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Rethinking Weight Management: The Hidden Factors of Digestion, Stress, and Health Indicators with Anthony Hartcher
Have you ever wondered why your weight isn’t changing despite counting calories and exercising? The secret to reaching your ideal weight might lie in how you manage stress and your exposure to sunlight.
Join us in this enlightening episode as Anthony Hartcher unravels the complexities of weight loss and nutrition, especially in a corporate setting. Discover how optimising digestion, managing stress, and getting enough natural light can significantly boost your weight loss efforts. Explore the importance of self-awareness and acceptance in overcoming weight gain challenges and learn how holistic approaches can help you manage cholesterol and inflammation. Whether you’re struggling with weight loss or simply want to understand your body better, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips. Tune in and take control of your health journey today!
About me&my health up & Anthony Hartcher
me&my health up seeks to enhance and enlighten the well-being of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food as medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.
Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more
Welcome back to another insightful and exciting episode of me&my health up. I'm your host, Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your wellbeing. And today, you've got me again and I'm talking about clinical insights. Over the last week, I've done 24 consultations over an eight-hour period. So they were intense 20-minute consultations back to back, and I was working with a corporate. And I just wanted to share what was sort of common across the board, across those 24 consults, as to what people were seeing me for. And maybe you can relate to some of these things that are challenging others, because it's a pretty good sample size, 24 in a corporate environment, and it might relate to what you're experiencing. So let me cover the top three, and there's probably a top four, but let's talk about the top three. So the first one was weight loss, the second being cholesterol, the third being iron, and lastly, the problem underneath the problem. So I'll explore that and explain that better once I get to topic number four. So let's start with topic number one, weight loss. Yes, so people were coming to me wanting to lose some weight. They'd gained some weight, they're unhappy with where they're at as to their figure or the weight they're carrying, or they've been told that they should lose some weight because they're pre-diabetic, and that would help with overcoming that diagnosis. So in terms of weight loss, I once thought and believed, and this is probably through my clinical training as a nutritionist, doing my degree, that essentially calories in equals calories out plus accumulation. So if the calories in isn't equalling the calories out, then you accumulate, you accumulate energy. And yes, this is correct to a point, but it's not always the case. There's more to this. It's not a direct correlation or direct cause and effect. There's other things that can be implicating this because I certainly know through my own experience and through working with clients that you can be consuming calories in and burning calories out, but still really not progressing or you are accumulating in this phase. And, and it often frustrates clients because they're thinking, well, I'm doing everything right. How come I'm not losing the weight? Well, let's talk about calories in. So when we start counting our macros and our calories that we're consuming in meals, it's based on ideal consumption, like in terms of if you were to convert that food that you've eating, what does it convert to in relation to energy? And that often, and how they determine this is that they actually burn it in an enclosed system and they see how much energy can be extracted. However, we operate in a open system. Our body is constantly open to the environment. And so we don't live in a closed system. It's an open system that's interacting with the environment. So therefore, it's not like to like. And the other thing is that we don't use all the calories that we put into our body, right? So in other words, we don't extract that maximum amount of calories that are in that consumed, in that food. So some of the calories or the energy is not extracted by the body. And so we actually don't know what we're actually extracting from that bit of food that we eat. And secondly, we're in a opened environment. So that's where it can also fall apart in the sense that it's not really a good indication for the calories you're taking into your body and what you're actually extracting and utilising and the fact that we're constantly interacting with in an open system. So let me further explore this with you. So when we take in calories, we are relying on our digestive system in order to break down that food and to extract the energy from the food. Well, sometimes our digestion system isn't working as well as it should. And so it's not optimal. And so therefore, we're not extracting the energy from the food. We're not assimilating the nutrients and nourishments, the vitamins, minerals from the food. We're not maximising its uptake because of our digestive system is downregulated. Why would your digestive system be downregulated? Well, you could be stressed, okay? So stress is probably one of the most implicating factors that I see on the digestive system. And so stress is like, I was asked this question. So how do I know I'm stressed? Which is a good question, right? Because we can normalise our stress and just think that's normal. So I was explaining, well, it's that sense of overwhelm. It's a sense of constantly doing. You're just constantly doing something, right? You're not being, you're just constantly doing, constantly chasing, constantly doing a to-do list. So that is us moving forward. It is us needing energy to strive for what we're striving for. And our body is producing cortisol and whatnot to help us achieve that. And yes, there is a good form of stress. There's a healthy form of stress. And there's a not so good form of stress, which is distress. So what's the difference between the two? Well, eustress is working towards something meaningful. So you can be busy working towards something meaningful, but you can overdo busy when you're not getting adequate rest and relaxation. And so, yes, there's better forms of stress in terms of you're working towards or doing things that are meaningful to you. So that's a better form of stress. The distress is more associated with you're working and trying to achieve something that's not really meaningful to you. So you get frustrated in this pursuit. So there's a better form of stress and not so great form of stress. But as a whole, when we're not allowing our body to get adequate rest, and how do we how do you determine whether you're getting adequate rest? Well, it's how you wake up. So if you're waking up constantly tired, your body's exhausted. So it's, you know, really tapping into your vitality. Are you feeling vital during the day? Can you stay awake without stimulants? That's a good telltale sign that you're recuperated, you're functioning well, you're finding a nice flow between busy and relaxed and recuperation. And so this is going to be different for everyone. So it's really how you are tolerating your busyness. Are you keeping up and you're getting a good night's sleep and you're waking up, regene... you know, rejuvenated, you don't need stimulants during the day to keep you going. So that's a good telltale sign that you're actually working well and coping well with stress. The other thing I pointed out to the individual was worry. Are you constantly worried about something? And again, that is putting energy to something that hasn't transpired, but you're creating it in your mind, right? So that can be a huge energy sump in terms of energy loss because we're putting energy to something that hasn't eventuated, but we're manifesting it and feeling it in our bodies. And so that that can be prolonged stress. And we actually, we feel that in our physiology, because we're making it up in our mind and our body's responding as if it's real. So it's really important to understand your stress drivers, how vital you are during the day, how much energy you are, how you're waking up in the morning, all these sort of things, all sort of give you an idea, an indication of whether you're stressed. And if you are, your digestion isn't great. How can you tell if your digestion isn't great? Well, your bowel motions will be a good sign. So your digestion isn't great. If you have runny diarrhea, or, you know, runny stool motions or loose bowel motions, that's not great. That means your food is moving too fast through your digestive system and you're not assimilating much. You're certainly not getting the energy. The other one is that it's not moving quick enough through your digestive system. So you get constipation. So there's the runny stools, which is not great. It means you have inflamed bowels and your body's pushing it through quickly because it's concerned that it's toxic and shouldn't be in there. Or alternatively, you're hanging on. You're hanging on and the digestion isn't working well and it's clogging up and the system is stuck. And when we're not getting out our waste products, then we accumulate toxins and that's not good. So, one or the other, your digestion system is not working optimally. Also, you can tell based on how you're feeling around, like, so are you feeling nauseated? So a nauseation feeling or not hungry can be a telltale sign that you're stressed. Because when we're stressed, we get butterflies in the tummy. There's not energy there to digest food, energy is elsewhere. And that that sort of not feeling hungry is a good sign that your digestion is not turned on. Your vagal tone, your vagal tone isn't active. Your parasympathetic nervous system isn't active. That's the rest and digest nervous system that's automated. And so if you're not hungry is a good sign. So these are some telltale signs around stress and digestion and whether you're simulating the food well or not, and whether you're actually uptaking the nutrients and nourishment. Because we can be eating food, but still not feeling nourished or still not feeling vital because we're not assimilating the nourishment. But there's more to this, right? So it's not just this calories in, calories out. The other thing around calories out, it's an approximation based on studies of certain people. So it doesn't necessarily correlate to you as a person as to how much calories you're actually burning. It just gives you some sort of idea. And so, yes, it might tell you that you've burned 400 calories, but it's just an estimate. It's not an actual number. And, and so that that number can distort in terms of what you're actually doing in terms of burning calories. And so I think a better measure is that if you're not losing weight, is that there's something more to it. It's not just as simple as eating less and exercising more. There's more that you need to do from a holistic perspective. One of the things that I've come across that's really important in terms of weight management is getting our light diet right. So this is the sunlight. And this is what I was sharing in these appointments with the individual is how much time are you spending outdoors? That's a good indication because our internal body clocks need to be regulated by external signals, light signals from the environment, right? And so if we're not getting these light signals from the environment or we're getting incoherent light signals because you're under artificial lighting, you're getting narrow-band blue light, fluorescent light that is not broad spectrum sunlight, then the body gets quite confused. And I'll give you an example. So being under indoor lighting all the time is telling the body that it's the middle of the day, middle of summer, which as we know in the Southern Hemisphere, we're not in the middle of summer. You may be in the middle of the day, but certainly at 8 pm at night, when you've got the lights on in the house, you are not in the middle of the day, but you're telling your internal systems that it is middle of the day. And so the internal systems are thinking, okay, I need to do middle of the day things, which is, you know, push out cortisol, push out insulin, and all these things that are associated with us being active during the day. But at night, we're not active. And so this can explain why you feel hungry at night and you just can't stop eating or you don't feel satiated, you don't feel satisfied. It's because of the blue light. It's your light environment that is giving you this miscommunication because our digestion system ultimately upon darkness should be turning down, should be down regulating, it should be turning off to rest and recover. But if you're getting hunger signals, your body thinks it's the middle of the day because of the artificial lighting. So what you'll want to do in order to improve this situation and get coherent signals between your internal systems and the outside and, and make sure that talking the same language, then we we want to make sure that environment that our body's seeing is reflective of the outside environment. So if it's dark outside, we really want our internal environment to be as dark as possible or minimal lighting. So what's ideal lighting? Ideal lighting is like candle lights. It is the incandescent light bulb and it's turning down or turning off fluorescent lights. They're not great at night because they're sending the wrong signals to your body. And your body's getting confused as to what, as to what it should do. So what I was recommending to these clients was we need to get our internal systems doing the right thing at the right time of day. And the only way we can do that is getting outside regularly throughout the day. So five minutes every hour, 10 minutes every two hours or 15 minutes every four hours is the amount of outdoor light exposure of bare minimum, right? Obviously, ideally, you want to be getting a bit more outdoor time because the other thing I shared with my clients was that when we're outdoors, we're less hungry. And they could relate to this. And they said, oh, when I'm down the beach, I don't feel hungry. I basically don't eat all day. It is because we're extracting energy from our environment, right? We're extracting energy from the, the earthing at the beach, the sand on the beach. We're absorbing energy through that. We're also absorbing energy through the sunlight. And so we are energised through external means. When we're indoors, we don't get this energy. So the only way in which we can energise ourselves indoors is through eating. And so we end up overeating. But if we find a nice balance between indoor and outdoors, then we can really help reduce our overall calorific intake. So that's one of the tips I'd like to give you is spend more time outdoors and your calorific needs will drop. If you improve your light environment at night, you'll consume less calories at night. To the point, if you do it well, you won't consume any calories. You won't be hungry at night if your body's in sync with the circadian rhythm with the night-day cycle. Okay, so that was the first one around weight loss. There's more to the equation than simply calories in equals calories out plus accumulation. We need to get the environment right and we need to sync with the environment. So that's my first tip there. The second one was on cholesterol. So with cholesterol, people are getting blood tests and their doctors are saying, you know, you're out of the normal range. Well, just the normal range is based on a population that might not be indicative of where you're from. It might might not be indicative in terms of who you are. It's not individualised. It's based on a large study of a large population and taken down to a mean value. Well, you might be an outlier and there's plenty of outliers. I'm an outlier, right? And so don't get fixated in thinking that you need to be normalised, right? And so doctors do this because they're trained to keep you in the normal population and if you're not, then you get drugs. And so what the drug companies are motivated to do is broaden that range or narrow that range so that you have more outliers and so more people need drugs, right? And that's their commercial model is to get people on the drugs. And what you'll find is the doctors or the medical system doesn't help you get off the drugs. Once you're on the drugs, you are stuck. They don't give you any further help. You're on drugs. You're under control, supposedly, but it causes side effects, causes other health implications. And what will happen over time is you'll need other drugs in order to support the additional implications that have come from the first drug. And this is why people end up with this massive basket of drug taking and they're still not well. They're still sick. So in terms of cholesterol, what you want to do is look after yourself in terms of empower yourself, do exercise. That helps regulate cholesterol. Get your light environment right. That helps regulate cholesterol. Getting regular detoxification, supporting your lymphatic system through exercise, sweating, making sure you're moving your bowel motions, making sure you're sleeping well, making sure you're managing your stress. This will all help manage cholesterol. But cholesterol isn't all bad. And this is the other thing I was sharing with my clients is from cholesterol, we make hormones, okay? We make our sexual reproductive hormones. You've probably heard of estrogen. You've probably heard of progesterone. You've probably heard of cortisol. You've probably heard of testosterone. All these hormones we make from cholesterol. You've probably heard of vitamin D. We make that from cholesterol. So often it's not, you know, too much cholesterol is bad. It's more, it's more that our liver isn't doing the job in terms of making the hormones that we need and regulating cholesterol in our system. And that could be because of you're too busy. It's got too much work. You're drinking too much alcohol. You don't have a nice, well-balanced lifestyle in terms of moderation. You're doing excessives, excessives and deficiencies in terms of yo-yo sort of lifestyle. So what is more protective of the heart is managing inflammation, not worrying about cholesterol, because cholesterol comes in to fix the damage caused by inflammation. So if you don't have the inflammation, then the cholesterol is not a problem. So it's more important that you manage inflammation and you can manage inflammation in all the ways I shared with you in terms of doing moderate amounts of exercise, not excessive amounts of exercise, getting a good night's sleep, managing your stress, focusing on your priorities, what's important to you, looking after your mental health, making sure you're moving your body, you're sweating, you're eating nourishing foods. All these things will help in the regulation and helping your body work better. And cholesterol isn't the bad guy. It needs inflammation in order to turn into, I guess, a situation that's not good for our heart, right? Leads to heart disease. But it's not just cholesterol. It's a number of things that need to line up. You need to be inflamed. You need to cause damage to the endothelial layer through inflammation. And that could be excessive sugar consumption. It could could be excessive stress. It could be excessive smoke or pollution exposure. So again, if we start just looking after ourselves better, we prevent this damage to the endothelial layer. We'll prevent the plaque building up. So it's not just cholesterol. And so don't think that you need to focus in and just eliminate cholesterol because of the cholesterol that we take in, only 20% comes from the diet. Okay? So it's better to work on the 80%, which I've just shared, those other factors that are more important. And then if you get the other 80% right, then the 20% will take care of itself. So don't get too concerned about cholesterol because you are you. Look after yourself, do the right things as I'm sharing on this Holistic Health podcast, and you will move in the right direction. Don't do anything in excess or don't do anything in extreme. Just do the holistic practises that I share, and that will support moderate your cholesterol. And ultimately, the more concern is excessive stress and inflammation. That's what needs to be managed to a greater degree. Okay, iron was the other one that came up. Iron came up on a regular basis. Oh, you know, I need to watch my iron. My iron's low. Again, this is based on populations that might not be indicative of where your origins are from, might be certainly not indicative of your family, your ancestry genes. So again, it's just trying to normalise you. It's trying to get you to fit into this normal range, but that might not be ideal. So I had a client that was told they had low iron, but they were vital. They didn't have any of the symptoms experienced by low iron. And in actual fact, if you have high iron, you'll experience the same symptoms as low iron. But this client was fully vital. They were feeling great. And I said, don't worry about where your iron's at. You are feeling amazing and you have high vitality. You're not low on energy, right? And so it's not a concern for that individual. And in actual fact, if they started consuming more iron, it may be detrimental to them because iron in excess is toxic to our body. We don't want high levels of iron either. And ultimately, you don't want super low levels. But as to where that optimal amount for you is, you need to go on that journey. You need to get in touch with your body and go on a journey. Your body will tell you things aren't right. Okay? So don't go on blood tests if you're like, like, for example, I'm very vital, but, you know, I'm typically on the low side of iron all the time. But I'm very vital. I don't have any of the symptoms of low iron. And so iron's not a problem for me. I've got the right amount of iron for me. But if you try to normalise me in the population, I don't fit well into the norm. So this is my point is don't get too carried away with trying to be normalised because you are completely unique and special. And no one actually knows what your ideal iron is, no one actually knows what your ideal cholesterol is. So work on managing the whole and don't get so fixated on the one thing because you might be working on the wrong, wrong one thing. It might not be the area that you need to be working on. But people have said, oh, you're not, you're not normal. You're out of the range. Well, I don't want to be normal. I want to be Anthony. I don't want to be part of the herd. I want to be Anthony and the best version of Anthony. So again, listen to your body. If you're not well and your iron's low, then that could be worth putting attention to. But go with how you're feeling. Go with where you're at in terms of your body and don't get too fixated on a number. And then lastly, the problem underneath the problem. So this is like someone telling me that, you know, they're struggling with weight loss, but I need to get to what's driving that weight loss. What is the underlying driver of weight loss? Why are they gaining weight? Is there a benefit for them carrying excessive amounts of weight? Are they hiding something? There's something that they're shameful for in the past that weight protects them from. Is it a bad relationship? Was it that they were super attractive? They had a bad relationship experience and they never want to experience that again. Hence, they're trying to make themselves unattractive. So there can be many drivers underneath the underlying problem. And it's asking the question, why? Why? Why? And in this particular case, I was getting down to the underlying driver behind why they were gaining weight was they had this sense of unhappiness. They had lost themselves. They didn't know who they were. So it was more a depression that was driving the weight gain and the food was helping pep them up. It was helping them make them feel better temporarily. So it was only a temporary, temporary fix. It's not a permanent solution because ultimately they've got this weight gain that now they're told that they're pre-diabetic. And so it's resulting in further health implications, which they don't want. But I was articulating with them that we need to work on understanding who this person is and for them to start living out who they are and not getting lost by comparison and thinking they should be someone else. And so I was asking this person as to what was it they liked when they were a child? What, what did they connect with? What did they love? You know, what's that inner child trying to express that hasn't been able to express themselves? And this person shared with me that I had a really strict upbringing, extremely strict upbringing. I wasn't able to be me. I was always belted into shape trying to, my parents were trying to make me like them and they've lost themselves in that process. And so now the process is to help them find them and to help them reconnect with them, so that they can know who they are and then focus on being the best version of who they are. And then their self-esteem will grow. Their self-confidence will grow. It's when we compare ourselves to others and we're trying to be someone else, we lose our confidence because when we compare ourselves to someone else, we're not them. We'll never be them. We're always going to be second best. But in terms of if we focus on ourselves and improving ourselves every day, then yes, we can be a better version of ourselves. We can watch ourselves grow and not live in the life of someone else and watch their success and watch them develop and thrive. We want to work on ourselves and help ourselves to thrive, develop and grow. So I was asking this person some questions as to what ignites the fire within their belly. What do they get excited about? What brings them to life? And so I was asking them, what do they like talking about in conversations? What do they like doing in the time they're not working or the time that they're... And in actual fact, what I realised is that there is a strong connection with work, the work they're doing, because the work they're doing gives them meaning and purpose. But what I found was that's what they've attached to with work, but they've lost their sense of connection with meaning and purpose from within. And so they find it with work, however, they don't know why they find that with the work they do. The work they were doing was community service or customer service. So obviously, they're helping others. And so what I need to work out is where they're not. So they're most likely, because they're doing a lot of service work, they're giving a lot of self, they're not actually asking for help themselves. And I think this is what I was starting to realise, is that they give a lot in terms of supporting others, but what they're afraid of is asking for help. And it's probably because they were never able to ask their parents for help, in essence, because they are too afrai. They were too afraid that they would be doing the wrong thing or the wrong thing by their parents. So they probably avoided their parents because they didn't want the punishment. And so they're too afraid. So this person, what I believe, is too afraid to ask for help. And they were a bit reluctant to continue the conversation with me because I was really trying to help them. And I hit the cord as to what is driving their weight gain. And then I got them to a point where they're asking me, where can I get help? Who can help me? Who can help me through this? And so that was a win. I only had 20 minutes to work with them. But in the end, they were asking, who can I connect with? Who could potentially help me find my inner child, my inner expression that's never been allowed to express myself? I haven't been able to find myself. I need to rediscover myself. And so now they're open to finding that. And that was a big win in that consultation. So just be aware in terms of summing up that the surfacing problem may not be the problem. You need to find what's driving that problem emerging at the surface, what's underlying all that. Because if you work with what's underlying all that, then you'll dissolve that tip of the iceberg. It will melt, right? If we get to the bottom and really work at the bottom of what's driving this weight gain, ultimate weight gain. So I hope that was insightful for you today in terms of what I've shared from all these clinical consults back to back that I've done over the last eight hours, 24 of them. And I got a good sample size of data as to what's troubling people. And I've shared some insight as to how you can better work with some of these troubling areas that might be associated with you or someone you know. So if you'd like further support in any of these areas that I've shared with you, please reach out. I'd be happy to give you a free discovery session and share some free tips as to what you should be working on or what you could work on to empower you to help you achieve your health goals. So please click on the link contained within the show notes to book a discovery session with me. I would love to help you along your journey. Until next time, continue to health up.
Podcast Disclaimer:This podcast and any information, advice, opinions, or statements within it do not constitute medical, healthcare, or professional advice and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this podcast. Connected Wellness Proprietary Limited, operating under the brand "me&my health up" does not make any representations or give any warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness, or suitability for any particular purpose. This podcast and any information, advice, opinions, or statements within it are not to be used as a substitute for professional, medical, psychological, psychiatric, or any other mental health care or health care in general. me&my health up recommends you seek the advice of a doctor or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Inform your doctor of any changes that you make to your lifestyle and discuss these with your doctor. Do not disregard medical advice or delay visiting a medical professional because of something you hear in this podcast. This podcast has been carefully prepared on the basis of current information. Changes in circumstances after publication may affect the accuracy of this information. To the maximum extent permitted by the law, me&my health up disclaims any such representations or warranties to the completeness, accuracy, merchantability, or fitness for purpose of this podcast and will not be liable for any expenses, losses, damages incurred, indirect or consequential damages, or costs that may be incurred as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason. No part of this podcast can be reproduced, redistributed, published, copied, or duplicated in a form without prior permission of me&my health up.