Pursuit of Wellness - Top 5 Weight Loss & Nutrition Tips From World Class Experts

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to POW! And today we have a very exciting Monday mashup episode. We are bringing you the top weight loss and nutrition tips from three world-class experts. I just realized that one of those is me. And I'm not telling you guys I'm a world-class expert, but I am someone who has lost 90 pounds and completely changed their life through weight loss and nutrition. So I do have a lot to share. Our other two guests are Sal DiStefano of Mind Pump and Sean Stevenson. These are highly qualified, highly experienced individuals in the health and fitness space. Firstly, we have Sal DiStefano, who is the host of the Mind Pump podcast. He's the co-founder of Mind

Starting point is 00:00:58 Pump Media and has years of experience in the fitness industry and personal training. He is an expert when it comes to bodybuilding and mindfulness, intuitive eating, the importance and effectiveness of weightlifting, fat versus muscle, empowering women to strength train, the impact of bodybuilding on body image and food, advice for beginners with strength training and how to value tracking your food and when not to. So Sal has a really straightforward to the point approach. I think you guys are going to really love his advice. I found it extremely helpful, especially for women who want to weightlift. We're also going to talk to Sean Stevenson, who is a nutritionist, bestselling author. He is the author of USA Today's national bestseller, Eat Smarter and

Starting point is 00:01:42 Sleep Smarter. He's also the creator of the Model Health Show. He talks all about how poor diet is the number one risk to human health globally. He talks about processed food, the lack of diversity being the number one thing that leads to poor metabolic health, eating the foods our ancestors ate, personalized nutrition, really how to make your food work for your goals and your plan. And then finally, you guys are going to hear from me about my personal weight loss journey, how to keep the weight off, fitness as a lifetime journey, eating high protein, incorporating fats, finding healthy sweet treats, water, tips I used on my weight loss journey, keeping fitness and health fun, staying

Starting point is 00:02:27 strong, finding people who match your values, educating yourself and planning out your goals. So let's hop into this episode all about weight loss and nutrition. I hope you guys enjoy. What happens when you work out, for all intents and purposes, if you and I went out right now and got a hard workout, and then someone did a blood test, what they would find is inflammation is higher, inflammatory, because it's a stress on the body. So what are we encouraging people to do?

Starting point is 00:02:52 Beat yourself up, which is the bodybuilding way. And then right after, eat a bunch of food. Okay. So I'm introducing all this food when I'm also inflamed. It's kind of a perfect storm

Starting point is 00:03:03 that encourages, you know, leaky gut. I personally think weightlifting in terms of mental health and physical health is so empowering. For me personally, as a woman, as you said, we've been marketed to be as small as possible. With weightlifting, I felt like I had this opportunity to celebrate growth. And it made me feel really strong. I've always been a huge advocate for weightlifting. What are your thoughts on women weightlifting? Well, first off, in a time per time spent comparison, okay, it's the most effective.

Starting point is 00:03:36 We have the data to support this now, finally. But, you know, good coaches and trainers have known this for years. It's the most effective way to get lean. It's the most effective way to change the shape of your body because you can sculpt it. Also, will balance your hormones out better than any other form of exercise. Now, let's back up for a second. Let's cover those for a bit. Why is it so effective at burning body fat? Trying to lose body fat. Trying to lose body fat by manually burning calories is a losing strategy, okay? The body is very effective at adapting its ability to burn calories because it's always trying to maintain homeostasis. It's not going to make you leaner unless it thinks it's in its

Starting point is 00:04:20 best interest. And so just manually burning calories actually is quite ineffective. And I'll go into a little bit more why. Your body, we need to stop thinking of exercise as just a way to burn calories and think of it more accurately, which is exercise tells our bodies to adapt in a particular way. Lots of cardiovascular activity, to use an example, is telling my body to build endurance. That's the main adaptation. Side effect is I burn some calories, but I'm really just trying to build endurance. The endurance process doesn't require a lot of muscle or strength. And because I'm burning so many calories, my body's trying to become a more calorie efficient burning machine. So it literally pairs muscle down. This is why long distance runners who have incredible endurance and run

Starting point is 00:05:04 like crazy have very little muscle on their body. Their bodies have become very efficient. Imagine if you had an AI, super advanced AI car that modeled itself after your driving habits. Now imagine if you drove that car every single day, 300 miles going 20 miles an hour. What would that car look like? Would it look like a V10, you know, six liter engine or would it become a one cylinder engine, you know, hybrid or whatever?

Starting point is 00:05:29 That's what happens to your body. So trying to move and burn your way out of, you know, a body fat is a losing strategy. Your body actually pairs muscle down because muscle is very metabolically active. Muscle is expensive tissue. And since your body's like, we don't need to be strong and we need to conserve calories, let's pare this muscle down. So when you look at the studies on lots of cardio plus diet for weight loss, what you see is a significant amount of weight loss comes from muscle. Many studies show as much as half. Now, here's why that's a bad thing. If you were to lose 10 pounds, but five of it was fat, five of it was muscle, you're smaller, same body fat percentage version of yourself. You're essentially weaker,

Starting point is 00:06:12 same flabbiness. And here's the worst part. Your metabolism is slower. This is why when people go on that journey, which is what everybody does, right? I want to lose weight. I'm going to cut my calories and I'm going to just run. What they find is they lose some weight, but then they plateau. So what's the next step? Cut my calories more, run some more, uh-oh, plateau again. And then they're in this unsustainable place. I'm eating a thousand calories a day. I'm doing 60 minutes of cardio five days a week.

Starting point is 00:06:37 I can't maintain this. This is crazy. In contrast, when you look at strength training, the main adaptation signal that strength training is sending is strength. We need to get stronger. So what does that do? Well, it builds some muscle. Muscle is metabolically active.

Starting point is 00:06:53 Metabolically active tissue burns more calories. You actually speed up the metabolism. But it's not just that. The process of building muscle shifts your metabolism to becoming less efficient because people may say, well, I saw a study that says that one pound of muscle only burns 12 calories. The mammalian metabolism is the second most complex thing we've identified in the universe besides the human brain. It's super, super complex. And what we found is with the same lean body mass, your body become less efficient or can become more efficient with calories. In other words, you can make your metabolism faster or slower by adjusting lifestyle and by shifting

Starting point is 00:07:31 what direction you're telling your body to go and telling your body to build muscle does it. So you may be watching this as a female, you gain four pounds of muscle with good strength training. And what you'll find if you do it right is your metabolism went up five or 600 calories a day. Okay. That is 600 calories. You would have to do two hours of cardio to do that. But now you're burning that all the time, but there's more. Muscle is dense. If you, if everybody watching right now were to lose 10 pounds of body fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle, you would weigh the same on the scale. You would look very different though. You would be smaller. Muscle takes up roughly three-fourths of the space that body fat does. So you're smaller, tighter, more sculpted, and you have a faster metabolism. Why do you want a faster metabolism? Look around. We're surrounded by food. Would you like to be able to eat more

Starting point is 00:08:21 and stay lean or have to eat a lot less to stay lean, right? So it's also very sustainable. My favorite part about it is this, though. You mentioned growth. Okay. It's proactive tissue. So strength training and feeding myself, which we can get to because you have to do that properly. If I strength train, I am shifting my body towards proactive tissue growth.

Starting point is 00:08:47 What hormone profile is required for my body to build muscle? Balance. As a man, I need more testosterone. I need healthy levels of growth hormone. I need cortisol that's natural and healthy, right? Goes up in the morning, comes down towards the end of the day. For women, you have a balance of estrogen and progesterone. What you're essentially creating is that youthful hormone profile everybody's after

Starting point is 00:09:13 by telling your body to build muscle. So it feels different. It feels better. It feels very healthy. We have studies now to support this. There was a study that just came out that compared strength training to cardio to strength training plus cardio. Guess which one burned the most body fat and got the best results? Strength training alone. Alone. It even outperformed slightly strength training plus cardio. Now, I

Starting point is 00:09:35 don't want people to take the message that I'm saying, don't do cardio, don't do other forms of exercise. But if you're going to exercise a few days a week and you want it to be effective, strength training by far is the most effective way to do it. And then the empowering part, this was something that blew me away as an early trainer. When I would train my female clients and they would get stronger, they would all say that. I feel so much more secure in my body. I feel so much more empowered. Now, as a man, that was hard for me to understand, but that's because I'm a man. And, you know, that's not something

Starting point is 00:10:10 that I think we don't necessarily grapple with. But I had a female client illustrate it to me very well. She came back from a business trip. She was very petite, CFO of a tech company, very successful woman. She goes through travel often. I started training her and about three months into it, she had to go to China. She about three months into it uh she had to

Starting point is 00:10:25 go to China she came back and the first thing she said to me was she goes Sal I got on the plane and I picked up my luggage and I put it in the overhead compartment by myself wow and I said oh okay and she goes no no you don't understand she goes every time I do that I have to ask a guy to help me yeah I did that by myself she was tiny she was like 105 pounds she's like I did that myself myself. She was tiny. She was like 105 pounds. She's like, I did that myself. She goes, you know how empowering that is? And that's when it struck me like, okay, I get it now. Like you're able bodied, you know, that feels really, really good. So it looks good. It feels good. It's pro growth. It's the best way it is when it comes to the modern world. It's the best form of exercise to combat the stresses and the ills that we all encounter. And for women, and this is the part that makes me sad, women have been advertised to you so incorrectly and so improperly that they're the most afraid of strength training.

Starting point is 00:11:17 Because they feel like they're going to work out and then wake up tomorrow and look like their husbands or something. It's not going to happen. I promise you, it's not going to happen. Train as hard as you want. Train like a bodybuilder. You won't look like one. To me, that is the craziest comment that I see. Because if they knew how long and how much food that would take and how much I mean, you'd have to dedicate your life to getting bulky if you wanted to get bulky. But I don't know how much you know about my story. but you just so eloquently put the reason I lost my weight the way I did. So I lost 90 pounds in 2017. And from the beginning, I think I had somewhat of a lucky start in the fitness industry because I had my boyfriend now husband, Greg, who's been bodybuilding since like

Starting point is 00:11:59 14, maybe even younger. And to me, he looked amazing. amazing and because of him I was exposed to the world of bodybuilding so I saw you know Angelica who had won Miss Bikini Olympia that year and I always felt like muscle looked really feminine I feel like when you can build your shoulders and your glutes I loved the look of muscle and I also felt like it's to me the best representation of hard work especially on a woman because it is difficult to build muscle. So I was intrigued by that from the start. And I ended up losing 90 pounds pretty much solely weightlifting. Yeah, I barely did any cardio and people are shocked by that. Yeah, it's super effective. And of course, muscles feminine women have muscle. You know, what the

Starting point is 00:12:41 problem is, is that there's extremes that people look at. Yeah. And they're afraid that that's going to be the result. I want to be very clear here. First off, the genetics required to build the amount of muscle that you see when you look in Instagram and you see a woman and you go, whoa, that's way too much muscle. And possibly drugs. Well, yes, that's part of it. But even with drugs. Okay, so I can take the average female, put her on a bunch of steroids and have her work out, and she'll just start growing facial hair and stuff like that, and she'll build muscle, but she still won't look like Miss Olympia.

Starting point is 00:13:12 There is a genetic range of muscle-building ability that's really no different than the genetic range for height. So let me ask you this. Walking around in the everyday world, how many times in the real world have you ever run into someone that's seven foot tall? Almost never. Almost never. You don't, in fact, if you see it, it's like, what is, it's like a UFO. Like, what am I looking at? Okay. That's it's because it's rare. The genetics to build muscle, like you see on these bodybuilders where it's like scary looking, that's how rare those genetics are. So like I could take all the drugs in the world and I train very hard

Starting point is 00:13:49 and I would never look like Mr. Olympia. In fact, I wouldn't look like Mr. Olympia when he was 18 and he just started working out. So ladies, train. You could train like a bodybuilder. You could eat like a bodybuilder. And what you'll end up getting is the body that you want. You're never going to look like a bodybuilder.

Starting point is 00:14:04 So don't worry about that. And if you did have those genetics okay lucky you it means you could do way less work and get the body you want the leaner i got on my fitness journey the more insecure i got and the more ab checks i did and the more obsessive i mean i never had a bad relationship with food particularly and i feel lucky to have said that but the worst my relationship ever was with food was at the peak of my fitness journey when I had a six-pack and I felt really good about myself quote-unquote I couldn't even go on a vacation because I was so obsessed with everything have you seen the data on when people are the most when they have the best body acceptance or satisfaction what age oh 25 when they're in their 60s no that just

Starting point is 00:14:49 goes to show you how much of it is how you actually look versus how you actually think about yourself and care about yourself when people have the greatest body acceptance is right around then is not that's actually the worst in the 20s is when people have the worst wow body acceptance is right around then is not that's actually the worst in the 20s is when people have the worst wow body acceptance you know what's crazy i just had mark and carrie sisson on from primal uh kitchen okay 68 and 70 yeah like glowing feeling themselves they were like we're having the best sex we've ever had whoa okay but like that's pretty cool and that adds some perspective i feel like it does and i you know what we've done in um in our marketing spaces in our media is we've taken signs of vitality and attractiveness and we've amplified them so much and distorted them so much that we believe those to be like the be all end all and so for example um you know you can look at like

Starting point is 00:15:43 like a muscular body. Okay, let's talk about a man, right? So wide shoulders, small waist, muscular body. That shows healthy testosterone. It shows mobility. It shows functionality. But then we take it to the extreme and you can be a 280-pound shredded bodybuilder, which most women would look at and go, oh, that's a little excessive, right? What's attractive is health.

Starting point is 00:16:03 Healthy is attractive. By the way, media, when I'm looking at a picture, I don't see the person's personality. I don't feel their vibe. I don't see anything else but how they look. I don't need to say this, but we've all met people and you meet them and they're attractive. Why are they attractive? It's not just how they look. They have vitality, their personality, their energy, their mind. And we don't talk about this enough. And it affects a lot, especially young girls. I have a 14-year-old daughter. And it affects her too. And to the point where I can see it now, she's at the age, right, where she's overemphasizing her appearance because she thinks this is the most important thing. And I'm trying to tell her,

Starting point is 00:16:42 like, this is not. And it's fleeting anyway. can't imagine being a 14 year old girl with TikTok now because it makes me feel bad about myself I can't even imagine yeah that's a that's a health practice actually is I try to communicate to people to change the algorithm on their social media because and just by you have to consciously like and comment on stuff that you know is going to be good for you. Because your brain doesn't know that you're looking at people on social media. It thinks this is what you're surrounded by. So we naturally compare ourselves to what we see around us. So if you're looking at edited, photoshopped, orthorexic, body-obsessed people, you'll develop this without realizing it like oh man i am nowhere near all these people and i look terrible and i am way down the ranks on this

Starting point is 00:17:33 type of thing you know on on appearance or attractiveness when it's not actually true i said it earlier there's more people with more people who are millionaires than there are people with six packs i i manage gyms for a living so that's already a self-selection bias. There were not very many people with six-packs, very rare, and that's a gym. So what you see on social media is walk around the real world, and then you'll see for yourself. Like literally just walk around, and you'll see. Even in the health industry, Greg and I are on phone calls with people all day long in this space. None of them are in shape. Yeah. It's pretty wild. Yeah, yeah. So it's health that's attractive. And if you chase the aesthetics,

Starting point is 00:18:10 you'll lose your health and you'll lose your aesthetics. You're not going to have them when you lose your health. If you chase the health, you'll get a great deal of both. And it's that vitality and health that's attractive. And it's much more than just your appearance. So for someone listening, and by the way, my audience is like 99.9 women awesome obviously high to the 0.1 of men if you're listening actually maybe because of you they will be listening but for

Starting point is 00:18:31 anyone listening who wants to start weight lifting gaining muscle but wants to stay lean and maybe even lose weight what would you recommend taking as the first step okay so um the building muscle process uh does require that you feed yourself to fuel the process. So think of it this way. Earlier I said what people typically do is they'll cut their calories, add cardio, lose some weight, plateau. Then they have to do it again, plateau. And then they end up in this like unsustainable place, which I'm sure everybody can identify with. We've all done that.

Starting point is 00:19:01 Here's how it looks if you do it the right way, okay? If you start out and your goal is to build strength and build muscle, actually even forget to build muscle part, get stronger. I like that better because it's not so tied to aesthetics. And if you're getting stronger, you're moving in the right direction. So it's like, I need to get stronger. So I have to feed myself appropriately to do that as well. So aim for your target body weight in grams of protein. So wherever you feel your target body weight is, let's say it's 120 pounds, 150 pounds, whatever, that's how many grams of protein I'm going to aim for and prioritize.

Starting point is 00:19:33 In other words, in my meals, I'm going to eat that first, and then I'll eat everything else. Now, the reason why we're going to do that is there's two main reasons. One, protein fuels the muscle, which is going to speed up your metabolism, which is going to make it much easier for you to get lean. That's number one. Number two, protein is very, very satiety producing in comparison to carbohydrates and fats. If you eat your, and you'll find this, people watching, it is very tough from whole foods, eat your target body weight and protein, you will find, oh my God, I don't think I can eat anymore. Because it just really kicks in those satiety signals okay so naturally what'll happen if it's

Starting point is 00:20:10 all whole food you'll naturally eat an appropriate amount of calories so protein strength train the strength training should look like first of all it should be appropriate for your current fitness level for beginners you're probably going to start twice a week. You're going to do maybe three or four compound exercises. These are kind of full body exercises like squat, deadlift, press, row, that type of thing. And treat the workout appropriately, meaning exercises, the goal of the exercise isn't to make you sore or sweat. Shift your mindset. The goal of the exercise is to learn the skill of the exercise.

Starting point is 00:20:54 So I'm not going into the gym to do squats so I can feel my legs shake. I'm going to try and get good at the skill of squatting. That is going to pay you back so much more because it is a skill. And the better you get at it, the more you get out of it. If you could squat with really good technique and form, you'll get 10 times the results than if you just squat hard with terrible technique and terrible form. So go to the gym, practice the skills of these exercises. So do them to get better at doing them. And that will also help dictate the right intensity. At a lighter weight, how do we know when we're lifting enough? If your technique is, if you're trying to perfect the skill, you will pick the right weight. So people are like, well, that's going to be too light. No, when you first get

Starting point is 00:21:34 started, it's, it's appropriate. Believe me. Yeah. As you get stronger, you're going to want to add a little weight to challenge yourself a little more, but don't compromise the fact that you're getting better at the skill. Getting better, by the way, also means you can lift more. It also means you can go a little deeper. It means you have better control. So a good rule of thumb with that is I'm going to do this. It's going to feel challenging,

Starting point is 00:21:54 but I'm going to perfect the skill of it. Now, when you become more advanced and you have a little bit of a better grasp of intensity, the ideal intensity is about two or three repetitions short of failure. So failure, the way that we talk about it or define it is you lift until you know that you can't do another rep with good form. So you know, if I do another rep, my form's gonna break. Okay.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Don't go that hard. Stop two reps before that. That intensity is going to give you the best results in the long term. Just end of story. It's going to give you the best results. So if you start like that, hit those protein targets, and then just try to get stronger. Just try to get stronger. And then what'll happen is the scale will look like this. It's going to start off slow, but then you're going to get a faster metabolism and it starts to snowball. Okay. You start to get this snowball effect. So rather than initial weight loss happening and then plateauing, and then it's like, what the heck?

Starting point is 00:22:50 It's like, okay, nothing's happening. I kind of feel better. Oh, I look leaner, but the scale isn't moving. And then all of a sudden things start to speed up. And then what you'll find if you do this right is you should be able to eat as much or more after you lose 30 pounds than you did when you first started. What a great place that is, right? That you could eat more, but be leaner, very sustainable, much more sustainable. Do you recommend people track on like a MyFitnessPal from the

Starting point is 00:23:16 beginning? That's what I did. And I feel like I learned a lot and then I let go of it. One thing that you said, which I would have asked you if you had asked me, Sal, should I track? I would have asked you, do you have any challenges or issues with your relationship to food? You said you didn't, in which case tracking's fine. If you're listening to this right now and you've had challenges with food, you've had dysfunctional eating patterns, maybe you've dabbled in anorexia or you've restricted yourself or whatever, tracking can be a really bad trigger because it can seem very controlling and it can cause a lot of stress and it can cause a lot of problems. Okay?

Starting point is 00:23:53 So if that's you, don't track. Now, if you eat whole natural foods and you avoid heavily processed foods, let's get into that for a second. Why do we want to avoid heavily processed foods? Well, generally they're not as healthy, but that's not really the main reason why, because they could process foods to have all the nutrients and stuff from other foods. And we can argue about whether or not that's healthy or not, but really what it is, is that ultra processed foods are engineered to make you overeat. And they're very effective at doing so. The best nutrition studies we have, hands down,

Starting point is 00:24:24 are these controlled studies where they take groups of people, they put them in a lab, and they say, you can eat as much as you want of these foods, and you can eat as much as you want these foods. And the difference is, these are heavily processed foods, and these are whole natural foods. And they leave them alone. And then they take those groups and they switch rooms. Okay. And they've repeated this study. And what they found is on average, you'll eat about 600 more calories a day with the heavily processed foods because they engineered them to make you overeat. This is what they do. It's to make them irresistible. This is why if you put a family-sized bag of Lay's potato chips in front of me and you told me to eat it in 30 minutes and you'd give me 10 grand to do so, I could do it. But if you gave me five plain boiled potatoes,

Starting point is 00:25:09 I wouldn't. It's the same potatoes. It's the same amount. But the plain one, I'm going to gag after eating the third one, right? The processed ones, they've been engineered and I can get through that. So if you avoid heavily processed foods, eat whole natural foods, hit your protein targets, here's what'll happen. You'll eat the right amount. Now, will you get heavily processed foods, eat whole natural foods, hit your protein targets, here's what will happen. You'll eat the right amount. Now, will you get shredded? No. You're not going to get to 17% as a female doing that. But you'll get down to the low 20s.

Starting point is 00:25:37 The average woman will get down to a nice, healthy, lean body fat percentage doing that because that's where your body wants to sit. There's this terrible myth out there that humans are eating machines and if you just put food in front of us we'll just eat like crazy no that's only the case because we've introduced incredible variety and processed foods and we've hacked our our systems of satiety but if you put you know you go hunt and you kill an animal and you're like all right everybody eat as much as you want people would get the appropriate amount because it's it's a food. If you do this, then you won't need to track. But that being said, is there value in tracking? Yes, because it is an awareness tool. Tracking teaches people what's in food, how many grams of proteins, how many grams of carbs, how do I feel when I eat more carbs?

Starting point is 00:26:19 How do I feel when I eat more fats? How do I feel when I eat this kind of thing or that kind of thing? And when my calories are higher in the day versus lower you know lower in the day it is an awareness tool but if it's a trigger for you i'd say don't go for it do what i said earlier and you'll be just fine if you want to get really lean tracking becomes more appropriate because now you're asking yourself to get leaner than what would be considered optimal for health yeah and i And I think, I mean, I know for me, when I first started, I had such little knowledge around nutrition. I didn't even understand what a fat carb or protein was. So for me, it was kind of essential. And once I had it figured out, I said, okay, I roughly know what I'm consuming in a day and I can move forward. And it still is helpful for me to have that knowledge.

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Starting point is 00:29:33 claim 40% off your subscription. earthbreeze.com slash pow. We are the most chronically diseased society in the history of humanity. And this is largely from lifestyle-induced choices. It's largely from our choices and our exposures. And I'm not just saying that because it sounds good. This is based on the data. You know, another analysis, meta-analysis published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. This was in 2018. They looked at smoking. They looked at all these different things that we know are quote, not good for us. They found that poor diet is the

Starting point is 00:30:15 number one cause of our epidemics of chronic diseases. It's the number one cause. And to stress that out, huge, this was one of the biggest analyses ever done. This was published in The Lancet. So this is, again, another top-tier peer-reviewed science journal. And they looked at over 100 countries, the data from chronic diseases, deaths, and their food intake. And they determined, these researchers determined, that poor diet is the number one risk to human health globally. And they established that about 11 million humans die annually from poor diet. And a paradox has taken place where most people that are dying from poor diet are

Starting point is 00:30:58 no longer dying by lack of food access. They're dying from the overconsumption of these food-like products. Yeah. You know, here in LA actually, and again, a lot of folks don't realize this, but you know, of course we, we here's, if you're not here, you don't see it, but the homeless population and the homeless population here in LA rate of obesity is almost on par with the general population. I've noticed that. So we're right around 43% obesity in the United States, which that should just be shocking in of itself. And the homeless population as of the last reporting was around 38%. And so again, even if we don't have access to money and resources, we can still be obese very easily here in the United States,

Starting point is 00:31:46 because it's not just the food itself. It's not just the overconsumption of calories. You know, again, I went to, I paid good money for this education to essentially be miseducated around the science of the calorie. And of course it is a unit of measure that we can use and it does add some value, but this is turning humanity, physics, biology, so many different aspects of science into like, you are a machine, you're a calculator or your gears and levers. And today, one of the cool things, but it's kind of messed up at the same time, is that we have this new category of newly invented synthetic chemicals that are getting this label of obesogens. So these are obesity-causing agents. These alter your metabolism in a way that your body handles those calories differently. And so in my earlier book, I established this new term that I've been working to push into popular culture called epicaloric controller.

Starting point is 00:32:48 So this is above caloric control. And I identified about 10 different science-backed, I'm talking mountains of data, affirming how these different factors determine how your body interacts with the calories you consume. They're above that. And, you know, I shared some of those also in the new Eat Smarter Family Cookbook as well, because this education needs to get out there. Not to ignore that calories aren't a thing, but one of the things I did, I'm fascinated with why. I'm fascinated with the stories.

Starting point is 00:33:17 My wife kind of makes fun of me a little bit. Whenever I'm left to my own devices, I'm like watching some history documentary. Like, I don't know. I just like that stuff. I want to know where stuff came from. Like, what's the story? And so I went back and analyzed the story of the calorie. Where did it come from? And I put that into a massive like USA Today national bestselling book. I had a partnership with Target stores, you know, for a wellness campaign, all this stuff and got this message out there. Now more people are aware of it, but the calorie, it didn't even come from the field of, of nutrition. It started off in physics and it

Starting point is 00:33:55 kind of made his transition thanks to Atwater, which we use the Atwater system on packaging. And a lot of people don't know this as well, when you read the calories or the nutrition facts on these food labels, they're not actually running through taking that food and actually putting it in a bomb calorimeter and incinerating it and seeing how many calories are actually in this food. They're just doing math. That's all they're doing. They're just doing some math on some generally accepted things and slapping it on a label. So it's not 100% accurate. It's not even close to 100%. It's not even close to 100%. But then again, we just start to rely on these things. And even with the bomb calorimeter, what they would do is take the food and put it

Starting point is 00:34:39 into this device. And there's like a water aspect to it as well. And they incinerate the food and see how much it can heat the water basically. And first of all, they're incinerating the food. Your body doesn't incinerate the food that you eat, right? There are certain factors that are not even digestible. You know, you're not pulling in any calories from that. As a matter of fact, there are certain foods that you expend way more energy to digest that food than other foods. Like your body is so complex and incredible to negate that is just stupid. It is just plum dumb. Let's talk about this because I think a lot of people listening to this, I'm going to release this in January, are thinking about weight loss. Maybe they are headed on a fitness journey. I lost 90 pounds, but I wouldn't say I even fully know how weight loss works. Like how does fat dissolve? Where is it

Starting point is 00:35:31 going? And then I also think a lot of people enter this space thinking that it's just calories in, calories out. Like I know when I entered the fitness space, it was 2017. If it fits your macros was a huge phenomenon and people are eating Rice Krispie treats and whatever fit their numbers. But you're saying it's about the quality of the calorie too. Absolutely. So just to share a couple of these epicaloric controllers, again, this is all backed by peer reviewed data. One of these really interesting discoveries just in the last couple of years, the microbiome is having a huge moment right now. And for good reason. So some researchers at the Wiseman Institute uncovered that your microbial makeup is literally one of the frontline determining factors of how and if you're

Starting point is 00:36:18 absorbing calories from your food. And so what they did was, and this is just one of many studies, there's human studies and then there's animal studies as well. But what they did was they were taking human bacteria that they've established is more correlated with, I struggle to call them fat bacteria, but they're more correlated with obesity and insulin resistance, diabetes, things like that. There's a certain bacteria cascade that's seen consistently. Now the question is, is it the bacteria first or is the obesity first? Right. So, but we know that this is definitely a huge thing. Now what starts to shed some light on it is they take this human bacteria from a subject who is expressing insulin resistance and obesity, having that kind of gut diversity, and they're implanting that into mice.

Starting point is 00:37:13 And those mice that are otherwise lean and eating the same diet, they suddenly gain weight and become insulin resistant. Not any other changes, but the change to their microbes, right? And the same thing happens taking a mouse that is expressing this kind of microbial makeup towards obesity and implanting what they dubbed as, quote, lean bacteria from humans into these mice,

Starting point is 00:37:36 and then they lose weight. Same diet, everything is the same. Their mouse lifestyle is the same, but changing their microbes changed their body composition. So what gives you an unhealthy obesogenic microbiome? This is a great question. Okay.

Starting point is 00:37:53 So the vast majority of data is pointing to the number one hallmark. And I'm just going to give you, let's look at identical twins. All right. You can't get any more identical. All right. He's literally identical twins. Same twins. All right. You can't get any more identical. All right. He's literally identical twins. Same egg. All right.

Starting point is 00:38:09 But some research, and I'm from St. Louis. So, you know, we've got Washu there and Slu. And so some researchers there compiled the largest database of twins and looking at all these different factors. And what they determine is that

Starting point is 00:38:26 there's, these are just two subcategories of microbes. There's so many, but bacterial deities or infirmicutes, okay. Or bacterial roides, infirmicutes. And what they uncover is that if one twin had a higher ratio of firmicutes. They had higher rates of insulin resistance and a higher propensity towards being overweight or obese compared to their sibling. Again, identical twins. Looking at their microbes, having a higher ratio of these, quote, fat bacteria, in this case, Firmicutes,

Starting point is 00:38:58 was leading to a higher prevalence of obesity or obesity-like kind of biometrics. And so now with all that said, what do we know to be true and what can we do to change this? The number one thing, the vast majority of data is pointing to lack of diversity is the number one thing that will lead to poor metabolic health. All right. So higher rates of insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, you name it. And the question is, how do I improve my diversity? And what, what does that even mean? So we've looked at, we've got several studies looking at people who are living a more, some of these words, again, I kind of say with hesitation, but natural human lifestyle that we evolved closer to.

Starting point is 00:39:47 Something we evolved closer to doing, which is more akin to like a hunter-gatherer tribe. And they'll see four to ten times more diversity in their gut microbes than the standard or average Westerner. All right. That's a lot. We're talking about on the magnitude, you know, thousands, you know, right now we each have several thousand different, you know, we've got bacteria, we've got viruses, we've got fungi, we've got archaea. There's all these different factors. We've got parasites. There's all these different microbes that make up our,

Starting point is 00:40:21 our gut microbiome. And so how do we get to this place? Well, we know that one of those factors that has reduced our diversity, and I'm going to tell you this, many Americans today have a lot of endangered species in their microbiome are completely extinct. Certain microbes that have been verified to be supportive of human health,

Starting point is 00:40:45 just gone. We don't have them anymore. But we let other humans do that are living more of a natural lifestyle. And so our consumption of ultra processed food has wiped out our gut microbes and been feeding what we refer to as more opportunistic. And I don't want to say bad. That's another big problem in our field. We got to stop with this good or bad stuff. All right. Everything has its role. All right. So even what we might refer to as like a pathogenic or quote bad bacteria, even like E. coli, it plays a huge role in human health when it's overpopulating or in the wrong places and all these other factors, then it can be incredibly dangerous. But we can't just look at this with

Starting point is 00:41:32 this vanilla view, you know, and just try to wipe everything out. That's how we got in this place in the first place. And so how do we improve this? Well, the most data is pointing to how do we increase the diversity of our gut microbes is by increasing the diversity of inputs, all right? So increasing the diversity of foods that you're eating. And here's one of the big takeaways from today. When you eat a food, you're not just eating that food, you're eating that food's microbiome, all right? So when you eat a blueberry, you're eating that blueberry's microbiome. When you eat an avocado, you're eating that avocado's microbiome. When you eat,

Starting point is 00:42:10 fill in the blank, a pomegranate, you're eating that pomegranate's microbiome. You're taking in all this microbial data and also providing substrates or, you know, there's this growing category of prebiotics and it's limiting because really just about any food is going to function as a prebiotic for something. All right. And so what we want to strive to do, a lot of folks, even when we get healthy, we make the decision to improve our health. A lot of us tend to get into this, like even the same thing over and over again.

Starting point is 00:42:41 I've been there. You know, chicken, rice, broccoli, chicken, rice, asparagus, or chicken, quinoa, asparagus, steak, you know, whatever. And we might mix it up a little bit, but we need to make it a mission or a mandate for ourselves this year to improve or increase the number of different foods that we're eating on a regular basis.

Starting point is 00:43:03 Give your microbes these different inputs. It's going to be one of the best things we can do to fortify our health. And also a lot of these different inputs are sort of working as immune system training. You know, I've got friends, even have one of my friends on Paul Saladino. I've known Paul for several years. And Paul's at the other end of this. When I met Paul, he was all just the meat and organs. I know. Now he eats fruit. Now he eats fruit. All right.

Starting point is 00:43:29 So again. Honey. Honey too. All right. He's even out here with fruit juice. I know. He's really getting out there now. You know, but here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:43:37 He still is a proponent of carnivore diet, but it's really omnivorous diet. And I got him to admit that a little bit, but it's highly carnivorous diet. And I respect that. I understand that. And I've also got friends who are like top tier experts in the vegan community as well. You know, one of my friends, Dr. Will Bolsiewicz is a award-winning gastroenterologist and he has a vegetarian approach for many years and it works for him. But he's also, both of them are saying every person is different. Yeah. So important. Right. And so that's the part. And these are the people that I gravitate towards. And also those who are willing to accept that they might have been wrong about some things because we don't have it all figured out.

Starting point is 00:44:23 And when you started this episode off and talking about like, I kind of have this inviting personality is because I messed up. I didn't have that for a while. And I've actually worked with real people in the real world. I was working as a nutritionist for over a decade and I've been in this field for 21 years, but working with people every day for 10 years. And in the beginning, if I was into something, that's what the patient was going to be into. If I'm into raw food, raw vegan diet, guess what? If I'm into paleo, guess what? If I'm into keto, whatever it is. And that is so unfortunate. But thankfully, I got to this place where I was being honest.

Starting point is 00:45:03 There are a certain percentage of patients who were not getting the results other people were getting. Most people got great results just because we were pulling out a lot of ultra processed foods on accident. But I gave all the credit to this diet framework. And what I started to do and what I encouraged, because I know there's a lot of people who work in health as well that are probably listening to this, is to pay attention to the person and ask them questions about them. You know, not just about their diet, but what are their stress levels like? What is their relationships like? You know,

Starting point is 00:45:36 work-life balance or whatever the case might be. How's their sleep? But most importantly, finding out if you can, as close as you can, what is their lineage? You know, like, do they have some Greek heritage? Maybe let's add in some things, some traditional things from their, from their diet. Would their grandmother eat their great grandmother, you know, or Sicily or Kenya or, you know, Japan, whatever it is, let's look at what their ancestry was associating with. Because chances are their, their cells, their genes are going to interact with those foods a little bit better. And so I started to truly make it personalized. That's the future of nutrition is personalized nutrition, but it's happening right now.

Starting point is 00:46:34 I talk about getting blood work done all the time on the show. I really think it is the best way to get to the root cause of whatever health issue you're going through, whether that be acne, stomach issues, mold, fatigue. And I highly recommend checking out Lifeforce because they are leading the way for personalized proactive health. Lifeforce gives you access to regular blood testing, measuring more than 40 biomarkers every three months, coupled with functional medicine support from their team of clinicians. It is so important to test regularly so you can understand how things like your hormones, critical nutrient levels, and metabolic health are impacting how you feel today and identify any risks you should be aware of in the future. What sets Lifeforce apart from other testing companies is their clinical interpretation.

Starting point is 00:47:12 If you've ever done blood work, you know that getting the results back can be like a completely different language. You really need a professional to go through it with you and you won't be on your own as their team of functional medicine clinicians will help you interpret the results and walk you through your personal blueprint to improve your health. If you've ever thought about going to a functional medicine doctor or getting a concierge doctor, you know it can be incredibly expensive. A Lifeforce membership is only $129 a month with no commitments. You are never locked in. Listeners of my show can save $250 by going to my life force.com slash pow. That's my life force.com slash pow. Give life force a try and find out what the healthiest version of you is capable of. You guys know I love cooking. I cook pretty much every meal in the house,

Starting point is 00:47:57 especially dinner. Um, and I'm always getting questions about what cookware I'm using because I have a really cute cookware that is non-toxic and that is caraway. I have been testing out new recipes with my caraway cookware. I just had friends over for dinner and I made this delicious salmon in my caraway cookware. I personally love the sage green pans. They look so gorgeous. And I also made rice in my pan. And what I love about caraway, it's non-toxic. Their products are made without any toxic materials, no PFAs, no PTFEs, no PFOAs, or any other hard to pronounce chemicals. I noticed such a big difference when cooking in Carraway versus my old cookware. It's so much easier to use. Plus I feel so much better about what's actually going into my food. And it adds such

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Starting point is 00:49:25 you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase. This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carrawayhome.com slash pursuit or use code pursuit at checkout. And don't forget to mention where you heard about Carraway from us in their post-purchase survey, Carraway non-toxic cookware made modern. The question I get all the time is, how do you keep the weight off? For those of you who maybe are new or don't know, I lost 90 pounds back in 2017. And I've spoken about that journey and kind of what it took for me to lose that weight, change my life, change my mindset, change who I was. And something I haven't really spoken about is how I've gone about keeping fitness a sustainable part of my life. I

Starting point is 00:50:20 get asked all the time, how do you keep the weight off? It's an interesting question because truthfully, it was never even an option for me to not continue living my life this way. Like I never even considered slipping back to how I was. And maybe that's because the weight gain I experienced came from such a rock bottom place. It was like, I never want to be there ever again. And it was such an internal change for me. I know, you know, the weight loss part of it all is really the clickbait moment that everyone's interested in. But ultimately, I really just changed like, who I was and my work ethic. So I would love to talk to you guys about how I continue to live a healthy lifestyle, how I stay fit and healthy in a sustainable way. And hopefully some of these tips are helpful to you guys. If you're on a weight loss journey or you simply just want to be healthier long term, then keep listening

Starting point is 00:51:20 because I have some great advice. The way that I view fitness and health is it really is a lifelong journey. Like this isn't a sprint. It's not a quick fix before a vacation. It's not a cleanse. We are doing this for life. A huge reason why I live the way I live is because I want to age gracefully. I want to feel good in my 60s, my 70s. My granny is actually a huge inspiration for me. She is, I think, 86 years old and her hair is down to her hips. She walks a ton. She is really, really intelligent and awake and there. And that inspires me. I want to feel like I'm still living well in my age, in my older age. So that's a huge reason for me. Fertility is a huge reason for me. We're thinking beyond the aesthetics here and thinking about how can fitness and health actually enhance my life

Starting point is 00:52:25 for the rest of my life. And there really needs to be a motivation for you beyond just the aesthetics of it all. For me, it's so much about my mental health and for longevity and for showing up as the best version of me for my partner, for my work, whatever I'm doing. So I just wanted to preface my tips with that. Kind of take a look at the reason that you want to live a healthy and fit lifestyle. Is it for you? Is it for your kids? Is it for your family? What is it for? Is it for future you? So let's hop into some of these tips. The very first one, and these aren't necessarily in order. These are just like what came to me first when I really looked at my day-to-day habits and what I think works for me. I would say, and by the way, guys, like people's goals are different. I would keep that in mind,

Starting point is 00:53:19 but this is what's working for me right now. I want to be athletic and capable and fit. I like to be relatively lean. I like to see muscle and feel good about myself, but I'm also on a fertility journey right now. So keep that in mind. My first tip I have here is high protein. You've heard me say it before. I'll say it again. High protein is so important. It helps me feel full and satiated. Muscle is so important. I eat a ton of protein throughout the day. I like to load up my breakfast, especially because I want to start the day with a feeling full, feeling satiated, and a large amount of protein because getting enough protein in is really challenging. I feel like 80% of people are actually not getting enough protein in because when you actually look

Starting point is 00:54:11 at it on a plate, my breakfast is a pile of meat and some fruit, basically. What I've been doing lately is I'll have bacon or sausage, which is kind of like my higher fat protein, and then I'll pair it with a leaner cut. So maybe like a skirt steak or ground beef, 90%, and I'll mix it all together for this kind of like meat mash. I know that sounds so disgusting. I'm not mashing the meat. That made it sound really, really gross. It's basically just a plate of meat. And then I'll do strawberries. Today, I did a banana for a little bit of carbs. So I'm really hitting all my macros there. And I would estimate that my breakfast is probably 30 grams of protein, maybe more. And then I just keep kind of repeating that throughout the day. My meals, my snacks,

Starting point is 00:55:03 everything is centered around the protein. So for lunch, maybe I'll do ground beef and avocado or a salad with extra protein. If you order your lunch, let's say you order salads, get double protein every time. Highly recommend it. Dinner is also centered around the protein, whether it's a ribeye, a salmon, lamb chops, like you can really switch it up. Oh, slow cooker, really great way of making delicious meat that like falls off the bone. So freaking good. And then put your veggies and potato kind of around that, if that makes sense. In terms of snack, high protein again. I love Chomps meat sticks, fantastic way of getting protein in. And there's no additives or any weird ingredients in there. They are a sponsor of the show. We have a code. I'll put it

Starting point is 00:55:51 in the description box. I love Raw Bars, R-A-W-R Bars. They are a small family business that I order from. My Dr. Emily Morrow recommended them to me. I believe they have 20 grams of protein in them. I had one on the way to record because I knew I would get hungry. I am like a giant baby, guys, when it comes to eating. I'm like clockwork. Like I wake up hungry. I have to eat by eight at least. I work out fasted and I eat right after.

Starting point is 00:56:20 Now, I do want to comment on that window of time that you need to eat your protein. I recorded an episode with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and I asked her about this time window. It really isn't as important as we think. As long as we're getting in enough protein throughout the day, it really is about the whole day. And what they recommend is a gram of protein per pound of body weight. So let's say I weigh around 150 pounds, like I need to be getting 150 grams of protein in per day. So it is kind of a mission and you need to be very conscious of it, but it really is life changing. Like just by upping your protein, I feel like what you'll find is that you end up eating less crap throughout the day because you're not having those crazy cravings

Starting point is 00:57:04 and you just feel full. And then also increasing that lean muscle in your body is so important, especially if you're weightlifting. Just by having, and it's hard to explain this concept, but simply by increasing your muscle mass, your body requires more calories to exist every day. So you're actually kind of burning fat when you increase muscle. Having muscle is so important, especially as we age, it protects our bones, it helps with longevity. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon went into so many different studies with me about Alzheimer's and various different diseases, that muscle is really, really like an important piece of the puzzle for health and people don't talk about it enough. So muscle is really, really like an important piece of the puzzle for health and people don't talk about it enough. So muscle is big. I also put incorporating a lot of fats. This isn't hard

Starting point is 00:57:52 for me. I love fats. I'm definitely like a savory type of gal. I love using ghee and tallow and avocado and various types of like healthy fats on my food. But I think for us women, it's really important that we're getting enough fats. Like if you're someone who is maybe eating like really lean proteins and lots of carbs, just remember that fats are really important for hormone health and overall energy and also feeling full and satiated and brain health. Fats are important for absolutely everything. So I think that's really crucial if you're a female, just to make sure you're getting enough fats in every day. I put finding a healthy sweet treat that you love. So for me, for example, I have a few things I

Starting point is 00:58:39 really look forward to in the day. Like I have a can of poppy at some point in the afternoon. I love the cherry limeade flavor. And then I also have four squares of my evolved chocolate. I love the simply white chocolate from evolved. Oh my gosh, it's so creamy. It's so good. Highly recommend you guys get it. The ingredients are super, super clean. And just having these little treats throughout the day, like makes eating healthy fun. And I'm not saying they're essential, but they really do keep things interesting and enjoyable. We don't want to be eating like chicken and broccoli all day. And there's no need to do that. I think when I first got into fitness, I thought that I had to eat like very regimented and a certain like tilapia, chicken and broccoli and rice, like everything was very

Starting point is 00:59:27 like dry. And now I've realized you can really have so much fun with healthy food. And there's so many great options out there. So you just need to kind of educate yourself and keep things fun. I can't believe I don't have my hydro flask with me and normally always do. But find yourself a big portable water container and bring that thing with you everywhere you go. Hydrofasks, Stanley, although they may have lead in them, so be careful about that. Gallon jug from Whole Foods, whatever it may be. When I first started losing weight, I did a gallon a day, which I'm glad I did because I think it really taught me how much water we actually need. I was definitely peeing every five minutes and I'm still peeing a lot, but I drink a ton of water every day. And I really think that the body needs to be hydrated

Starting point is 01:00:16 correctly in order to be healthy and work well and make you feel good and energized. And it just, it impacts everything. I also think it helps you feel full. Not that we're trying to pretend that we're full, like you need to be eating enough food, but I think a lot of the time when we think we're hungry, we're actually just dehydrated. So a lot of water, whatever you need to do to get in enough water, whether you want to throw in a scoop of bloom greens and work on your bloating at the same time or put some electrolytes in there, whatever helps you drink more water is worth doing. Don't leave the house hungry is my next tip. This is one that really helped me on my fitness journey and just realizing the power of preparing ahead of time. So for example, if I'm going to the

Starting point is 01:01:08 mall, I'm headed out for the day, I'm going to an event, going to the movies, whatever it may be, I am eating a snack or a meal beforehand and I'm packing a snack for myself. And I know that sounds childish, whatever. I'm preparing ahead because the facts are most places publicly don't have good options. Like every once in a while, if you live in LA or Austin or New York, you may have good options at the tips of your fingers. But for most people out and about, we can't really trust what people are serving. It could be covered in canola oil. The sauce could have tons of sugar in it. It's kind of just not, you know, every now and again, yes, like I am grabbing something while I'm out or I'm ordering in lunch if I'm busy. Like I don't want to give the

Starting point is 01:01:55 impression that I'm just like a freaking homestead of cooking everything I eat. I do grab things when I'm out and about. However, I've seen really good success when I prepare ahead of time and I say, okay, I'm going to be out for a few hours. Let me bring a snack. Let me make sure I'm not leaving hungry because you are far more likely to make bad decisions when you're hungry and you're out and about. And there's an Auntie Anne pretzel right there or popcorn or whatever it may be. Like, cook what you can at home, bring what you can from home and feel good about the fact that you are giving yourself the nutrients your body needs. And then you're also kind of saving money as well, which is another

Starting point is 01:02:35 good one. Don't be sedentary. This is important and something that I'm still keeping in mind now. I think for many of us, whether we're at an office job or just on our computers all day, it's so easy to end up sitting at a desk like nine to five and not moving. And I kind of fell into this when I was at the Bloom HQ every day. I'd find myself sitting behind my desk all day not moving. And I've really made it a point of getting up and getting outside and going on walks. Even if it's just around the block really quick, or I'm taking a phone call on a walk, walking throughout the day and getting those steps in really, really helps if you're trying to stay,

Starting point is 01:03:18 keep your weight off or stay lean or whatever it may be. That movement's really important. And kind of be honest with yourself and be like, how much am I sitting per day? And if it helps you to get a fitness tracker, I really love my Oura Ring for steps. They're not super accurate, but I just try to get over like 10,000 a day right now, or use your health app on your phone, or just get up and like do jumping jacks, like whatever you can do. Greg is a crazy man, my husband Greg, and he will get up and like do jumping jacks, like whatever you can do. Greg is a crazy man, my husband Greg, and he will get up and do push-ups. He will pace while he's on the phone. He's constantly moving. And for that reason, Greg is like fit all the time. So I've really noticed that the people who move around more during the day tend to be more fit and healthy in the long run.

Starting point is 01:04:06 Ooh, this one's good. Don't have an all or nothing attitude. This is important. And I've seen it in a few people around me. And I've had it before too, this kind of feeling that if I have a cheat meal, or I'm off track one day, or I'm traveling, and I got kind of crazy, that I just ruined everything. And I might as well just like throw the towel in for the rest of the week or the rest of the day or whatever it may be, allowing fun or slip ups to kind of ruin the progress. That isn't the mindset. The all or nothing mindset doesn't work very well when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. It took me a while, honestly, to get to this place of being like, I could have like a cheat meal last night or a treat meal, whatever

Starting point is 01:04:52 you want to call it, and have fun with my food and have a burger and have a martini, aka me on Saturday with Greg at our date night. I had a burger, I had a martini and I loved it. And then the next day I went to the gym and I ate my normal breakfast. Like things don't have to be so absolute. I really feel like that is a mental shift that needs to be made. It really is about like the consistency of it all. When you look at your life big picture, it's like how much, like I'm eating healthy probably 90% of the time. I'm working out regularly 90% of the time. And just knowing when it's okay to like allow a break to happen or fun to happen every now and again, because we need to live our lives too. And if you really like get regimented with it and disciplined and don't allow any fun or, you know, travel, date nights, really getting out and enjoying life,

Starting point is 01:05:51 then it's not going to be sustainable. So you need to make room for that. But just know that coming back to center and grounding yourself and getting back on routine, it's always there. And it doesn't mean that we have to abandon shit. I hope that makes sense. My next tip is to keep it interesting. I've kind of touched on this a little bit, but I think trying new things, going on new walks, like trying new paths when you go out on your walks, going to different neighborhoods or areas of where you live, working out with friends, cooking new recipes, making it a date. Greg and I love cooking together. So if I want to try cooking something new, I'll like tell him what I'm thinking of and we'll meet up in the kitchen after work and do it together and make it fun. Make it a date with your partner to go on a walk.

Starting point is 01:06:43 Like Greg and I were done with work the other day and I said, hey, do you want to meet up and go walk around the lake or text a friend? Like really keep it fun and interesting. I think moving here to Austin and having a fresh perspective and new options has made me so excited about fitness again. And it's just making me realize

Starting point is 01:07:01 like how important it is truly to keep fitness and health fun. There's no need for it to be so serious all the time. And don't get me wrong. I love a solo workout. I did one this morning and I think it really helps me like get mentally in a good place. But then I worked out with a friend yesterday. So I'm really like leaning into the fun of it all. And I would encourage you guys to do the same thing. You know, follow fun, healthy recipe pages on Instagram. Go on TikTok, look for something fun and healthy to try. I really think this keeps it sustainable for a long period of time. Don't let societal norms

Starting point is 01:07:37 shape the way you live. This has been a big one for me. I think when you get healthy or just learn more about health and nutrition, you kind of realize how unhealthy normal standards are. And let me explain. I feel like when I got super healthy and just realized, honestly learned more about alcohol and certain ingredients, canola oil, artificial sugars, you know, whatever it may be, I would go out and about and see everyone drinking and, you know, eating certain things that I knew had horrible ingredients in them. And just realizing that the way I was living was kind of on the outskirts of society, if that makes sense. I think they say there's far more millionaires in the world than people with six packs. Not saying six packs are like the picture of health, but living this way and

Starting point is 01:08:37 choosing the harder path in life isn't normal. And we're kind of choosing to do what you have to be very intentional in today's society to live healthy. I think, I think it takes a lot of effort. And I really applaud anyone who's choosing to be ingredient conscious and cook at home and work out every day and get in enough water and use air purifiers and use seed oil scout and just be really educated with what we're putting in our bodies. And it isn't easy. And I think it's really easy to be swayed by other people who are like, why would you live that way? It seems like a lot of effort. That doesn't even seem fun. And everyone else is drinking beer or whatever they're doing. I just have found that I've had to gain a lot of inner confidence and just know that what I'm doing is so worthwhile, even when it doesn't feel like it. So for anyone who's on a journey and you feel like

Starting point is 01:09:34 you're maybe isolated or you feel different from your friends and family, just know that it's so worth it. And this journey is so fulfilling. And even in those hard moments, like it's one of the most important missions you could be on in life. To me, I'm kind of like, what's more important than health, especially as we get older, especially as we want to have kids. Like this is really like, this is what it's all about is feeling good and knowing that we're taking care of ourselves as best we can and having a positive attitude about it. So I just wanted to add that on here. Find people who match your values. You know, I feel lucky that I have a husband who's really into health and fitness as well. And I have a community

Starting point is 01:10:15 here who's really into health and fitness. I think it helps so much. So whether it's joining a Facebook group or reaching out to someone on Instagram or going up to a girl at your gym, I think surrounding yourself with people who have similar values is really, really helpful, along with listening and watching healthy content, inspiring people, people who talk about personal development, health, nutrition, kind of really editing who you follow online and the types of content you're taking in. Kind of like what I said before, if you're going out in the world and feeling isolated in, you know, the journey that you're on, maybe start following people who kind of line up

Starting point is 01:10:55 with what you're trying to achieve. I think it's so important because we're consuming a lot of content nowadays. Educate yourself around nutrition and fitness. This was one of the best things I could have ever done for myself because I think something I encounter a lot when I talk to people who maybe want to lose weight or get into health and nutrition or have certain goals, the biggest hurdle is this kind of misunderstanding around nutrition, macros, like what does everything mean? How does weightlifting work? How does muscle work? There's so much misinformation out there, even, you know, men and women. I think the concept around like getting bulky with weightlifting or feeling like you need to just do cardio, or there's a lot of myths with fitness and nutrition.

Starting point is 01:11:52 Because it is such an emotional thing, there's a lot of money to be made when it comes to marketing. And I think companies know that and therefore they're tapping into this concept of like, all you need to do is run and eat freaking yogurt. I don't know where I'm coming from with this. But I think one of the best things I did for myself was teach myself what macros are. What does it mean to actually put lean muscle on and how do I go about that? How does everything actually work? And I feel like I was lucky that I came into the industry from the perspective of a bodybuilder because although I don't really think bodybuilding is the healthiest lifestyle, those people have such a dialed in understanding of food and nutrition and macros and also just this podcast and continuing to educate myself. It removes the kind of cloudy myths from fitness and nutrition and makes it really simple and

Starting point is 01:12:46 makes it so that you can tailor it to what you need. The last tip I said was use your calendar to build out your goals. Plug in your workouts, plug in your walks, plug in your meal prep time. Make it a priority in your schedule the same way you would with a work task. If you are having trouble making time for your fitness and health regimes, put it in your calendar. It is a non-negotiable. And the more you do that and the more you show up for yourself,

Starting point is 01:13:14 the easier it will become a habit every single day. For me, I don't even think about it anymore. It is ingrained in my lifestyle, but it took a long time for me to get here. And initially, I had to really schedule out my days and make sure I was hitting these goals. Even the water, like I had certain times I had to drink a certain amount of water by, I had to set aside certain parts of my Sunday to meal prep, whatever it may be, whatever you need to do to make sure the things that need to happen are happening, you should do so. So guys, those were my sustainable fitness tips, ways that I've remained healthy and athletic since losing 90 pounds. I really hope they were helpful and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Starting point is 01:14:02 Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marinawelland.com. It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle. This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Louise Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a

Starting point is 01:14:44 substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.

Pursuit of Wellness - Top 5 Weight Loss & Nutrition Tips From World Class Experts

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