You Don't Have to Be Perfect to Lose Weight
April 1, 2018
Losing weight is a goal for many people. Listen in as we talk with Nell Kahls, who first came to Nutritional Weight & Wellness 10 years ago. After eating the Weight & Wellness Way, she lost 90 pounds and has been able to keep it off. Hear about her journey and learn more about how you can lose weight the healthy way.
Similar Podcast Episodes
Transcript
KARA: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. This show is brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. My name is Kara Carper, practicing nutritionist for 10 years. You know, when I work with clients I try to find out what they want to accomplish with their health and quite often they will say, I would love to lose some weight. Yes, losing weight is a goal for many and it's a good goal. As a nutritionist, I try to encourage clients to eat better for their overall health, not just so that they can lose weight for a few weeks, but really so that they're healthy for a lifetime because we ultimately know that diets do not work long term. So we're going to talk all about this today and I'm excited to be joined in the studio by a special guest Nell Kahls. Hi Nell, so fun to be on with you again. Nell sat down with me 10 years ago. We just figured that out.
NELL: We did the math. It was 10 years. I can't believe it's been that much time. Ten wonderful years.
KARA: June of 2008, and I don't know if you actually said these words, but, you know, I want to lose almost 100 pounds.
NELL: I believe there was a lot of sobbing that first time. It was a very emotional meeting. I remember I cried probably half of the two hours, but felt hope at the end of it for sure.
KARA: It's a really big deal for someone to pick up the phone and then physically come in for an appointment like that and just say, you know, I'm ready to deal with this.
NELL: Yup. It sure was. It was very, very emotional and I think you were the perfect person for that because you just were so patient and let me cry it out. And I think at that point I had kind of given up. I had been on so many diets. I thought I don't know, I just want to feel better and I did say, you know, if I were to want to lose weight and get to my weight, it would be a hundred pounds and you know, I was so emotional because since the age of 12 I had tried every diet out there and they had all failed me. Right? So with each diet I would maybe lose a little weight at first and maybe a lot of weight at first, but I always got heavier and heavier and I remember it so clearly. It was the summer after my or right before my eighth grade year and I begged my mother to take me to Weight Watchers. I remember she was going to Weight Watchers and that was when they had Weight Watchers in the churches around town. I remember it very vividly and I remember getting my little book and getting weighed in for the first time at the age of 12. It was really, really a sad day in retrospective. I learned how to count calories, to ultimately count points but not how to eat healthy.
KARA: That is sad. I mean, not that goal of losing weight, which is obviously a very good thing if someone needs to lose weight, but we want to do it so that our bodies are healthy. As we know, it's much more than points and calories in, calories out. For listeners, if you haven't heard Nell before, you know, I don't know if we've actually said that she is 90 pounds less today.
NELL: I am maintaining that 90 pound weight loss, which is, you know, after being on diets where you keep rebounding and adding weight on, being able to maintain, and maybe we can talk about this a little later. Maintenance is probably the hardest part of the weight loss journey, but my life is so much better not having that 90 pounds.
KARA: Congratulations again. I just can't say that enough times. Well today we want to share a refreshing concept with all of you listeners and that is the title of our show: You Don't Need to be Perfect to Lose Weight. That may be new information for some people.
NELL: It was new information for me because I felt like if I wasn't perfect, there is no way the scale would move. So just a question here, did you see the newspaper headlines last week that read, "More US Adults Obese Data Shows?" I am happy to share that I am no longer included in that data because I'm no longer obese. I can now admit to the fact that I wasn't totally perfect while I was losing my weight and I'm still not today. During my consultations with Kara, she would continually convince me that I was eating for my health. So it was always your health first. Every time I slipped back into that old dieting mentality and that perfectionistic mindset, she would remind me that my new habit of eating healthy foods was not a diet and it was a way of life and it was a way to be healthy.
KARA:There were a lot of times that you just, like many others, wanted to diet or I think it just becomes habitual and it's really because you had been brainwashed since the age of 12. Kind of feeling like you needed to diet in order to lose weight, you know, you needed to diet. You needed to be counting points, eating low fat or low calorie in order to lose weight. And a lot of people, especially I would say women clients that we have, they have that misconception like, well that's the only way to do it is to count and eat low fat.
NELL: Be really rigid about it. I remember that first time you gave me kind of this set of guidelines and it was so terrifying because it wasn't, you know, you eat 10 points at breakfast or whatever it happened to be. It wasn't very prescriptive. It was giving me the freedom to choose the right foods and I'd never had that before. And so, like I was saying, I started in 2008, but I don't think I really started losing weight until June of 2009 because I was just trying to get my bearings of eating like a human. And not in this ridged way. It was totally new for me. So in reality, back when I dieted, I counted points and I ate really low fat. I actually gained more weight and developed bingeing behaviors. So I remember going to a summer fat camp and that just destroyed my self-esteem.
KARA: What age was that?
NELL: So that was like eighth grade, ninth grade year. So yeah, lifelong struggle, right after hearing the dieting message. For so many years, I believed the only way to lose weight was to really punish myself and punish my body, and how sad that is? I look back at those times and my whole life up until I found Nutritional Weight & Wellness as really just struggling, sad, obsessed with food time. I mean it was always with me.
KARA: Yeah. I've heard you say in past shows that after being at Nutritional Weight &nWellness, you felt free like you were let out of jail.
NELL: It was. I was in a prison of my own making for years and it wasn't even of my own making. It was kind of society inputs, bad advice, bad nutrition advice, all of these kinds of things made this just a really icky time. They were happy times of course, but it was always overshadowed. I always call it, like an albatross around your neck where you're just always weighted down by this thing. Couldn't get a handle on.
KARA: I am sure a lot of people can relate to that.
NELL: I hear their stories when I teach and it just breaks my heart, you know. But there is hope.
KARA: For the past 50 years we've been told to cut calories. We've been told to just cut calories, exercise more. Yet research shows us that adults have continued to put on extra pounds. Nearly 40 percent of adults are considered obese. So not just the category of overweight, but actually 40 percent are now obese and most people realize that being overweight or obese is unhealthy, but today more and more people are falling into these categories. So really that old dieting message of count points, cut calories, exercise more, it's really been the wrong message this whole time.
NELL: So how many of you have found that with each diet you've tried, you've lost weight but then regained more weight and actually ended up heavier. I think that's how a lot of people end up in those obese and severely obese categories is because they are dieters, they are trying. That was me. I think it happens to a lot of Americans because the obesity rate has risen so sharply in the past decade. I think we need to chant "Low fat diets are out. Low fat cookies are definitely out." I could never even just stop with one of those cookies. I would eat the whole package. Low fat yogurt is out, so look at the label. Low fat or fat free yogurt doesn't have fat, but it has lots and lots of sugar. So are you confused? Well, I certainly was, when I sat down with Kara in my first consultation. She said that I need to eat butter, put heavy cream in my coffee and use full fat olive oil salad dressing. I was so sure I would gain weight, but I didn't. I actually started to lose weight.
KARA: Yeah. So when they take the fat out of something like yogurt and it's low fat and people are eating it and they're like, well, this tastes OK. Why does it taste like that? Because they've added all the extra sugar.
NELL: They added the extra sugar. Well look at that it's time for our first break. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. As a person who lost 90 pounds 10 years ago, actually, no, I hit my goal weight, it would have been seven years ago in 2011. I am very, very aware that I need to overeat meat, and I never overeat meat and vegetables, but give me a sugary treat and I really struggled to maintain control. For that reason I decided to look up research about how addicting sugar is for people. Is it addictive to everyone or is it just me? I wanted to know that. I found an interesting study that was published in Neuroscience and Behavioral Review. This study concluded that sugar produced binge-like behavior- ding, ding, ding! We all understand the concept, which is basically I can't stop with one - one cookie, one M&M, one potato chip, one piece of pizza. Sugar produces binge-like behavior, isn't that the truth?
KARA: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. I really like what Nell was saying before break that sugar creates binge-like behavior. So let's take that a step further and how we think about obesity. If a significant amount of the foods on the standard American diet, the SAD diet, is biochemically addictive, full of processed carbohydrates and sugar, then perhaps the entire belief system about having willpower in taking personal responsibility for weight loss, may be false. So if sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are addicting and we're told to eat 100-calorie, three-point snacks full of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, aren't we giving our body and our brain mixed messages? It seems to me that addiction will win over willpower virtually every time. So what's the answer? Well, I'm going to let the expert Nell answer that question.
NELL: I feel like I can address that concern, not only because I have lost 90 pounds, like I said eight years ago, but have been able to maintain that weight loss. So my answer, at least for me is to get the sugar and processed carbs out of my diet. I can't eat a muffin or a cookie or bag of chips or my addiction will kick in and I will want more and more and more. I understand my own biochemistry and furthermore I respect my own biochemistry. And that is what I have learned from my nutritionist is to respect my biochemistry and the whole idea of willpower - not even a thing for me anymore. I mean if you, if you poll the people that I teach in my classes, they all try really, really hard. It's not like they're not trying everything possible to lose weight and they feel so much guilt and shame because they don't have the willpower to do this. And I said, well, I don't either. And they look at me quizzically and say, well you did it. And I said, yeah, because I had fat.
KARA: You ate fat.
NELL: I ate fat and I got the sugar out and that basically gives me that, take it or leave it attitude toward food.
KARA: Yeah. So the foods that we eat can actually change our biochemistry so that we are stronger. I mean, so it's not a matter of having willpower or not having willpower, it's about eating the right foods so that we have serotonin and things like that. So that we look at a muffin and it's not as big of a deal.
NELL: Exactly. We're living in a toxic food landscape. Let's be frank, we can go into a bookshop and you can get all manner of food and cakes and cookies and I think they sell cheesecake at one of the bookstores by my house.
KARA: It's hard to avoid. And you're just trying to get a simple book.
NELL: You can't avoid it. So what I say to people is the way that I eat is really my cravings protection plan. I'm giving myself the base, you know, materials to really fend off all of the food and cravings that I would so naturally have.
KARA: So true. So true. Before break, I think you were starting to get into what you were eating. Did you talk about how you were eating butter?
NELL: You said eat butter, pour some cream in my coffee and I almost fell off the chair.
KARA: And you said you thought you were going to gain but you actually started to lose after eating healthy fats. So could the increase in obesity that we were talking about be reflective of the 23 percent increase in fast food sales that occurred between 2012 and 2017?
NELL: There are still a lot of people in those drive-thrus. I'm always shocked.
KARA: A 23 percent increase in the last five years. And nearly, almost a 10 percent increase in packaged food sales in five years. So of course we know that these packaged foods, you know, it's not like broccoli. We're not talking about vegetables and fruits and things like that. We're talking about processed foods in boxes and they're high in sugar, high in those refined oils and bad fats.
NELL: And if you think of bad fats as those are the fats. Butter is good fat. Bad fats, those are going to gum up your metabolism. That's the way I visualized it for myself. It just kind of gums things up and helps it not work great. So when I took my first Nutrition 4 Weight Loss class, I was still shocked that the teacher was recommending we eat butter, full-fat yogurt, full-fat cream cheese, bacon, avocados, olives, and coconut oil. So when I finally gave up my low-fat eating, I discovered my cravings started to disappear. I felt satisfied for the first time in my life because there's a biochemical process behind it, and I don't need to get into all the biochemistry of it, but the bottom line is that when you eat fat, you feel full and satiated and it really helps your brain calm down about needing the next bite of something.
KARA: And you know, carbohydrates don't do that.
NELL: They don't at all. They actually stoke that fire, especially refined carbohydrates.
KARA: So like somebody has a bagel for breakfast that's not going to be satiating.
NELL: Nope. It's stokes that drive for more. For more of the same for more sugar. So vicious cycle really.
KARA: You'd have, you know, eggs with butter for breakfast on the flip side there. So after hearing the wrong low-fat message for almost 50 years, countless people still believe it's true. However, in 2015 after reviewing all of the research on fats, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for Americans determined there was no reason to limit fat or even to limit cholesterol in the diet. People probably remember this when it came out in the media. Suddenly it was OK to eat bacon and eggs. I think there is even something on the cover of Time.
NELL: Yeah. "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" I believe was the title.
KARA: Was there even a small splash in the media saying butter is good or eat bacon and eggs to lose weight? I mean, there was a little bit. Or children should drink full-fat milk. So there was a little mention of it in the media, but if you didn't catch it, it's probably because it wasn't headlines on every paper. So the food factories happily continued manufacturing all this fat-free, high-sugar food and people are still buying it. Millions of people still believe the wrong low-fat or fat-free message. So if you're listening, is that what you believe? Do you believe you should be eating low fat, fat free or low calorie?
NELL: I hope not.
KARA: I hope not too. You know, that's one of the really big points we're trying to get across today.
NELL: It's not going to help you. So I see that we have Ashley on the line. Ashley called in. Good morning. Ashley, what's your question?
CALLER: Well it's kind of a question about sugar. So I have the same problem as most people I think just saying no to sugar and once I am not having sugar for a while, I'm really good. And then I have one and then it spirals.
NELL: Well, you're in good company.
CALLER: I was wondering, does using sugar substitutes like Splenda or stevia or any of those that give you the taste of sugar, does that have the same reaction in your brain as actual sugar?
NELL: Yeah. Kara you can give the nutritionist perspective about artificial sweeteners, but what I have found in my own personal experience, because I would do that, I would use sugar substitutes back in the day and what I have found about those is they're actually worse than then real sugar. Yeah. I think Splenda is said to be 2,000 times than sugar and so even if it's a diet beverage or something that has zero calories and it has Splenda, when you've been off sugar for a while and you taste something with Splenda in it, you realize, wow, it tastes so sickeningly sweet and what I had found is that it actually made my cravings worse. Kara can you put some perspective on that?
KARA: Yeah, I think that's great. There are really two parts to the answer of that question. The first one is the sweet flavor just perpetuates wanting sugar and something sweet. And there's a lot of research on the downsides of aspartame which is Nutrasweet or Splenda which has sucralose. And you know, to be honest, Splenda has chlorine, I mean some of those things are likened to be like rat poison, to be honest. So, they're very, very unhealthy on top of perpetuating the need for sweetness and more sugary foods.
NELL: Right. And so that's why I say my cravings protection plan, Ashley, is really to eat in balance like you've experienced, once you're eating in balance and you can have that "take it or leave it" attitude toward the sweet stuff, then that's your best bet. But as I'll talk about in just a minute, even after all of my 10 years of experience and eating this way, occasionally I fall off the wagon and I experienced the exact same thing you experience where I'll have a doughnut and then it'll just be the doughnuts will start to stare at me from the cube they're in. I'll start going and having another little sliver and then another little sliver and literally three doughnuts are gone before I know it and that's after all of the work that I've done. I think you're just always a meal or a snack away from just getting right back on track and getting those cravings under control.
CALLER: Awesome. Thank you for the information.
NELL: You're welcome. And we're time for our next break. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. People ask me all the time, what motivates you to cook healthy meals, pack your lunch and snacks, drink mineral water at happy hour, drink coffee with cream and never order a mocha latte? A driving motivation for me is that I come from a family who struggles with type two diabetes and I don't want to get it. I also know from research that the consumption of excess sugar is causing the diabetes epidemic. In fact, in 1980 it was estimated that 108 million people had type two diabetes. And in 2014, 422 million people had diabetes, a 400 percent increase in over 30 years. Why such an increase? It was the beginning of the eat low fat, high carb message. People were being told to eat low fat, high carb by everyone everywhere. Their doctors, televisions, magazines, billboards. Of course, we know processed carbs and sugar increase your blood sugar levels. I am very pleased to say that my blood sugar is very normal at eighty five.
KARA: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition, and I would just like to give out the number before I forget. If you have any questions for us today, feel free to call us in the studio at 651-641-1071. The American Heart Association recommends we consume no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day because research has found that sugar can cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and heart disease. Sugar also promotes cancer. It can increase the recurrence of cancer in patients who have had cancer in the past. Moreover, sugar speeds up aging and it increases the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. Sugar also damages the liver. We hear a lot lately about fatty liver or cirrhosis of the liver and non-alcoholic as well. Fatty liver is the number one cause of liver disease. So do you need any more motivation to give up the sugar? But an example could be the pancakes that you have for breakfast or the doughnut that you grab, the mocha that has 10 teaspoons of sugar, the cookies, the piece of pie and ice cream that you have before bed. So we just kind of want to give these examples because it really is a serious problem for all of these health conditions.
NELL: So before break I mentioned that at the age of 12, I begged my mom, "take me to Weight Watchers with you." But I have to say, dieting at that age of 12, it messed me up for decades. So that summer after my first Weight Watchers meeting, I pretty much starved myself all summer long. I recall eating only dry tuna on lettuce leaves. Yes, I lost weight. A lot of it probably was water weight and muscle. But I fainted numerous times. I always tell this story of fainting in the Kmart parking lot in Burnsville. And what I did that summer, while I maybe got a lot of "hey, you look great," and I was starving myself. That set me up on an awful rollercoaster ride of dieting and losing weight, regaining the weight, plus a few extra pounds over and over and over again until I was a hundred pounds overweight. Then dieting, losing weight, regaining the weight, plus a few extra pounds. I did this repeatedly over the years only to end up obese. So what did I learn about that? I learned to be ashamed of my body. My body didn't need fixing. What I did need was to learn to eat real food and to stop eating processed, packaged junk food. Instead, I learned to buy 100-calorie junk food that I couldn't stop eating and those are those little snack packs or they're still around. A hundred calories of junk, but there are a hundred calories and but hey, they only had three points so I can eat a lot of those.
KARA: I think of like Snackwell's and stuff like that. Oreos as you were saying. Did any of you, our long-time listeners, see the article in the Washington Post in February? It was titled “Weight Watchers is Targeting Teens with a New Free Program.” That's a problem.
NELL: My story says it's a problem.
KARA: Written by Rebecca Scritchfield, she's a dietitian and author of the book Body Kindness, and so what she said in her article, Weight Watchers announced its plans to offer free six-week memberships to kids as young as 13. The company's move is part of a plan to grow revenue and a plan to have loyal customer base for life.
NELL: Well, that is a disappointing turn of events because I was a lifelong customer and look what happened to me? I ended up a hundred pounds overweight. We have another caller Paula, what's your question?
CALLER: Hi, my name is Paula. So my question is that I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and I have a lot of inflammation. So they're telling me do grain-free. So I'd been doing all the baking with all of, you know, the cassava, the almond flour, and for sweetener xylitol. What do we know about xylitol? Could you tell me more about please? Two pounds is like $18.
NELL: Xylitol is a sugar alcohol isn't it?
KARA: It's a sugar alcohol. Yeah. Anything that ends in that TOL. Mannitol, xylitol, sorbitol, erythritol. I know some people do have pretty bad gas and bloating from sugar alcohols so just FYI.
NELL: Yeah. Prepare for that. Yeah. I would say so, I was in your same situation where one of the big motivating factors for me to come see you Kara at first was, it actually wasn't the weight because I've almost been hopeless about ever losing weight, but it was the fact that my grandmother had diabetes, I have a sister with type two diabetes and I was pre-diabetic. My blood sugar when I first hit Kara's office was I think 110 or no, it was 116. So yeah, I was pre-diabetic too. And really what turned that around wasn't, I don't remember you saying like a one to one replacement, like you're eating cookies now, so make cookies with, you know, sugar alcohol and that'll be better. It was really looking at changing the way that I ate to opting for carbohydrates that were more in the vegetable category versus, you know, kind of swapping one baked good for another. So Paula, I totally understand where you are and I would say two hours with Kara or one of our other nutritionists would be the best place to start rather than, you know, a lot of time spent trying to fix the baked goods. I mean, that's my honest opinion.
KARA: I think that's great advice. We also had a show recently that Paula you could listen to. I don't know if you heard the show, but I think it was just in the last month on pre-diabetes.
NELL: Yeah, very powerful stuff.
KARA: That would really be good.
CALLER: Is that for downloading?
KARA: Yes. You could go to weightandwellness.com. Listen to a past show. We also have a Dishing Up Nutrition app, there's a couple different ways that you could listen to that replay and then you know, I think an appointment will also be very helpful, too, because we can put together a meal plan and I love the grain-free recommendations to just make sure maybe everything else is on par.
NELL: Go grain free the healthy way and I can say that even though I didn't start to lose weight right away, I remember that back in 2008 when I started with Kara, my blood sugar started to come down immediately. So that was a very positive thing. Well thanks for calling in Paula.
CALLER: Well thanks for all your information and I'll check everything out. Hope to see you soon.
NELL:Thank you. Have a good day. So that was an interesting call because I was in that same situation and I'm so glad I found you and to guide me through that very scary diagnosis. Because it is scary because diabetes is no fun.
KARA: And it’s reversible like we did talk about in that show.
NELL: Totally reversible. Yeah, totally reversible and in my case reversible very quickly. So isn't it sad that an estimated 45 million Americans are dieting and approximately 91 percent of American women report they're dissatisfied with their bodies? Although it is very sad. I totally understand because after that first summer of dieting and starving myself, I was so unhappy with my body that it sent me on this crazy roller coaster of weight loss and weight gain. It wasn't until I gained respect for my body and started feeding my body with good, healthy fats that I realized I needed to feed my body that protein, vegetable, and beneficial fats to have that body respect.
KARA: So it's already time for our last break.
NELL: Oh my gosh. It's going so fast. We've had some great callers though. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Today I am sharing my insight about weight loss and weight maintenance. To be perfectly honest, I like my weight or like my body and I liked the way that I eat now. Although I have developed a habit over the past 10 years, a habit of eating good food and having good food with me when I'm on the go, I still need a boost from time to time because I respect my health. I make ongoing appointments with my nutritionist to make sure I am aware of my overall health. I still need reminding that my intestinal tract, my hormones, my sleep, my emotions, my knees, because I know it all goes back to my food and nutrition. So to me seeing my nutritionist is the best money I can spend on myself. I learned, we laugh and I leave refreshed and renewed. That is true about my commitment is very energizing, is at time you make an appointment too?
KARA: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Maybe after listening to Nell's story, you have reached the conclusion that you need to learn how to eat better to restore your health. At Nutritional Weight & Wellness we have classes for you to learn and we have nutritionists and nutrition educators to motivate you. A client told me recently after she completed the Nutrition 4 Weight Loss series that she was able to get off her diabetes medications which were costing her a couple hundred dollars each month. So think about that. She's actually saving $2,400 a year and she doesn't have diabetes.
NELL: As an MBA student, I can do a quick cost-benefit analysis for anybody on all the stuff that I used to be on and then they say, well, a nutritionist costs so much money. It's like, uh-uh, $2,400 a year, that's what you save.
KARA: In the big picture. It's not a lot of money.
NELL:Not a lot of money. Nope.
KARA: Our Weekend Weight and Wellness Series is coming up and that's the weekend of April 20-22. And our next Nutrition 4 Weight Loss series is going to start up the week of April 6, actually in eight different locations. So if you have questions about either one of those things, you can call our office at 651-699-3438. If you'd like to just read about the classes to get more information, that would be on our website weightandwellness.com. And we're happy to get you enrolled in a class, set you up with an individual and appointment that's going to work best for your schedule so you can call that number. So before break we were talking, I was going to talk about the Washington Post article that it points out that in 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a clinical paper stating that dieting was defined as calorie restriction with the goal of weight loss, and the paper stated that that was a risk factor for the development of an eating disorder and obesity. So maybe the extra weight on your body is not your fault because dieting, calorie restriction, low-fat and fat-free eating may have set you up to binge eat and have a two-fold increased risk of becoming overweight or obese.
NELL:Oh my gosh. That research is supporting my lifelong struggle.
KARA: That's very recent research. I think that is really interesting.
NELL: Really interesting. I think when we chose the title of this show, "You Don't Need to Be Perfect to Lose Weight," we're trying to say, hey, to lose weight, you don't need to be on a low-fat starvation type diet. There's a better, healthier way to lose weight that not only works, but also keeps you satisfied and makes you feel good, gives you energy. For myself, I know I have to constantly confront my fear of eating fat, eating low fat was such a strong message and it is for so many people for such a long time that it's almost a part of our DNA.
KARA: It really is. I can see that in my clients faces and hear it when I'm doing a phone appointment, you know, they've been eating low fat for 50 years.
NELL: And it's almost like the color drains out of their face.
KARA: They can't wrap their head around the fact that we're recommending healthy fats for a weight loss plan.
NELL: It's terrifying for them.
KARA: Well, you know, there are certain fats that we do need to avoid and those fats are refined oils and trans fats. Those are actually damaging to our cell membranes. So nearly all fast food is going to contain these refined oils, which would be, if we broke it down, you know, they would be soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed, canola oil. Most packaged processed foods are containing soybean or corn oil. So we want to avoid these fats. I really like, you know, Dr. Mark Hyman. Yeah, He's great and he just very recently wrote Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? Which is a great book.
NELL: That is a great title.
KARA: And he talked a lot about soybean oil and that we really should just be avoiding soybean oil. You know, often it's turned into a trans-fat. You'll see hydrogenated soybean oil. And he basically just said that this type of fat makes our tissues inflamed, increases our risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression, homicide, violence in suicides. That may sound crazy but you know, the fats that we eat affect every cell membrane in our body.
NELL: Yep, including our brain cells. That's absolutely right. In many ways that I eat, I am perfect. So especially in regards to eating those good beneficial fats and avoiding the bad damaging fats, I really do steer clear of all of those refined oil including soybean oil. If I see soybean oil on a label, it's gone. So because I don't want to increase my chances of getting heart disease, cancer, depression, or many of the other diseases related to those damaging oils, I wish more people would get on the bandwagon avoiding these bad fats because I truly believe people would have fewer aches and pains, fewer inflammation, and also fewer memory problems. Did I learn about what fats to eat and what fats to avoid when I learned about counting points? Of course not. Many of the hundred calorie, three point snacks contain soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil. I'm sure many of you are thinking, "so where did you learn about eating the right kinds of fats?" I learned about them that first day with Kara and I was one of those people whose mouth probably dropped open and the color drained out of my face. What? I can eat what? And from the many Weight & Wellness classes that I've taken in my life.
KARA: And taught.
NELL: And taught, yep. I get a reminder every time. I've asked myself, how did I not know some of this basic nutrition information? After all, like I said, I'm getting my MBA so I do know how to read and study. I'm not as stupid person. How could I have been using the wrong oils for my body and brain for all of those years before I met Kara, I'm sure my grandmother ate the right kind of oils. I remember her keeping the bacon grease in the pan. She was very wise and she would always say, what is this? And she'd pick up, you know, I think it was Blue Bonnet margarine and she was she'd always say, yuck, real butter only. I thought she was crazy then, but she knew the right information. I am now thoroughly convinced that it is time start teaching our children the correct message about these foods and what foods we really should steer clear of. It seems the food industry is not in the business of protecting our health, but rather it's in the business to make money.
KARA: That's so true. Let's go back to that research from the American Academy of Pediatrics and found that when people, especially teens, were dieting again, which means calorie restriction with the goal of losing weight. So those teens are at higher risk factor for developing an eating disorder, higher risk factor of becoming obese. So dieting, calorie restriction, and low fat eating, it really sets people up to binge and crave sugar and processed carbs. So you can remember that right? That behavior.
NELL: So our goal at Nutritional Weight & Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message that changed my life. Eating real food is life changing and I am a testament to that. So thank you for joining us and we hope that you have a wonderful day.
KARA: And thank you so much for sharing your story Nell.
NELL: I'm always happy to be here with you, Kara.
