health up
Our mission is to enhance and enlighten the well-being of others... welcome to 'health up' - our podcast channel. We provide relevant, real world health guidance that you can apply in your daily life.
health up
Overcoming Stress and Cravings for Effective Weight Loss: Strategies for Better Sleep, Boundaries, and Well-Being
Can stress really block your weight loss progress? Is saying “no” the secret to better health and happiness?
In this episode, join Anthony Hartcher as we uncover the surprising ways stress affects your weight loss journey, from disrupting metabolism to fueling cravings. Through a personal story and real-life case study, we reveal practical strategies to manage stress and balance cortisol for better results.
Feeling overwhelmed by social obligations? Learn how setting healthy boundaries can transform your well-being, helping you stay true to your values while boosting self-esteem and improving relationships.
We also tackle sleepless nights and cravings with actionable tips to optimise sleep and manage emotional triggers. From harnessing morning light to creating calming evening routines, discover how small habits can lead to big transformations. Tune in and take the first step toward a healthier, more balanced you!
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 enlightening episode of m&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 well-being. And today you have me doing that just for you. And we're talking on the subject of weight management, weight loss, and how to optimise it for you and how to get the best out of what you're doing and maximise the results. I've developed this episode based on some questions I've got from the Live Well Fitness Studio members and they've shared their insights as to weight management or certainly the Waistline Challenge program. And they're looking to optimise their results and this is for you members. So I'm just sharing this insight for you and for the listeners of me&my health up. And it's going to be beneficial for anyone listening because ultimately we do struggle with weight management and there's so many implicating factors that get in the way of us achieving our ideal weight or just feeling satisfied with the way we are. So let's get underway with some questions. I certainly want to start with the questions that have been raised by the Live Well Fitness Studio members and I'll provide some additional insight in addition to these questions. So let's get underway with the first question. So the first question is, are my stress levels affecting my weight loss and how can I manage that? And my first answer to that is absolutely. Stress levels have a implicating factor on your ability to lose weight. I recently had a client come to me and he's been working with me for a couple of months and we set him on a good program, really good program, really tailored to his needs, his food liking and it was workable. And he went about and he implemented the program and we're caught up and he's saying, look, I've pretty much been doing everything we discussed. And like, I feel good, you know, my vitality is good, energy levels are good, you know, sleeping better. However, I'm stagnating. I'm not really losing weight. And I asked some probing questions as I do to get down to, you know, what's really driving this. And ultimately, I discovered that he's very busy at work, extremely busy. He's a builder. And as you can imagine, coming up to the end of, end of calendar year, we, uh, approaching Christmas and everyone wants it done before Christmas, wants their projects completed before Christmas. And so those working in the corporate world can also relate to that. Every, everything seems to fall, that everything must finish before Christmas, right? It's funny. It's like the world stops at Christmas. So, so I said to him, I think what's really stopping you, it's not the fact that you're, because he was super active. He does well over, you know, 20, 30,000 and he can steps a day and he can certainly, you know, walk. I think he said he was walking something like over 60 flights of stairs or, you know, in a day. So incredible amount of activity. Eating well based on what I shared with him, he's doing a combination of intermittent fasting and keto like eating. So really into that fat burning, however, not losing weight. And so the busyness is stressful for our body. The over busyness, excessive amounts of workload is a stress on our body. And what happens when we are very stressful, our body goes into preservation mode, conservation mode. So it wants to hold on. Hence why when you see people that are extremely stressed, they generally have a puffy face right there. And what that is, is high cortisol. So it's cortisol that is above normal, in essence, for that person. And with that, we hold on to things. So we hold on to water. So we increase fluid retention and we also hold on and preserve our fat stores because the body wants to keep us alive for longer. And it's what it does is downregulate or turn down metabolism. So in essence, your metabolism slows down. What you do eat could potentially make you gain weight because your body's in preservation mode. It wants to store it. It won't give you the energy that you want. And therefore, you'll generally want to eat more. And so stress has a massive implication on your ability to lose weight. And what I find with this time of the year for the southern hemispheres, I know there's plenty of northern hemisphere is listening to this, but you can apply this when you're entering your summer. Generally, people think, well, oh, I'm going to be wearing less clothing as I, as we go into summer, which we do obviously because it's hotter. And now I'm concerned about I can't cover up what I've gained during the winter months, which you know, so there's that focus on wanting to look better. And what comes with that wanting to look better is that we want to lose weight. It happens to coincide with one of the busiest times of the year, because you think about it, when it starts to get warmer, people get, people get busier. They want to do more. They want to socialise more. And for us, it's tying up, you know, all work commitments and trying to meet clients' deadlines of everything has to be done before Christmas, which I don't understand that deadline, um, maybe because we go on holidays for quite some time after Christmas and not not much happens in terms of a work side of things, but that can that's really good. Because what my client said to me, let me finish the story, was he said, he said, funny you say that, Anthony, I think you're onto something about the stress. Because when I go on holidays, it doesn't matter what I eat, I lose weight. When he's on holidays, when he's relaxed and he's not stressed, he can eat whatever he wants, and he'll lose weight, right? And I said to him, that's exactly what it is. What we need to do is manage the stress, manage the cortisol to help you achieve your ideal weight. And this is the question that's been asked here is, in essence, stress levels affecting my weight loss? Absolutely they are. How can I manage that? So let's get into how can I manage stress. What, as I was sharing with my clients, it really comes down to the individual. It's what makes you present, focused, relaxed. It's what makes you do that. And that's different for everyone. So the question I ask you is, I want you to think about what are the things that you do that relax you, that make you feel at peace, that resonate with your soul, that make your heart sing. What are those things? And do a list, make a list of those things, and then sprinkle them into your day, week, month, year. Okay, so really make sure that you're doing that. So what I shared with my clients was, I asked him, you know, what do you like doing? And he said, I love a massage. And so I said, let's do a massage. We're going to do that minimum once a week. What else can we do? What else can we sprinkle into your week? And he said, I wouldn't mind trying out the the saunas. And I said, fantastic. I said, that's going to help your weight loss journey. So he's now looking at booking in a sauna and the least doing a massage once a week. And then we're going to look at doing more. The more we do, the more productive he is, the more he's more likely to achieve his clients outcomes, and he'll do it with less stress. He'll be in a more flow state. And this really brings me to another point is ultimately, we want to stay in that flow state. And in order to stay in that flow state, we need to make make sure that we don't take on too much that we can't manage. And so we really want to, and this is really about defining boundaries, because part of what happens this time of the year is you get lots of invitations, right? And you feel obliged to go to some of these things, some things you you want to go to, you'd love to go to, right? And so that's another decision-making process that I want you to think about is when you get asked, ask yourself, will me going to or attending this event make my heart sing? Will it bring inner joy by attending, by being at this event? If it's no, then say no. Say no, no, thank you. Don't need to give an excuse. Don't need to say, oh, I'm busy or whatever. Just be clear that thanks for the invitation, but it's not for me. And the more you do that, the more comfortable you get with defining the boundaries and only attending events and occasions that really support your health and well-being. Because when we say yes to something we don't want to go to, it's distressing on the body. And that distressing feeling on the body results in elevated cortisol. And if we don't do things to manage that elevated cortisol, then it becomes unmanaged and that's going to implicate weight loss. So we really only want to say yes to the things that serve us, that are important to us and no to everything else. The other thing that sets you up for is success around defining who you are and building better relationships. Because what you'll find is that you start to hang out in social circles that are more fitting for you, that are more resonating with who you are and they will actually help help you grow and thrive. Whereas when you start to say yes to things that you don't really want to be at, you're hanging out generally with people that you don't want to be with and that is distressing and that puts stress on the body and limits or reduces your ability to lose weight. So we really want to define boundaries around what we say yes to and only say yes to the things that are important to you, that resonate with your, you know, your soul and don't do it to please someone else. People pleasing is one of the biggest causes of stress on planet Earth. So don't people please. The minute you start people pleasing is a minute you're going to, it will, it's essentially starting to deteriorate who you are and you start to lose who you are. You start to lose your identity. You don't know who you are. You're trying to be everything to everyone and we're not. We are unique and special. We have unique and special interests and things that are important to us and our ability to thrive is dependent on our ability to focus on what's most important to us. So focus on what's most important to you and that will send you into an area of growth and thriving. The minute you start to do things that are not important to you, you start to devalue you, de-purpose you and you'll start losing self-esteem, self-confidence because you're playing in a space that you're not comfortable in. I did this and I wasn't comfortable and I didn't thrive. I'm now playing in a space that I love and I feel great and everything I do associated with this space makes me sing with joy from within. And as you can probably tell when I do these podcasts, I'm really enjoying doing this podcast and so don't do things that don't bring you inner joy. Only do things that bring you joy and that's really important around helping you lose weight but most importantly helping you stay on purpose and helping you live a meaningful life. Okay. So it's much bigger than just saying that that no is so important and coming with that no really makes you feel better, makes it easier to say no. Again, it requires a bit of practise because initially, people feel that they don't want to let someone else down or they don't want to feel rejected or left out, right, but you're not letting the person down because if you if you don't want to be there, they can tell that you don't want to be there and they're unhappy with you being in that type of mood. And so ultimately, you impact that relationship by saying yes and by being and turning up, whereas if you said no, everyone that wants to be there hopefully turns up and that person has a great time. So don't think that you're letting that person down. You're letting that person down by attending and not wanting to be there. Only attend things where you want to be there. You'll be present, focused, and you'll create an aura that's attractive. And in terms of, you know, that feeling that I'm being left out or, you know, there's a sense, yeah, maybe it's bit of FOMO or whatever, in essence, by saying no to something that that is not important to you, you're now saying yes to something that's important to you. So there's nothing missing in saying yes to something that's important to you and no to something that's not important. you're not missing out. There's no fear of missing out because you're doing what's truly important to you. Yes, they might be doing something else, but most likely, hopefully, it's important to them and therefore they're growing and thriving. And you by saying no, is you are growing and thriving and there's no FOMO. It's completely nonsense. People like to throw the FOMO thing around because they like that sort of herd mentality that they want you to do what they're doing. They want you to be like them, but that's not honouring who you are. That's not respecting who you are. So yes, we've, I've gone on a bit of a tangent, but a very important tangent because ultimately you will do less of the things that are not important to you and more of the things that are important to you. You won't create disstress in your body and you'll optimise and maximise your ability to lose weight. So it's really important that we manage the amount we take on and only take on things that are going to keep us in eustress. Eustress is good stress. So yes, not all stress is bad. Okay. There is distress which I'm talking about now, which is not so good. It's taking you away from your weight loss goal but there's eustress, which is where you thrive and grow and so we create eustress by saying yes to the things that are important to us and no to the things that aren't aren't important to us. So we want eustress, we don't want distress. And so this helps you stay in flow. In a sense, when you're doing things that you're present and you can stay focused on, you are in a sense of flow. You're not forcing things. So when we're in a force state, we're very much in that state that we're trying to force outcomes. And it's that very much that animalistic state, that animal brain that's running us. It's all or nothing, black and white thinking. It's I've got to have this pleasure or I've got to avoid this pain and so we we force things and ultimately we drive into a direction that is most likely not optimal. It's just the way we know because when we're in our survival brain, we go with what we know as opposed to try new things. Because ultimately, we want to go with something we know in order to get the outcome that we're seeking. Ultimately, that might not be the best path to go down. And so by staying in a sense of flow, by only saying yes to the things you want to do, you find the most creative path to get there. And that most creative path is the most productive path. So ultimately, by defining who you are, by saying yes only to the things that resonate with you, will keep you in a flow state, will keep you in a state of eustress, and will keep you ultimately more productive and less busy. You won't feel busy. You'll feel that you've got space and time. And when you watch any sport, you'll see the best players have space and time because they're in a flow state. They're not forcing passes. They're not forcing kicks. They're not forcing anything. They stay in a flow state and they optimise the amount of space and time they've got to find the most creative path to get the best outcome. And that's how we can run our businesses. It's how we can run our life. We create space and time through being in a flow state by only saying yes to the things that resonate with us. And ultimately, we, we feel like we've got a lot of time and we can therefore find the most creative path and be ultimately most productive. That helps in terms of understanding stress and how it's implicating the body in terms of the mechanisms. What it does is it elevates cortisol. Now, elevation of cortisol is fine in the morning. What you don't want is cortisol staying high all day. You want cortisol dipping in the afternoon because that means you're in the circadian rhythm. Now, when cortisol is dipping in the afternoon, that's great. It's not time to have a coffee. It's hey, I'm in the circadian rhythm. What I probably need to do is get up and away from my desk and move, move the blood around to get oxygen around to sort of bring some energy back. And by moving, we create energy, okay? We create energy through moving. So you don't need to go to the cupboard to get sugar to pick you up, or you don't need to make another cup of coffee to pick you up. Just moving the body will generate energy that will help you get through that mid-afternoon slump. And don't think that mid-afternoon slumps a bad thing. It's perfect. It means you're in your circadian rhythm. We want cortisol dipping in the afternoon and in the evening so that we can fall asleep. Because when cortisol lowers, it allows melatonin to pick up upon darkness. Melatonin is what we need for our sleep, in essence, okay? If we don't, if we have high cortisol, we've got less melatonin, we don't have a great night's sleep. That is distressing for the body. So this is another form of stress for the body is if we're not sleeping well. And so we need to be making sure we're setting ourselves up in the day, doing the right things during the day in order to get a good night's sleep. So one of the best things that you can do to get in the circadian rhythm if you're not. So if you're staying up late at night, I've got plenty of clients that stay late, up late at night and have a weight management problem. They can't lose weight. And that's part of the problem. We weren't designed to stay up late at night. We were designed to be awake during daylight hours and asleep in darkness.
Advertisement:We'll be back after a quick break. Have you ever wondered if screens and digital media are reshaping children's brains? Is media use impacting our ability to think, solve problems and form deep, lasting relationships? What does the research say? Introducing screen deep the new podcast from children and screens where we decode the brains and behavior of youth in the digital age. Search for screen deep podcast on your favorite platform.
Anthony Hartcher:So that's what we want to essentially get back to in order to optimise your weight loss, optimise your energy. So in order to do that, we need to get our body in the circadian rhythm. If you're out of the circadian rhythm and you're staying up late at night, I suggest you get up and watch sunrise. Sunrise resets our circadian clock, our internal clocks, our infradian clocks. And that's what runs our body. And we want our body doing the right things at the right time of the day. So the first thing you want to do is avoid looking at your phone because by looking at your phone, you get a lot of blue light, more so than what's out in the environment. We want our cues from the environment and not from devices. The devices is telling you that it's the middle of the day and your body gets confused because it starts doing the middle of the day things if you wake up looking at devices. If you wake up and see the sunrise, your body starts doing the right thing, such as it starts turning on the engines. Okay. You start to generate more energy. You start to turn on digestion to break down food, to optimise food breakdown and optimise food assimilation. So there's a lot more that the sun does, but I've done plenty of episodes on the sun. So I'm not going to go into too much about the sun and the benefits of the sun, but I want you to get morning light to set your circadian rhythm so that you can get in the night-day cycle to ensure you have a good night's sleep, so that you don't create distress the next day because your body will be in a state of stress if it is sleep deprived. And muscle growth. So obviously, going, you know, doing fitness activities and you're doing resistance training as part of your program, what you want to be doing is maximising muscle growth. We do that at nighttime. Our repair happens at nighttime. And that repair, according to textbooks, happens between 10 PM and 2 PM, okay? I mean 10 PM and 2 AM. If you're getting to bed at midnight, you're missing two hours of that repair. So you're not, you're not maximising the results from your workout. So getting to bed before 10 is ideal because it allows you to fall asleep and maximise that 10 to 2 AM rejuvenation, regeneration, muscle growth, repair phase. We need that. So what I'm helping you with is to stop creating distress by having a bad night's sleep and to optimise muscle repair, muscle regeneration, and growth. And we do that by getting a good night's sleep and make sure we get that early part of the night. We need to get the early part of the night in as opposed to going to bed late, missing that rejuvenation repair phase and only getting the emotional repair phase. Okay. So the latter part of the night isn't as deep. We're not getting into the depths of the cycle. You know, there's four phases. We're not getting into that stage four. It's more stage three to stage one, between 2 AM and 7 AM, the latter part of the night. And that is where we start dreaming. And that's, that really helps with mental health and emotional health and relationships. But we're not getting into that deep cellular repair. And if we don't do that repair, that maintenance, we physically break down over time. So in terms of managing stress and summarising the question, because we're only at question one, I could, I could talk all day on question one. So what I want you to do is to focus on the things that are important to you. Make sure you're putting them throughout your week. You're doing things that get you into a flow state, that get your present focus, that bring you inner joy. Say no to things that are not resonating with you, that you feel that you don't want to do. Don't worry about what that person thinks. Honor yourself. Allow that person to respect you and understand who you are. So don't say yes. Say no to the things you don't want to do. And what I want you to do is make sure you're doing the things that bring you joy throughout the week, as well as getting out and seeing sunrise, getting morning light, not looking at your phone to set you up so that you have a good day and then a good night. Obviously, I didn't talk about the back end of the night around things that you want to do to wind you down. So in the evening, you want to do activities that ground you, that lower, lower the excitement in you. You don't want to do things that bring excitement and rev you up. You want to do things that calm you down. So it might be listening to calming music, having an Epsom salt bath, talking to a friend that makes you laugh, maybe watching or reading a comedy or something like that, playing some board games, doing things that calm your nervous system, as well as things that need minimal lighting. You don't want to be doing things that need a lot of light because the light will keep you awake. As I said, melatonin only starts to come into the picture upon darkness, upon your retina seeing darkness. So if you constantly are stimulated by screens in the evening, you're prolonging that ability for melatonin to come in. And this is why people struggle to fall asleep, is because they are looking at devices all the way up to going to bed, and then they turn the lights out and they expect to fall asleep. No chance. It could take one to two hours to fall asleep because upon darkness is when the melatonin is starting to be manufactured and excreting into your body. And in order for it to take effect throughout your whole body, it can take one to two hours. So this is why people say, oh, I can't get to sleep. And then they can't get to sleep. So then they look at their phone. And so that just prolongs their ability to fall asleep. It's quite simple. Create a dark environment and you'll start to feel drowsy, provided you haven't loaded yourself up with caffeinated drinks in the afternoon and provided you haven't been exciting yourself in the evening. So I hope that really helps. Question one, in terms of, are my stress levels affecting my weight loss? Yes, they are. How can I manage that? I spent a good 25 minutes answering that. Okay, so let's get on to question number two. What are the best ways to control cravings and emotional eating? Top question. This is a great one because this is another area that I constantly see my clients struggle with is cravings and emotional eating. And again, this is quite a big question. So I'll do my best to answer it as simply as possible. But there's no quick fix. And ultimately, it comes down to your triggers and dealing with your triggers. Okay, so everyone's going to have a different set of triggers that trigger their emotions based on their past or based on how they see the world. Okay, we all see the world differently because we've had all these filters imposed over our lenses and these filters have been passed on by our parents, our teachers, our preachers, society, all these things, influencers have had an impact on how we see the world. And so that's different for everyone. And so I don't know what's triggering you, but ultimately what we want to do is see the world as it is and stop judging it. Because when we get into judgment, when we start judging people, judging events, judging occasions, things, whatever it might be, that judgment brings a polarised response. We either love it or hate it. That polarisation drives emotion. That emotion, if you're loving it, is you probably won't, you know, like you're very elated, right? Again, it's not probably going to drive emotional eating. However, that elation will set you up for a another swing back to the other end where you're not enjoying things, right? Because what happens with elation is that we're just not seeing the two sides of of what's happening. We're only focusing on the positive. This is why we shouldn't have this. We're very misguided by positive thinking, right? We think that we always need to be positive thinking. Well, that that doesn't work because itdoesn't allow us to see risk or things that might endanger us. It doesn't allow us to see a balanced perspective and see it as a whole. It makes us see it as just a one-sided event, which ultimately will set us up for a fall because over time we'll start to see the other side. So on the installation side of things, you could probably think that when you go and buy a beautiful dress or some beautiful clothing or get a car or whatever, you get quite elated with the purchase. And particularly if you've brought it with credit, right? You just flash the plastic and you buy this thing and you quite enjoy it. You look great in it. However, at the end of the month, you then see the bill and you think, oh, how am I going to pay this? Or, oh, that hurts. I've now overspent for the month and I'm going to now have to start scrimping to, you know, and so then you realise that you see the whole picture, but it required that loss of time to see the whole picture. But in that moment of purchase, it was completely balanced. Yes, eventually you'd have to pay off that dress or those clothes, but you delayed it. And the more we separate pain and pleasure, the more we set ourselves up for the fall or the realisation that it wasn't all pleasurable and there was pain associated always within the pleasure and within the pain there's always pleasure. They're inseparable. The moment we split them and separate them is where we start to create a delusion of and we start to think that the world should be delusional in terms of a one-sided world. But it's not. It's completely balanced and conserved. And so this gets me down to the other side of polarisation. I've spoken about the elation side, but it's the negative side, the self-sabotage. Like, for example, you eat a chocolate bar and you start beating yourself up and saying how bad you are and how that one little bit of chocolate bar or chocolate piece is going to make you fat. And what you start to do is generate these emotions because you have a one-sided view of chocolate and a one-sided view of how you should be or how you should behave. And you think that you're hopeless, you've got no self-control. It wired within us to do that when we're in that survival sort of thinking, you know, that's, that very much all or nothing or that judgmental thinking is that we will want to seek pleasure without pain and avoid pain, seek pleasure. So what we want to do when we see something or we're starting to self-sabotage or have all these negative thoughts, we want to look for what's pleasurable. We want to look for the benefits. We want to look for how it serves us. So in essence, what we're doing is balancing our perceptions. So if we have a distorted perception to say, oh, it's all pleasurable, what we want to start to look at is how it's not serving us, is how it's not benefiting us. And we actually see it then as a whole. We start to balance the way we see things. And so therefore, we're not let down by what we perceived as just a one-sided event. We see it as a whole and there's no letdown. There's no, you know, this emotional release or anything. We, we see it for as it is. And the great thing about seeing it as it is, is that we make better decisions as opposed to chasing a one-sided outcome, which in the end, you'll be smacked by the other side that you didn't see. And then you'll feel let down or disappointed. And then you'll go for the chocolate bar. So in order to balance your perceptions and stay in control of your emotions, you want to ask yourself the counterbalance. Like, so if you're seeing things as all negative, what's the benefit and how has it served you in that moment of whatever's happened to you? How has it served you? How does it benefit you in the areas that are most important to you, in the areas that you value, in all areas of life? And you'll start to provide the counterbalance, start to see it as a whole. The emotions will calm down and you won't feel disappointed or let down, or you won't feel exaggeratedly elated. You'll, you'll see that with that elation, comes, the balloon eventually comes down, right? Eventually deflates. So to help you with your emotions, you really want to start looking at balancing the way you see the world and seeing it as it is, the whole thing, not a distorted view of reality. So that's quite in-depth in terms of answering this question. And so that will help you control your emotions. So if you, as I said, feel that someone's let you down, ask yourself, what is the benefit of that person saying no to what you ask them to do? Well, maybe they didn't want to be there. And then you're thinking, well, if they didn't want to be there, well I wouldn't have liked hanging out with them. So they didn't let me down. They're actually serving me because I'm going to enjoy it with the people that want to be there, okay? Again, it's, it's looking for the benefits when you think that it's all down and out and gloomy. And when you're all high and elated, it's looking for the potential downside. So recently, I was chasing some work in a field that I really love. And I thought how great it would be to win that job. And when I was thinking how great it would be, I was thinking, you know, I was thinking all the positives and stuff like that. And I started to get really attached to the outcome. When we get attached to the outcome, we're setting ourselves up for the fall, right? So I started to get attached to it. Then I thought, okay, I want to see this in full perspective because then if I don't get the job, the work, then I won't be disappointed. Because I saw it as, yeah, these are the upsides, but also it comes with these downsides. And so once I started looking for the balance, the counterbalance, I started to realise that, hey, it wasn't all elation and positive and it'll just be the saviour to my life. Not at all. I saw it as it is. And I thought, okay, I can see that, you know, if I, if I was successful, that, you know, I could embrace it and get, have some benefits in doing it. However, if I was unsuccessful, it opened up other doors for other opportunities and probably most likely better opportunities that better serve me. And so this really helped set me up for when I got the notification that I wasn't successful. So if I had an attachment to the outcome of being successful, then I would have felt disappointed. And then in that moment of disappointment, I would have looked for something to pick me up. And that could have been a chocolate bar, right? It could have been some lollies. It could have been a cake. And therefore, I would have eaten that. And then I would have felt bad thinking, oh, I'm eating rubbish. I don't like eating rubbish. I value my health. Oh, what's the... Damn. And then you feel bad again. And then you think, oh, just have another chocolate cake. What's the point? Okay. And so this has, this is how people spiral out of control. What happened when I received that disappointment? I thought, so, so what? It is what it is. And then it didn't have any emotional impact on me. I wasn't disappointed. And I didn't have that drive to then want something to help pick me up. Sugar, chocolate, cakes, lollies, whatever. So that is a, that is the best strategy in order to avoid emotional eating. If, if you want more support, I can certainly give you more support in that are. Because you need to work on your individual emotional triggers, ultimately. So, and it's different for everyone as to what's driving your emotions. Because they're things that you're only seeing. Like, for example, if you expect someone to be one-sided, then when you see them do the opposite to what you'd like, you feel let down. You feel that that person's let you down, right? But they haven't. They're just being themselves. You've let yourself down by allowing yourself to get attached to a delusion about them. And you're not seeing them for who they are. So that's magic. Now, how do you better manage your cravings? So what we got to understand is what's driving the cravings to begin with. Is it that you're always in an environment that you're always smelling foods or you're always seeing people eat? Well, that's going to drive triggers within you, okay? So, for example, if you were not hungry, then all of a sudden you see your co-worker eat. And you like the smells and liked what you saw in terms of what you're eating, then you'd start to develop hunger cues, right? And then you'll feel hungry and then you'll go and eat, but you weren't hungry before you saw that. And so the best way in these environments is if that, if you start to get those hunger signals, and you weren't hungry before, then go outside, step a... step away from those triggers, those hungers, the things that are triggering you to feel hungry. Because that's an innate response for your body to respond like that, to see food and want to eat it, because that ultimately helps us survive. But we're not in this survival, ultimately in this survival environment anymore. We're in this really ultimately survival environment. We're not encountering tigers like we used to. We we have different challenges, but they're not life-threatening. We might perceive them as life-threatening, but they're really not. And however, we have these survival mechanisms within us to want food when we see it. So if you weren't hungry and you see food, get away from it. Ultimately, that's the best thing. Change what you're doing. Change your environment and the hunger will go away. The craving will go away, particularly if you're fasting and you're wanting to do a fast and you've got all these triggers and hunger signals, will change the environment. Probably the first thing I'd recommend you to do. The other thing I recommend you to do is managing your light environment. Because being under blue light, looking at screens all day, ultimately drives cortisol and drives insulin, right? And that will drive hunger, okay? So if you're indoors all day, what you want to do is break up your day and get outdoors regularly when you can to really better manage the hunger cravings. Because ultimately, you're getting incoherent signals from the light environment. They're telling your body the wrong things to do. Because it's not the middle of the day, middle of summer, all day. But that's what the lights in your environment are telling you it is. In order to correct that and get your body back into sync, we need to go outside into the environment and see the proper light. And then that will tell our body what to do at that particular time, right? So if you want to really manage your cravings, what I suggest you do if you're an indoor worker is to get outdoors every five minutes, every hour. And you'll really manage your cravings well. Because when we're actually outdoors, we get energy from the environment. We need less energy from food. So the more you work outside, the more you spend time outside, the less hungry you are. The more you spend time in nature, the less hungry you are. The more you spend time indoors, the more hungry you are, okay? So I hope that really helps. I've really spoken into, again, probably a good 15, 20 minutes to that question. But it's a big question, a really big question. So in summing up the question, and I'll repeat the question again for those that have lost the question because of I've gone on a long, a long-winded response, is what are the best ways to control cravings and emotional eating? So in order to control emotional eating, you need to balance your perceptions and balance how you see the world. So if you're seeing the world as negative, look at the positives to what you're seeing, right? Look for how it it serves you, how it benefits you, and what you value in all areas of life. That will really help shift the emotions or help calm down the emotions. You'll regulate your emotions and reduce the need for looking for something to pick you up and to make you feel better. Obviously, sugar, junk food makes us feel better because it's full of things that give us quick energy, which when the body's in survival, it's looking for quick energy, right? It wants to survive. It doesn't know how long this threat's going to be around. It wants you to wait because you're in survival mode. When you're emotional, you get into survival mode, okay? So in order to drop judgment, you've got to look at what you're not seeing because everything is completely balanced. Every person has completely balanced. They have two sides to them. They're not always nice. They're not always kind. They're not always loving, forgiving. Or, you know, they, at times, will have the other side, depending on what's going on in their life. And so if we think that person should be one-sided and and then treat you in a one-sided way, you're setting yourself up for a delusion because ultimately that person is a person and has two sides. We all have two sides to us. At times where we're angry, sometimes we're nice, nice and mean, happy, sad. And so we will have these, obviously, both sides of our emotions expressed at any point, depending on what's happening in our environment and how we're perceiving it. So we need to balance how we see the world. We don't want to see it as just a one-sided world. We always have a balance of peace and war. You can see there's half the world is at peace, half the world is at war. That's how it's always been and that's completely balanced. War serves a purpose. It's not all bad. It serves a purpose. There is benefits to having war. There's benefits to having peace. There's also downsides to having peace. Again, we need to look for it. When we balance our perceptions, we calm down our emotions, and we stay in control. So that's ultimately how you control cravings. But there will be other triggers beyond the emotional triggers that trigger cravings. And as I said, when you see food, you smell food that you like, you will feel hungry. That's natural. If you weren't hungry before seeing that food, you aren't hungry. You just, you just think you are. Your body's convincing you that you are. What I suggest you do is get away. Get away from that environment into a new environment. If you can't get away from that environment into a new environment, I want you to focus, like if you're with someone that's eating and you're fasting, what you want to do is focus on the person, the conversation, and be present with them and not get distracted by the food. Just stay present on the conversation and stay present with wanting to better relate to them, connect with them. Okay, so change your attention away from the food towards them. I hope that helps. Now I've got another question here and it's another good, it's a beauty, right? So let's get into the next question and it's how, how does increasing my protein help me lose weight? Okay, so it's a question around protein and weight loss. So ultimately, protein is something that we have to have. It's essential. So it's essential for everything in our body. So we, in essence, it's the, I guess, the most important food to have, and as well as fats, right? Fats and proteins, the two most important foods to have. Carbohydrates, we need carbohydrates. It's just how much we need. And that depends on where we're at in life, right? But we we need our macros. We need our carbs, protein, fats. In today's society, we generally have a high carb diet. So it's not really the carbs you need to focus on in terms of eating more of. It's most likely you're eating too much of them. You need to reduce the carbs. What we want to shift our focus to is if we're lowering the carbs, then we want to improve the composition of the other macros, which is increasing fats and increasing protein consumption. Now, how does it help you lose weight? Well, what it does is drive satiety signals, satiation. So you feel more satiated. When your body gets these satiated signals, it feels satisfied. And it's always looking and assessing the macro composition of the food that you're putting in the mouth. So if we get the macros right, we get satisfied. If we get the macros wrong, if we've got no protein in what we're eating, such as junk food, then the body's going to go looking for it and tell you that you need to eat something that has protein and you probably keep eating the junk food, right? So yes, we want protein with every meal. It's the building block of life. We can't do without it. Our hormones are dependent upon it. Our muscle tissue is dependent upon it, our tissues, skeletal, you know, all our tissues are dependent on protein, protein signaling. So it's a real central part as well as the other macro, which is fat, which also is important for hormonal signaling, cell regeneration, allowing things into the cell. You know, it's in the membrane of the cell, fat. And also we need carbohydrates to satisfy our microbiome, which is our gut health, right? So in terms of increasing your protein, it's going to make you feel more satiated, more satisfied. The other thing that will drive satiation is eating high fiber diet, so whole foods, and also eating fats, right? So if you're eating a good balance of fats, protein. So when I say fats, it's avoiding seed oils, essentially, and fried foods. So get fried foods and seed oils out of your diet, out of your diet. All other fats are good. And then eating more protein. And next question is, what is the best types of protein, I think? Or now, how much protein should I be eating? And then what types of protein? So in terms of addressing the types of protein, I'll address these three questions into one. Okay. So the types of protein, the best types of protein are ultimately animal protein because animal protein is nutritionally dense, nutritionally dense. It has all the essential amino acids packed within it, as well as other minerals and vitamins packed within it. So we shouldn't, we don't want to avoid animal products. So if you're a vegetarian, vegan, I apologise. But in essence, what we want to do is eat the protein that's going to best serve our body. And that's ultimately how the food cycle works, right? We're all here to thrive. And yes, animals thrive. They serve a purpose. They help feed the food chain, just like we eventually feed the food chain, right? We become food for animals, right? Ultimately, we do. We, you know, bacteria, flies, worms will end up consuming us, right? And then what eats them is the next level of the food chain. So we all eat each other, right? So what eats worms? Birds. What eats birds? You know, cats or whatever. You get what I mean? It keeps going up the food chain. And eventually, we're all eating one another and that's the cycle of life. So don't be too concerned that you're being unethical by eating meat because yes, I guess there's better ways in which we can treat animal. Agree with you. And we need to consume those meats where they're better treated. And yes, there are farmers that do treat their animals better. And so we shouldn't say that it's all bad. They're all treated badly. We want to eat grass fed beef. That's free to roam. Yes, you can buy that. It's more expensive, but that's, that's okay. At least the animal's treated better and there's, you know, better ways of obviously slaughtering animals. And, but again, it's all part of the food cycle and we're part of that food cycle. So getting back to meats, the number one protein source. Meat, animal, animal, animal, animal protein. I can't say it enough. The thing about vegan vegetarian protein is that you need to eat a lot of it. So you end up consuming a hell of a lot. And in that you're consuming a hell of a lot of fibre. You put a huge stress load on the digestive system, too much fibre. So we weren't designed just to eat copious amounts of plants and plants, right? We were actually, you know, we were designed to eat both, both fauna and flora, okay? That's how we were, you know, and that's how we're set up and that's how we evolved. And so ultimately, we want to eat both. The better form is animal products. There's no doubt about it. No dispute, no disputing that. How much protein should I be eating? Again, this depends on your goals. It depends on you and and ultimately how much muscle mass you want to put on. So if you want to be bulky and put on a lot of muscle mass, you need to eat more protein. So there is a recommendation that someone was, someone shared, a member shared from Live Well, that the protein they've been recommended is 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. Now that's going to be helpful for that satiation, feeling full, and so that you're not over-consuming carbohydrates, over-consuming food. So that's important. Again, the type of protein is also important. 1.6, ultimately, I would say it depends on your goals. I mean, if you want to lose weight, yes. If you want to build muscle mass, yes. Ultimately, you might want to get a, you know, it is a lot of protein, depending on how much you weigh. So it might be difficult, but anywhere between one and 1.6, or if you want to lose weight, it's probably between 1.2 and 1.6 grams of pure protein per kilogram of body weight. But again, it really comes down to the individual, their goals and what works for them. So if we over consume protein, what happens is that we use it for energy. So it ultimately becomes an energy source. The amount of energy protein has is the same amount of energy as carbohydrates, just that protein is harder to break down. It requires more energy to break it down. So from a weight loss point of view, we're better off eating protein as opposed to carbohydrates. The carbohydrates you want to be eating are fibre rich. And again, you don't want to over consume carbohydrates, even whole carbohydrates, because ultimately it's a massive load on the digestive system. It will create digestive discomfort and we don't want to overload our system. It creates stress on the body. So again, consuming too much fibre is not good for us either. So that is it. We've finally got to the end of all the questions that have been asked of me around helping the Live Well Fitness Studio members to lose weight, as well as the me&my health up listeners. I really appreciate you tuning in to this episode, watching it, listening. I'd love to hear your feedback. Have you got any additional questions in addition to what I've answered or any questions about what I've answered or any clarity that you're seeking? Please put that forward in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. If you've got more new questions, please put them through. I'd love to address them. I love enhancing and enlightening the well-being of others. It's my mission and it's the mission of this podcast. So continue to ask questions. I'll continue to answer them. And until next episode, continue to health up. And again, I think the best thing to do from this episode is focus on the one thing that resonated most with you. So we covered a lot. Pick one thing that resonated most with you. Implement that. Implement it until it becomes habitual and then move on to the next thing. That's the best thing to avoid overwhelm. Focus on just the one thing. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening and 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 Pty Ltd, 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 made 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.
