The Livy Method Podcast - Hormones & Weight Loss - Part 1 with Dr. Olinca Trejo - Spring 2025

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

In this episode, Gina and Dr. Olinca Trejo break down why weight loss is not about willpower. It’s all about hormones—and understanding how these chemical messengers shape everything from your cravings to your energy levels. Dr. Olinca explains why your hormones work more like an orchestra than a light switch, how lifestyle factors like stress and sleep throw everything off, and what’s really going on when you feel out of control around food. They also share what it takes to shift your body’s set point and why whole, nutrient-rich meals send the right messages. Plus, Dr. Olinca gets real about dopamine, emotional eating, and the daily habits that make the biggest difference. Stay tuned—in Part 2, they’ll delve into fat storage, stress, and how aging impacts metabolism.Dr. Olinca is a licensed, board-certified Naturopathic Doctor in the province of Ontario. She also holds an honours degree in Kinesiology and has achieved her certification and internship in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).You can contact Dr. Olinca at [e-mail] find her on Instagram: @dr.olincaYou can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi Method Podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 Day Weight Loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the Morning Live? Want to relisten to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place.

This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music. Are you dreaming of your next getaway? Whether it's sand, sun, or sightseeing, Sell-Off Vacations has you covered. They've been booking Canadians for over 30 years,

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How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. Of all of our guests, but hands down, every single group, this is my favorite conversation. It never gets old. And it's the conversation you didn't know that you needed to hear. We are talking hormones today with the hormone queen,

Dr. Alinka Trejo. Hello, hi. Hi, I am so excited about this one. You know that I am so excited every time, but this one in particular, I think is amazing and fascinating. So I'm so excited to do this one. Where do we start?

Because we have a ton of new people, perhaps this is, it's not the first time they're seeing you, but that's the first time they've heard this particular conversation with you. And maybe the first time they've heard this conversation when it comes to weight loss, everyone's just eat less, exercise more, my goodness, that oversimplification of calories in

versus calories out is why we're all here to begin with. But what do they need to know about why this conversation about hormones and weight loss is so important? I think, I mean, first of all, we need to understand that hormones are these little chemical messengers that signal your body like what to do and when to do it, right? And I always say this about hormones, hormones are your friends and you can't function without them.

But whether or not your body tends to accumulate more fat tissue or not, or whether or not you have food cravings, or whether or not you are hungry or you're full, it's actually determined by hormones and your physiology rather than just willpower, right? And we are conditioned to believe that if you are not losing weight, it's because it's a mindset problem. It is your willpower. you are not losing weight, it's because it's a mindset problem. It is your willpower. And we're here to tell you that understanding actually

how your hormones influence your weight can provide you insight into not just why weight loss efforts might vary from person to person, but also why maintaining weight loss, especially with a formula of less calories in and more calories out does not work and can be just like an uphill battle for the rest of your life. Drop the mic. And see you on Thursday. You said something there, hormones are your friend. And it's interesting because I think people feel,

especially after years of dieting, that their body's just trying to make them fat, screw them over. And that's probably because your hormones are out of whack. There's a lot of conversation about hormones, especially with, you know, everyone now talking about menopause, which is great. People are talking about that.

But I just want to talk about your hormones being balanced because it's not like you can't balance your hormones. It's not like you can get them all in a straight line and they're balanced that way. So can you just talk about the nature of hormones when people hear that language? Oh, this program helps you balance your hormones. Take this pill, balance your hormones.

That's not exactly it. It's not. It's really challenging because we are a network of networks, right? And your hormones, I always say this analogy, but it's so true. Your hormones are this beautiful orchestra that needs to be in tune, playing the exact same song at the exact same time for it to sound as beautiful

as it's meant to sound. However, there's so many hormones that you can understand how this can get very complicated, right? Especially because your hormones, all of them get impacted by things like sleep, by exercise, by stress, and they're all kind of interacting all the time. And so anything and everything that you choose to do is impacting them directly or indirectly. And so when people, and you know, this is one of my pet peeves, but when they, especially in the age of social media, they see X supplement that's supposed to balance your hormones, or take this thyroid

thing and you're going to lose weight. It doesn't work like that. And, you know, there are conditions in which, you know, your thyroid can be off or perimenopause or menopause or what have you, but it's not that by just balancing one, all of them just magically go back to where they should be without you actually working on all of the lifestyle things that again bring that orchestra back in tune to the same song at the same time. Yeah. Love that. It's like if you have that orchestra or we've all got to see our kids play in the band.

And if the trombone is off and this is off, it's just like, sometimes it doesn't even sound like music at all. Bless those children though. A for effort though. A for effort you guys. Okay, so hormones play a role in sleep, in stress, in metabolism, homeostasis and mood. Where do we start with this conversation in terms of like how they impact your weight and weight loss?

Yeah, so I, you know what, let's divide them into the hormones that impact your hunger and your satiety. So your hunger and your fullnessiety. So your hunger and your fullness, your food choices, because that's really important, and your metabolism, because we get asked about that all the time and like, how do I boost my metabolism? So listen up to that. There's going to be how we store fat. That's how I think that we can probably break them into, and then we'll probably get through half of them today and half of them on Thursday and we can probably break them into and then we'll probably get through half of them today and half of them on Thursday and we can pull them all together so you can understand how

specific choices or specific imbalances or specific times in your life can actually impact so many of them at the same time. Okay and just remember everyone that you're following the living method you're already doing so much by eating good nutrient rich foods, by being in teacher portions, by managing your stress and your sleep and moving your body and taking your basic supplements. You're already doing so much to address these, but we're definitely gonna be, or I'm gonna be asking Dr. Alinka along the way,

what can we do about it? So this is gonna be chocked full of information and tips. You might just wanna sit back and listen the first time and then go back and listen again with a pen and paper or take notes as you go. All right, let's go. Should we talk with hunger and satiety? Because the last time you and I had this conversation,

this was just like, everyone's taking, not everyone, but everyone's talking about GLP-1 medications. GLP-1 is a hormone and it's released after you're done eating, letting you know when you've kind of had enough. And when it comes to your hunger hormones, your leptin and your ghrelin, you can get like leptin resistance

and end up needing to eat more foods than you actually need. So can we just start with that? Cause I just, I love this conversation. Of course. Okay. So let's start with ghrelin. Ghrelin is the easiest one to remember because, okay, so body weight is very, very, very tightly controlled by a specific area in your brain that's called your hypothalamus. And your hypothalamus is this variation part of your brain that's

responsible for keeping a lot of your automatic processes in balance, right? So your heart rate, your breathing, all of that stuff. And so it's so interesting because your fat cells actually talk to your metabolism, sorry, your fat cells talk to your brain and regulate actually a lot of processes, automatic processes through your fat. And so for example, if you haven't eaten in a while, And so for example, if you haven't eaten in a while, there's a hormone in your stomach that's called ghrelin that is released and it tells actually your hypothalamus that's entering your brain to activate the hunger pathway so that you'll eat, right?

So you get hungry. And then once you've had a meal, then there's this whole cascade of really funny sounding hormones like the GLP-1, the PYY, the CCK, the GIP, all of those that are released by your gut and tell your hypothalamus, you know what, we're full. We're full. All of these hormones actually peak between about 30 to 60 minutes after you eat, which is actually why it's so important that we are mindful about our food intake, right? Because if you're

just eating and eating and eating, it's almost like your hypothalamus can't catch up and you cannot almost get that signal that's like, you know what, I've eaten enough. And so your hypothalamus and your ghrelin are more eating for nourishment. That's what it is. Now then, GLP-1 is probably the most famous out of all of them right now. Because GLP-1, it enhances insulin secretion that we'll talk about later, but it actually slows gastric emptying and promotes satiety. So it kind of sends a signal to your brain that says, you know what, we're full.

And it makes you feel really satisfied so that you'll stop eating. And it kind of helps maintain your sugar levels and so if you know anybody that's on a glp1 agonist what they'll say is like i just i finally feel full and i finally know when to stop because that glp1 says like you know what brain like we're good you don't need to eat anymore i actually think that one of the most interesting hormones that we haven't actually talked about, and we don't gatekeep here, you guys, and I honestly think this is gonna be the next hormone that we're going to hit with medication. It's actually something that's called neuropeptide Y.

And neuropeptide Y is so fascinating because that one is actually produced in the brain. It's not in the gut, it's not in your stomach, it's actually produced in your brain. And NP not in the gut, it's not in your stomach, it's actually produced in your brain. And NPY actually stimulates food intake, specifically carbohydrate intake, and it's associated with increased appetite during stress. And so it's really, really, really, really interesting because it increases food intake with a preferential effect in carbohydrate intake, but it also increases this motivation to eat and delays the tightness even if you are on a GLP-1 agonist,

even if your ghrelin says like, uh-uh, like we need to stop, even if your leptin is high, even, even, even, even, even. And so then what happens is that you're eating and you're eating and you're eating. And NPY is actually the one hormone that increases meal sizes and increases the rate and the proportion of nutrients that you store as fat as a result of stress in combination with cortisol.

Right? And so it's so interesting because you know that I'm like totally against fasting and we'll talk about all of that, but NPY is the most powerful hormone that is going to increase the appetite in a state of stress and it also increases with fasting, with caloric restriction, with stress, with sleep deprivation. And so I actually think that it is a hormone that is very underrated right now. And it's a hormone that we in the living method

actually directly and indirectly impact way more than any of the other hormones because of the way that we're actually helping you change your lifestyle. I wanna go back and listen to all of that again. Right? Right? My brain is like all over. Okay, one, it's really interesting.

I watched one of the Helmsworth brothers did this thing where he, I don't know, did all these different healthings and he was fasting. And I'm not talking about fasting for weight loss. I'm talking like fasting for four days for that, like autophagy where your cells start to clean and fight. And that's a real thing, that's extreme. And so they were talking about tribes

who would go days, weeks without food. And what would happen is the brain would like kick in this sense of clarity and motivation to give them the energy and willpower to find that food. Like that's that survival mechanism, right? And so when we talk about set point, and if you think about years of dieting, years of, you know, periods of starvation, really,

I'm not talking about starvation mode, I'm talking about your body has learned that it needs to store a certain amount of fat. So your set point is like the weight that your body has created homeostasis around. So it feels like I need all of this extra fat because I've learned and like Dr. Alinka talked about our fat just doesn't sit there and do nothing. And I think that surprises a lot of people. Your fat gets factored in to how your body functions. And you can't just lose 20 pounds overnight

because your body needs to adjust to the weight that you're losing along the way, which is why you also want and need plateaus. Your body has to adjust to the fat that it's releasing because it's factored in that fat to everything that it's doing. Okay, woo, fascinating, okay. And so, you know, and I always go back to this point and I think especially because there was such

a big conversation around fasting. And I think that fasting done well, medically supervised can be a great tool for some people. But for the vast majority of us, actually, what happens is that fasting will increase NPY, right? So then what happens is that your body goes into stress mode because it feels like, oh my gosh, this woman is not feeding me and it's happening again. Because it's not the first time that you're fasting. And most of the reason why we fast is for not just like autophagy and things like that.

But if we talk about the first hormones that we discussed today, right, which is like ghrelin, which is that hunger hormone. When you skip a meal, your ghrelin, which is that give me, give me, give me food hormone, gets really, really high so that then at the next time that you feed yourself, you're going to eat way more food. And sometimes you can actually overeat, right? When your ghrelin is high, you're also going to produce less GLP-1 on your own, not because of medication, on your own.

And so what that means, if you think GLP-1 is a satiety hormone that makes me feel full in the Lays gastric emptying, if ghrelin is really high and you're super hungry because you skipped a meal, then you're producing less of that satiety hormone that says to you like, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold the horses like we've eaten enough, right? And then also when you're fasting and restricted calories, then that neuropeptide Y is also really, really high. That's going to say like, give me more carbs, give me more carbs, give me more carbs, because you're also going almost into stress mode and you're going to overeat. So you're getting hit at like every single direction when you're fasting or like not having those regular meals, which is actually why we like the three meals to snacks. So timing is really important. That's one. The second thing is that what you eat also impacts ghrelin. And so this is actually very, I'm going to try to oversimplify it, but ghrelin. And so this is actually very, it's, I'm going to try to oversimplify it, but

ghrelin is brought down real quick by carbohydrates, right? Because carbohydrates, because you get that spike in blood sugar, your body is like, she's eaten. Okay. Thank God. We are no longer famished. However, fiber actually stimulates other hormones like GLP-1 and PYY and all of the other ones that we talked about so that it actually slows down how quickly you absorb and how quickly you metabolize those carbs. Protein then becomes extremely important because protein actually works to keep ghrelin suppressed for longer. So yes, carbs like bring down ghrelin really, really fast. Fiber actually slows down that emptying, which actually then works on that GLP-1, right?

But fiber actually just helps keep everything suppressed for a little bit longer. And so the key to this is that if you are just feeding yourself carbs or refined carbs or simple carbs, what's gonna happen as you get this short-term suppression of ghrelin, so your body is like, god yeah she ate this is great

but then it's actually followed by this rebound in hunger because you didn't have the fiber and you didn't have the fat and you didn't have the protein and so this is also why it's so important that it's not just that you're not meal skipping but that what you're eating is a really great combination of your macronutrients that have lots of fiber, that have lots of protein, that have a little bit of carb, right? We can't function without carbs effectively

because that also sends all of our alarm system into like, oh God, oh God, she's starving. And so that's actually why the timing and the food composition is so, so, so important. And that's what we're trying to teach you. You know, it just occurred to me, no one talks about a balanced diet anymore. Everyone's talking about super high protein or low carbs.

And that's why like the living method is not low carb. It's the right carbs at the right time. You need that rice, you need those potatoes, you need that quinoa added in earlier in your day around lunch. Vegetables are carbs, fruits are carbs. This is why we're not afraid of them. And I think we underestimate the importance of fat,

of fiber, when we focus on high protein and low carbs, and it's really how it all works together. I just wanna take a minute and take a beat there, because when you think about the living method, and the very first conversation that we had was on routine. And this is why sometimes you are bored as hell when it comes to following the living method, but the body loves that routine. And through that routine, you are allowing your body that the like space, the

calmness to rewire and rework how it's come to function physically. And when we talk about address why your body feels you need to store fat, that's very complex, right? I oversimplify. I'm like over, actually you're the hormone queen on the oversimplification queen. Over here, when we say, you know, we're addressing why your body's feeling you need to store fat or why it's taking some people longer to see movement on the scale. If you can imagine your hormones like, oh, okay, it's time to eat. Well, no, I'm already feeling this. And then you feed that, well, you go over there.

And then if every one of your hormones was a voice yelling at each other at the same time, some people, it's just chaos up in there. And some of your hormones are just asleep and they're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. A hundred percent of us what happens. And I think that this is also why it's so important that when we start personalizing the plan, we always talk about like, listen to your body, right?

Because all of us are so, so different. And there are people legitimately that feel super great actually front loading some of their cars with food in the morning and all of those things, because that's talking to your hormones. And that is actually what's rebalancing your own hormones after years of damaging and dieting and you know your hormones honestly just trying to keep you in survival mode and holding on to that bat because as we always say your body is hardwired for survival and it's not that it's working against you it's just that your hormones respond to whatever environment you put them in. And so if you put them in an environment of high

stress, underfeeding, over exercising, it's traumatizing for them. Right? So, and I love, I think it was the last conversation that we had about sleep. And you said to me, how long does it take for somebody to start losing weight? And I said to you, like, you know, it's so personalized because it depends on so many factors. It depends on genetics. It depends on environment. It depends on like where you're at and your body will respond maybe really fast. Maybe it will be a little bit slower, but it will respond in indirect proportion to what we've also put it through. Yes. Equal and opposite reaction. Like this is why we talk about go back and reflect on how you got here. And, you know, traumatic experiences in your life tied into your weight,

all the, you know, crazy ass diets that we did in the past, you know, your environment, not just like where you live, but your stress, what you've got going on with your kids, with your family, with your friends, with your relationships. Stress is a big one for sure. Okay. So we just talked about hunger and satiety, ghrelin, leptin, gut hormones, neuropeptide. What can we do?

Just lastly, before we move on to food choices, what can we do to address those beyond following the food plan? What can we do to address those beyond following the food plan? What can people do? It's time for today's podcast sponsor and this is a company that I can feel good about. It's Bombas. Did you know that socks are one of the most requested items by organizations supporting people experiencing homelessness? Yeah, socks.

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which as you mentioned, is actually produced by your fat cells and sends a signal of like, I've got ample food, I don't need any more food. And it's especially important if you have a lot of adipose tissue because there is a condition, as you mentioned, where your body doesn't listen to these hormones anymore. Kind of like it becomes resistant

to that messaging with leptin. And so sleep is really, really important. I think honestly kindness and patience are also really important because as you talked about the set point, right, and all of these challenges, the research actually shows that changes in these hormones might actually last for up to maybe three to four years after you've actually lost a bunch of weight,

which is actually part of the reason as to why when you crash diet or when you lose a lot of weight, up to eight to 10 out of people, right, will regain this weight. And so I do think that consistency, the routine, and the patience and the kindness to yourself to just say like, this is a lifestyle, this isn't like a crash slide that I'm doing,

and sticking to your plan, honestly, and following this as a lifestyle method, right? I say this every time that I'm on here, and it's not like a broken record, but this is a change in lifestyle, this isn't a weight loss program. And so it's the consistency and the routine that will give you the most impact long-term

because most of us can lose weight for a short period of time. It's actually the maintenance. And the maintenance is in all of the boring non-sexy things like the sleep and the routine. Yeah, I mean, especially with people taking the new weight loss medications, it's great. I love that if it gives you a handle on your hunger

and the food noise and it helps you lose that weight, but it's very problematic in that they don't have a solution for people being able to sustain and maintain that weight after. So not only do they gain their weight back, but almost like at twice the rate, it's not in the losing. It's, I mean, we've all rate. It's not in the losing. I mean, we've all lost before. It's in the maintaining. It's in the actually the changes that you're making, not just physically, but the mental work you're doing that's going to help you

sustain and maintain. Okay, let's talk about food. I also want you mentioned there, there was one more I want to add to that is like eating your food in a, like when you're calm, eating your food when you are calm, like actually chewing your food, taking time to eat, not distracted, scroll on your phone, doing a million things like I do every day, do as I say, not as I do. Anyway, I digress. Actually, like talking, just just making a very brief point on that. There's some, there's very small studies I have shown that if you eat under a state of stress, it's the equivalent as if you'd actually eaten about 110 calories more than you did at that

one sitting. Wow. Because of the impact that not just stress, but not necessarily being mindful of what you're eating, right, in that one sitting, is how that actually impacts your intake of food and how you actually hold onto the food that you are actually eating. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Let's talk about dopamine. Dopamine. Okay. So listen, dopamine is a, for sure, it's a neurotransmitter. I get it, you guys, but we're talking about hormones and it's kind of like a neurotransmitter

about like, you know, it's a little bit of a hormone. So I just kind of bring it in there because just like we talked about how the hypothalamus is kind of like the center that regulates food intake for nourishment and regulates a lot of these hunger hormones and satiety hormones, there's a different part of your brain that's called the limbic system

that is responsible for eating because it's fun, because it tastes good, because it gives you pleasure, because it also helps you survive, right? And so your reward mechanism in your brain really is kind of, it actually allowed us to seek out food because it made us feel really, really good. And from an evolutionary standpoint, that was great for our survival, right? Because it helped us continue seeking that food that allowed us to keep on eating, that allowed us to survive and make babies. And then so here we are billion years later. And so whole foods, so regular food, gives you an appropriate amount of dopamine release, an appropriate amount of pleasure for what you're eating. And so that's amazing

because what happens is that when you see an apple your brain's like, oh my god this feels great, love me some apple. And that creates almost like this appropriate desire for food. You're not going to sit down and have 17 apples at the same time because your body feels satisfied after one and you move on. What happens now is that our food environment is very much, I'm like trying to chew my words. You're trying to be nice. I know, I'm trying to be nice. Okay, listen. So this is where we got into trouble because our food environment is engineered so that you consume more because consuming makes people money. Truly that is, in a nice way and in a simple way, that is what happens.

And so your food environment- It just sounds so crazy though, right? It sounds crazy, Pants, to talk about how our food is chemically engineered to feed into our dopamine centers to make us buy more, eat more, and not be able to stop. But I hate that fear mongering, but I mean- I know. I know you do too, so it sounds icky to talk about, but it is a reality. It is a reality.

Because what's happening is that now food is engineered, not whole foods, right? We're talking about things that come in a package, things that are processed, things like that. So there's, they're highly palatable, hyper-processed foods that give us way too much dopamine and way too much pleasure, right, when you eat it. And so what happens then is that you have this ancient brain in this current food environment that's very processed, engineered to make you want more and more and more and more, which then results in overeating.

And so this is where, you know, I always say your hypothalamus in your brain is meant to keep things in balance, right? But there's disruptions within those pathways in these chemical messenger story, because your brain is being hijacked by your environment that gives you this over desire, that gives you this eating in excess of your needs.

And so it's not about willpower. Truly it's not about willpower, is that your environment is feeding into a part of your brain that at some point was hardwired for your survival. But in order to survive, you don't need packaged, over-processed, highly palatable foods. And how many times have you heard this before

where it's the, once I started, sorry, feeding myself real food, I stopped craving all of the crap and all of the junk, but it's only when you remove it that then your brain understands like, oh, apple, appropriate amount of dopamine. Yeah, cause no one's overeating their broccoli. No one's like, oh my God, I ate so much broccoli or even steak. No one's like, I ate so much steak.

No, because with your whole foods, your body's getting the message that but, but this is and it's going to have a lingering effect when people start doing the program and they're used to snacking at night, for example, right? And then they, your body is so smart, it gets triggered by certain things. And then you want that dopamine feeling that you get when you have the chips, when you have this, when you have that. And it's, it's, um, you know, I've been, I've been doing a little reading on this and one of the ways to just kind of like, tune out the dopamine is don't give into it, but that leaves you feeling uncomfortable. That's not an easy thing to do, right? You almost have to like lower the amounts of dopamine,

because you get dopamine from scrolling on TikTok or I don't go on TikTok, but scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, I'm still showing my age, I'm on Facebook. But you get dopamine from other things, not just food. And we're constantly dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. And so it's hard to control that. Like you said, and it's not willpower at the end of the day. So what do we do about our dopamine hits?

Yeah. So that's actually, it's really interesting because, you know, I think that this is where our world truly is, it feeds on dopamine, right? If you think about over consumption of food, over consumption of news, over consumption of goods, right? The purchasing, all of the things. It all kind of feeds into that system. And I find it's really hard because it's almost, I wish that we had like a dopamine menu, every single one of us, that you had a list of things that gave you dopamine that you didn't have to consume. You didn't have to eat, you didn't have to purchase, you didn't have to do things. And so things like, for example, connection with other human beings, right?

Exercise, having time for yourself. There's all of these little ways in which you can get an appropriate amount of dopamine. Again, our brain right now in our current environment, what it seeks is these giant releases of dopamine. However, a lot of the research actually says that the dopamine piece of it is in the seeking of it, not necessarily in the getting it, right?

So it's almost the, when you're going on vacation, you're so excited, you're like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then once you're on vacation, you're just kind of like, yeah, this is amazing. But it's actually the lead up into the vacation that actually releases a lot more of that dopamine, that the vacation itself. That you getting excited about the adding to cart

sometimes is way more exciting than actually having that dress or whatever it is that you've bought in your closet. Because there's also something that's called hedonic adaptation where your brain gets adapted to like that release, right? And like dopamine is really quick and it's very fleeting. And so if you can actually hold off on that scrolling, and we're going to talk about scrolling on Thursday,

because I have a beef with scrolling, but with all of these things that sit in that discomfort, and rewire your brain in the same way that we talked about it when we chatted about sleep, that I'm even trying to, where I'm trying to focus on the little positive things in my everyday rather than given to my brain's negativity. And as much as my brain you guys as everybody's brain. I swear I am a positive person. But it's it's the it's in that sitting in the discomfort and fighting against it rather than just giving into everything

that's giving that dopamine, right? And that honestly, I know sounds so boring and so cliche, especially coming from me, but it actually works. It's almost like a dopamine detox, but I wish that we all did. Listen, who is talking about this when it comes to losing weight? Nobody. This is why weight loss, it can be very complicated. This is why the living method is so much more than just losing the weight because it's about what you learn and what you're working through and the skills and tools you require all of that to be able to maintain and sustain your weight, which means, you know, creating a new lifestyle, like you say for yourself, that's going to maintain that, but far more than just your food choices, because your dopamine is affecting you when you are buying

things, when you are doing this, when you are doing that. So when you're addressing all of these things, it has a massive ripple effect in the rest of your life. And this is where you kind of have to make these lifestyle changes to be able to support your weight because they're all interconnected I I do this all the time I will shop and I'm like dopamine dopamine dopamine dopamine and I'll get to my cart and then I'll just like okay I'll check back tomorrow. I'll check back tomorrow because if that thing isn't still on my mind, I don't really want it I didn't really need it. I was just in the moment of like, usually in bed, so it's probably replacing my wine. I'm you know what I mean? I abandon cart all the time. Of course, then they

send me an email like, Oh, I see your stuff. 15%. Okay, if I really want it, you're going to give me an extra 15%. Now I'll buy it. But it's same thing with the food. And this is where you could say, oh, do I really want this? It's great to have that capacity to be able to be like, oh, do I really want this? But some of you just are not there yet. And that takes practice, getting to a place where you can stop yourself and be like, why am I eating this?

Do we actually really want it? And that gets easier the more awareness you bring to that. But that's my issue with intuitive eating. Oh, just look at this, do you really want it? And that gets easier the more awareness you bring to that. But that's my issue with intuitive eating. Oh, just look at this. Do you really want it? Well, it takes a practice to be able to recognize and ask a question in the moment. But yeah, I just wanted to say that.

So it's so much more than just trying to lose the weight. It's the effect it has in your entire life. This is brilliant. You are brilliant. Love you. Okay. And you know, I think that the last thing that I'll say about dopamine before we get

into metabolism is that there's so many little ways in which you can get dopamine. And I think that again, because of the environment and the culture that we're in right now, and the culture that glorifies busyness over anything else, you often get caught up in the busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And at the end of the day, if you think about it, at the end of the day is when your brain feels tired, worn out. It just wants a little bit of like, just hit me with a little reward because I have had a really crappy day. Right. So even the refocusing your, I'm going to look for the highlight of my day, or I am going to look for that physical connection, or at the end of the day when I feel like I want to eat all the chips or all the candy or whatever, reflect back. I'm just going to walk away from this in journal and

say, why am I feeling like this? So that you can reflect back on it because all of the, I really truly think that the maintenance of weight loss has so much to do with also introspection and a lot of that deep work that you look in and you say like, okay, like why am I feeling like this? Why am I seeking food? Is there anything else that can actually give me that little bit of a hit, right? So it is honestly, I think at this point, a lot of my patients too, when they've done the program for the first time, if they're not gung ho and they're just like, I don't really know if I, it's like a lot of stuff that I'm doing all at the same time. I always tell people like, it's actually the little things like the journaling and the checking in that are so important for that legitimately for that consistency over perfection.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everyone wants to lose the weight like yesterday and wants it to just be about the weight, but it's not just about eating less and exercising more. And we've all done that before. And that was something that quite early on I realized was just not working for me

and not working for many of my clients either. It's so much more complex than that. And this is something even the Canadian Obesity Society is starting to say. I was at a conference a couple of months ago and on the opening night they said, which is interesting because Sean Wharton is gonna be joining us tomorrow,

they said, it's not eat less, exercise more anymore. Like it's just not. It's not. But how do you have these conversations out there in the general public? Like who has access to sit down with their doctor and have this all explained to them? How do you get this information on like, you know, 30 second 90 second snippets on social media, right?

And usually when people are having the conversations, it's because someone's also trying to sell you this or sell you that the same time, you know, have people like Dr. Alinka, who is just literally coming on here today to try to share her knowledge, understanding how hard you are trying to lose weight, all the questions and concerns that you have, and trying to just kind of wrap you in a big hug of knowledge to help you understand, like, keep showing

up, you will get there. And if it's taking longer than you like, there's probably a reason for that, you know, I just adore you. I just could mean it's a lot that we've given people today. And I know you still want to talk about metabolism and fat storage and stress hormones. You know, you want to talk about hormones and aging too. So I want to talk about that. We, Dr. Link will touch on the menopause conversation, although she's going to be will touch on the menopause conversation,

although she's going to be joining us in the menopause learning series, if you're interested in joining us over there, because this conversation is for everybody. This is if you are human and have a body, this is for you. I don't want to go too much into metabolism, fat loss and stress because I kind of want to wrap this up, but can you give us maybe a touch

of what the conversation on Thursday is going to be and why they want to come back and listen to part two of this? Of course. So, you know, I think when anybody thinks about hormones and weight loss, they always assume that it's going to be thyroid. And so I'm here to tell you that while thyroid has a role, it's not all that because thyroid can actually only, like it truly only impacts your weight by about maybe 10 pounds or so and it's actually things like cortisol, right, which are your stress hormones or the changes in things like growth hormone as we age or actually testosterone or fluctuations in estrogen and all of these things that not just impact how you store fat, where you store fat, but also your muscle mass, right?

Because muscle mass, as we talk about on this program, muscle mass is not just your key to longevity, but it is the one thing that you can control about your metabolism and about how many calories you burn. Well, we're not talking about calories, but they are important. Calories you burn while sitting there breathing. And so I want to talk about hormones that impact everybody

because, you know, when we've done this before and everybody assumes that these conversations are just about menopause, they're not. These are about all of the hormones that you actually have from the day that you're born until the day that you die. I love that. And calories are important, right? It's just, and you can lose weight by counting and weighing and measuring. It's just like, that's just not a very sustainable way.

You're not learning anything that way. Like, yes, what you eat, how much you eat, that is important. But if your hormones are off, your leptin and ghrelin is off, it's hard for you to get a handle on how much you're eating. And then you think that you're eating enough and really you're eating too much. And it's very complex. I'm looking forward to this conversation with you. You can reach out to Dr. Alinka Trejo

because I know so many of you are like, oh my goodness, I can't tell you how many people have reached out to me and been like, I'm lucky enough to be able to work with Dr. Alinka. It's been a game changer. You can follow her over on social media at Dr. Alinka, Dr. Alinka, that's O-L-I-N-C-A. You can reach out by email info at drolinkaca.com.

She's gonna be back on Thursday, continuing this conversation. I know you got some good tidbits. I know you got some good tidbits and takeaways. Go back, grab a pen, look at all my notes. Even I got notes. Go back, grab a pen, piece of paper, listen to it again. It's gonna be stored in the guides

after you can also download and listen to our podcast. Thanks everyone. Thank you, Dr. Alinka. I will, I'm already excited. I'm gonna just be excited till Thursday. I'll see you then. Yeah, I'll see you then.