutrition into every bite that we can.

But we can also look through that same lens right now of really when it comes to if you have goals around weight loss, if you have goals around controlling inflammation, if you have any kind of health goals, really, you can use food to your advantage and make every single bite count. So quality versus quantity is a great place for so many people to get started. And then you, again, you don't have to kind of obsess about numbers or really try to micromanage those tiny little numbers.

One example of this, and I think we'll get started into the example. We may, we may have to go to break before we finish it, but if we think about the way many people start their day, like breaking that fast, breaking, having breakfast, and if they're breaking that fast with muffins, bagels, cereal, toast, so those more processed carbohydrates that really drive our blood sugar up, that is a great example of, and we'll, we'll talk a little bit more about this as a more of a fat storing type of breakfast.

So if we can shift people to getting more vegetables, if we can shift people to switching those carbs into broccoli, snap peas, sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini, these are the foods that you can pluck from the ground and there's a lot of nutrients that come along for the ride with these foods. You throw in a little bit of protein in there and it is a dramatic difference in how your metabolism is going to function not only in the morning, but how it functions then the rest of the day.

And this was, we actually had this very, this particular question that popped up in our Nutrition for Weight Loss private Facebook page. There was an article that had been posted by a major medical establishment here in the U.S. about you know, people who skipped breakfast versus people who ate breakfast, there wasn't much a difference in terms of weight, but when you really dug into that, what we found is that the people who were eating breakfast were breaking their breakfast, you know, doing their breakfast with oatmeal, with rice, with toast, with, again, more of those starchy types of carbohydrates, where what we talk about is we still, we want to use vegetables mostly, maybe a little bit of fruit for our carbohydrates. And then if you tag in some of that protein, it again, changes, it shifts that metabolism to keep those blood sugar steady and to keep that metabolism humming in more of a fat burning mode.

TERESA: Yeah. Really. And, and a lot of what that is, is doing is what is the, what is the chemical messaging that those foods that you're eating is doing in your body? Because there's a big difference from eating a pile of pancakes and having eggs and sweet potato and spinach. You know, there's, those are two different, two different messages. And it could be the exact same number of calories.

LEAH: Totally. Mm-hmm.

TERESA: Well, you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. And a big part of today's discussion of weight loss habits is around stress. And we'll talk about lack of sleep coming up here. We often need a little help from key supplements to calm down our minds and support a good night's sleep. And during the month of June, our Nutrikey magnesium products, 5-HTP and L-theanine are all 15% off this month. These are great sleep supporting supplements and this is a great time to try out these calming supplements and see what works for you. If you need some help, call us at (651) 699-3438 or read more on our website at nutrikey.net.

BREAK

Ideas to jazz up water

LEAH: As a mother of two very young children, I'm always on the lookout to how can I level up my kids' nutrition and what they're choosing to put into their bodies. One thing that I've really made a conscious effort to do with my kids is not bring juice into the house. Now my son is at the age where he's discovered juice in other areas of life. And so one thing that I will do to just kind of jazz up his water and make things a little more fun is I will mix in a little of our Key Greens fruits and vegetable powder into his water. And he used to call it his, his special water. I love the pink lemonade flavor for that, but I will mix a little bit of that into some regular water. So I know he's getting some antioxidants. It tastes great. And again, like he, when, especially when you tag a, a funny name onto it or something special like that, like kids gravitate towards that stuff.

So that's one trick that I've used, and when I'm talking with clients or, or if we're talking with people in class, I mean, one example, like if you have kids or maybe even for yourself, if you're used to, if you're already kind of on the juice train, should we say, would you be willing to start maybe cutting that juice with a little bit of water or even some sparkling water; some, some non-sweetened sparkling water if you want a little carbonation in there and gradually, I mean, some people can go a little faster than others, but gradually start to shift that ratio to add more water or more of the sparkling water and start to reduce, or eventually kind of long-term goal of getting off the juice, getting some of those liquid sugars out of the diet and out of our kids' diets really can make a huge difference in their blood sugar, behavior, things like that.

And those Key Greens that I mentioned, I mean, I've made like some of our smoothie recipes and poured those into popsicle molds also. So if you're looking for a fun summer treat. I know we have a couple popsicle recipes on our website, but you can do that with a smoothie or even just use the Key Greens with some water. It's a fun little summer treat, and again, it's a way to get a little something sweet in there, but know that they're also getting some great antioxidants in there. So when, you know, for my kids, when I'm working with clients who have kids, just trying to figure out those fun little healthy kid treats, it's, I mean, it just makes life a little more fun and enjoyable and gets some buy-in.

So we, before break, we were talking about, we, we kind of put a comparison between two different breakfasts, a breakfast that contains more processed, refined carbs like toast and bagels and cereal versus a breakfast that most of the carbohydrates are coming from vegetables, maybe a little bit of fruit, some berries, something along those lines. And saying that even if those two breakfasts are identical in calories; they have the same number of calories; those two breakfasts are going to act very differently on our hormones and specifically the hormone, insulin.

Insulin’s role on our metabolism

We've talked a lot about insulin on Dishing Up Nutrition. We're going to talk a little bit more about it today. But this goes back to what, Teresa, you were saying of it's not a calories in, calories out math equation. It's how those calories impact our hormones that can make a huge difference with our metabolism.

TERESA: Right. And when you eat a processed carbohydrate breakfast, you put your body in that fat gaining mode. And sometimes this is just about even just by accident because we've been told oatmeal is a great breakfast or cereal is a great breakfast. So it's not even that we're purposefully putting ourselves in that position. Maybe we just don't know. When you eat that breakfast of processed carbs for breakfast or anytime during the day, rather than having our carbohydrates come from vegetables, you, what you're doing is you're stimulating your pancreas to produce too much insulin and then you're flooding your body with this excess insulin. That puts our body in a physiological state for increasing our fat mass or creating or gaining weight.

Weight loss habit: eliminate processed carbs & added sugars

So we can turn down that dial on insulin. We can actually tap into our fat storage for energy rather than add to that fat storage or our adipose tissue or fat mass, that sort of thing. So a weight loss habit that we can do is to eliminate processed carbs from our diet. Especially if you are in, I mean this is good for anyone, but if you were in that prediabetes or overweight category, it is critical to normalize your insulin level to prevent fat storage.

So for a weight loss habit, would you consider eliminating processed carbs for three weeks maybe? Do this as an experiment to see how you feel and maybe see its effect on the scale. So those processed carbs, that means all the things that Leah and I have been talking about. That could be crackers, popcorn, muffins, cookies, candy, bagels, bread, pasta, chips, pizza: those types of foods.

LEAH: Yep. Yes. And some people have a good handle on the processed carbs. This would be a great place for many people to start, again, just kind of overhauling or just trying to look even for a few weeks of where are those processed carbs sneaking in? If you are ready to take that to the next level, what about just looking at sugars in general, those added sugars, and especially being a detective for that high fructose corn syrup. Have you ever checked the sugars in your favorite coffee drink from the coffee house? Have you ever checked your salad dressing bottle. Right?

TERESA: Yeah.

LEAH: Have you or the fruit smoothie that you get at the big box store as you're walking out of like, you know, it's, it's under that guise of a fruit smoothie, but what are they using to sweeten that up? Or like, could that be a spot where that high fructose corn syrup is, is hiding. And, and we do pick on high fructose corn syrup a little bit more because it is processed in the body a little differently than your regular table sugar. It actually has a bigger impact, a bigger detrimental impact on the liver. And it just kind of fast tracks you a little bit more for insulin resistance and fat storage. And, and this is something actually that came up in our recent nutritionist meeting also is fatty liver disease because it's, it's just kind of adding to the fat stores in the liver. And then again, like you just don't have a well-functioning metabolism when your liver is kind of gunked up.

Magnesium Glycinate helps with insulin resistance

So if you know you have, or that you suspect that you have insulin resistance or prediabetes or, or you are in over type two diabetes, in addition to watching out for those processed carbs and the sugar and the high fructose corn syrup, you may also want to consider a Magnesium Glycinate supplement. Just because insulin resistance, when people are insulin resistant, they're often deficient in magnesium.

And magnesium is our big relaxation mineral. So if you have trouble sleeping or if you deal with eye twitches or muscle cramps, magnesium is so great. But magnesium is also really critical for helping us regulate our blood sugar. I'd say most of my clients find their sweet spot between 200 to 400 milligrams of magnesium. I'll often shoot higher if people kind of have, if you're checking a lot of the boxes of magnesium deficiency symptoms. So again, that magnesium glycinate is the form you're looking for and probably around that 400 milligram mark for a lot of people.

TERESA: Yeah. And I do the same. Yeah. 400 milligrams is a great starting point for most people.

LEAH: Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

More on sugars that impair metabolism and liver

TERESA: Just to just talk a little bit about that high fructose corn syrup, as you were saying, you know, an overburdened liver, it slows metabolism, so if we’re eating a lot of foods with high fructose corn syrup, but something that you had mentioned about like the box stores and, and getting the fruit smoothies, I happened to be in a fruit smoothie place the other day and I noticed that several of the smoothies were sweetened with agave nectar. And agave nectar is 90% fructose.

LEAH: Yes, it is.

TERESA: So high fructose corn syrup is, is it 55%?

LEAH: It's something around those; yep.

TERESA: 45%, you know, glucose or whatever like the other, the other sugar.

LEAH: Yep.

TERESA: But agave nectar is 90%. So even the natural agave, you know, nectar, which is supposed to be or is touted as healthy, is actually really hard on the liver.

LEAH: Yeah, absolutely.

TERESA: And you know, the liver, it's involved in breaking down fatty acids to be used for energy in the body when we're losing weight. We want to do that. But an interesting fact is that fat actually leaves the body through our lungs. Did you know that? Like it's expelled in carbon dioxide, so so we have to break it down and then the metabolism of that to get rid of it is actually, most of it's in breathing. And then some of it in sweat and urine. So…

LEAH: Totally.

TERESA: I thought that was really interesting.

LEAH: Yeah, absolutely.

Weight loss habit: eat sufficient protein

TERESA: Alright, to shift gears a little bit here for other weight loss habits: protein, we can't ignore the fact that protein is such an important, plays such an important role in metabolism and weight loss. So maybe one of those habits that you could start is getting adequate protein in your diet and maybe making sure that you're jump starting your metabolism right away in the morning with getting a good protein-based breakfast.

What we recommend is eating four to five ounces of animal protein for breakfast, four ounces for lunch, four ounces for dinner. For the best weight loss, our bodies really need about 30 grams of protein per meal and, you know, maybe a little bit more at snacks. Four ounces of protein is about 28 grams. So if you have just a little over four ounces, you'll be hitting that 30 gram mark.

LEAH: Right.

TERESA: So an example of that is you could eat a couple of eggs, a couple of ounces of turkey sausage, or you could have a protein shake and maybe throw an extra scoop of collagen powder in it to bump up that protein. But everything that goes on in your body really starts with protein. So again, I mean, if we want to do a three week challenge, eliminate those processed carbohydrates and bump up that protein, and evaluate how you feel, see how the scale responds.

And what I suggest with people too is really marking your calendar to see if you have you know, just so you can watch the time. The, that first few days goes a little slow. But then it's really interesting to see how fast time goes by when you're tracking something like that. So I'd say find a way to track it and see.

LEAH: Right.

TERESA: And yeah. And that protein is so important. It really helps to maintain muscle mass and we need that for our metabolism. And also, you know, it's just important to really, for that muscle mass, it's really important to just get that in the beginning part of the day.

LEAH: Yeah, just like water; get started early and keep going.

TERESA: Right. Right. And when we establish those habits early in the day, it's easier to maintain them through the rest of the day.

LEAH: Absolutely.

TERESA: Because we're doing so well, right? We got to keep, stay on a roll.

LEAH: Yep. Absolutely.

TERESA: Well, you're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. For those of you who have taken our Nutrition for Weight Loss Foundations classes, you probably know that we have a private Facebook group for you. If you have taken the classes and are not a part of this group, I encourage you to join. It's an active Facebook page and it gets a lot of great questions, suggestions, tips and tricks about real food. I also host some Facebook lives and I do this about once a month.

So I invite you to join me on my next live. It's on June 9th and it'll be at noon. It is recorded, so you can catch it at another time if you want. But if you have a question, please post it on that private Nutrition for Weight Loss page, or you can comment on my post when I announce when the live is coming up.

That way, if I need to research your question, I have a little bit of time. I just like really like answering the questions that you personally want answered, such as, I don't know, are artificial sweeteners better than regular sugar? Or are the dark orange eggs, egg yolks healthy? So just fun questions like that. Or it can be a little deeper than those as well. So it's just another fun way to connect with like-minded people. We'll be right back.

BREAK

Weight loss habit: eat a balanced bedtime snack

LEAH: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. I want to share one of my favorite bedtime snacks, and it has been for years. I mean, this is my, probably my favorite go-to. I take an apple, slice off a couple of slices, you know, it's about a half of an apple, especially if you're getting the really big softball size apples. And then I like to put either peanut butter or almond butter on those apple slices. And there's just something about like the sweet and the creaminess that go together really nicely, especially if you are a person that kind of likes that topping off of sweet at the end of the day.

And there's, I mean, there's lots of different ways that you can go about it. If you can get the fresh ground peanut butter like that levels it up even just a little bit more. But it's, it's a simple treat and it's carbohydrates that your body knows what to do with it. And then the fat really keeps kind of a cap on your blood sugars so that you don't spike blood sugars, especially during the night. You keep them pretty even keel throughout the night. And it's, for some of our clients that really makes a huge difference in how well they sleep during the night or it prevents them from waking up at 3:00 AM because their blood sugar has dropped. So weight loss, another weight loss habit for some people could really be putting an intentional evening snack in there, a little bit of fruit, a little bit of fat, and just see how you sleep that night.

So before we went to break, we were, Teresa was just talking about the importance of protein and protein being huge for our metabolism and for that weight loss process. I wholeheartedly agree with that. Protein is one of my favorite nutrients to talk about, and it is like the builder for our, for our cells, the builder for healthy cells and a healthy immune system. We've been talking a lot about COVID this, this show also, but some people struggle getting that protein in. A lot of people struggle with losing weight. I mean, losing weight is hard work to have that consistency day in and day out.

How can you stay supported for help with weight loss?

So many people do much better in a group type of setting, a support type of group that is like our Nutrition for Weight loss Foundations class or our newly developed Ongoing Support and Education sessions. I mean, really this is what they are designed to do. The pandemic taught us that people need people for support and accountability, friendship, comradery, and just to kind of know you're in the good fight with other people. So we know that we're with like-minded people when we are in these classes, so people are a little more apt to share and just be open about their struggles or what works for them. And I really love when I've taught, especially the OSE classes the last couple of months that when, you know, I might have some ideas, but I think my clients and my students have even much better ideas than I do most of the time.

TERESA: I agree.

LEAH: Yeah. So it's like, I love it when they can kind of take over and share and, and you can tell really when it lands with the group too. Like people get excited and they start asking more questions and, and that's what we want out of these groups. So it's a no judgment environment. Everyone is just there to help and support each other. So if you are in that camp and, and you're someone who definitely needs other people around, you look into one of those classes.

Sign Up for Nutrition 4 Weight Loss or Ongoing Support and Education

The stress connection to weight gain

TERESA: Yeah. And I think it's also a stress reliever for people. You know, when they come into those classes, I think that a lot of their stress level comes down at least for that hour. And I think that would be an interesting thing to talk about as far as weight loss and weight loss habits as well is that stress and how stress is connected to weight gain. You know, when you're faced with chronic long-term stress, your adrenal glands, these are, you know, they're little almost triangle shaped glands that sit on the top of your kidneys. So these adrenal glands, they release cortisol, which is another hormone.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: Cortisol raises your blood sugar and it stimulates cravings. It can create hunger. It increases the rate at which you can store fat as well. And this is with chronic high levels of cortisol.

LEAH: Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: Cortisol increases insulin resistance and fat storage. Therefore, a weight loss habit that you might need to work on is stress reduction. So then you have to think about, well, what are your stressors?

LEAH: Yep.

What are your stressors?

TERESA: Could it be the caffeinated drinks that you're picking up at at, you know, at the coffee places? Because man, those are pretty high in caffeine.

LEAH: Mm-Hmm.

TERESA: Or very high in sugar too, which can be stressful. Is it skipping breakfast or lunch? These things are stress provoking and cortisol producing. It could also be sort of environmental things. Could it be your worrying about your teen getting home from a night out? Or maybe you're stressed because you are a caregiver for a family member or a friend. Maybe you're dealing with a chronic illness or inflammation and pain. Maybe you have, you know, maybe you have a toxic work environment or it's just you're not in a job that you love. Maybe your stress is coming from not being able to get enough sleep. So with these stressors, some of them are easier to control than others.

LEAH: Yes.

TERESA: And reducing stress is easier said than done, but really just thinking about some of the stresses you can control. We can control if we're going to over caffeinate ourselves. I think we've, most of us have had that feeling where we've had too much caffeine. And you, like you are almost trembling.

LEAH: Yeah. Or it's like an anxious type of energy.

TERESA: Yeah. That's stressful. You can physically feel that stress or maybe you've had something that's really high in sugar and you don't feel so good. That's also stressful for the body. So we can control those things. Not skipping meals: we can control that. And sleep to some degree we have some control over.

LEAH: Yes. Yeah. There's definitely, there's definitely aspects of sleep that we have more control over than others.

TERESA: Some people really wish they had more control over it.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: It's a tough one.

Lack of sleep leads to higher cortisol levels

LEAH: Yeah. As moms, you and I were just kind of lamenting on that a little earlier. But we, we do know that people who get less sleep overall or the quality of your sleep is really poor or it's interrupted, those people are going to have higher cortisol levels compared to the people that are able to get a, you know, a good solid seven and a half to nine hours of sleep. And in sleep deprived individuals, and we've all probably been through those seasons in life where you are more sleep deprived than others. Have you noticed you have more cravings at that point? Do you crave more sugar? Do you crave that energy boost from the caffeine?

Your blood sugars are usually a little more difficult to regulate when you're sleep deprived. And if you just think about it too, when you're awake longer, like there's just more opportunity to eat, and I have yet to meet the client that says like, okay, well at the end of the night I'm going to sit down with this big bowl of chicken and broccoli and go to town on it. We're typically not choosing those real foods or like a good high protein type of meal at the end of the day. When you're stressed and tired, you tend to go more for the sugars, the carbs, the, the refined oils or the fats and things like that.

TERESA: Even just the simplicity. I mean, when it's late night eating, you're not in the mood for cooking. You just want to run to the pantry and grab a bag of whatever. Or the freezer and grab the, you know, the ice cream. You don't really want to put a lot of work into that food and we know that real food takes a fair amount of a certain amount of work.

LEAH: Yep. And yeah, exactly. And so that's where, kind of throwing back to my example of like even an apple and peanut butter, like we try to keep it as simple as possible for people just to eliminate that barrier of yeah, like now I have to wrangle my brain together and try to think about, okay, what am I going to do at this point?

TERESA: Yeah.

LEAH: Yeah.

TERESA: Yeah. And then it's also controlled when it's planned like that, that, that snack size is controlled.

A few tips for getting good quality sleep

LEAH: Yeah. Yeah. It's intentional, it's controlled and that can make all the difference for a lot of people. So if sleep is something that you struggle with, this would be a great opportunity to make an appointment with one of us, one of the registered dietitians or the nutritionist that we, we work with on sleep issues. We've got a lot of great tools in our toolbox. And it might take several appointments to figure out what works for you.

Schedule Nutrition Counseling

Sometimes we need to make several changes, but we usually get people in a much better place than where they started. Again, it might look like adding a little magnesium, like we talked about before, that 400 milligrams of Magnesium Glycinate. If you're someone where it's hard to turn off your brain, you know, a little 5-HTP or some L-Theanine can really help with that. And if it's more hormonal, some progesterone cream might really be the ticket for a lot of women. So lots of options there, but just know, stress and sleep go very hand in hand. So we try to give our clients the best solutions possible.

TERESA: Well, our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for joining us today.

LEAH: Thank you.