The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Sleep, Stress and Hormones With Dr. Olinca Trejo - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

In this Guest Expert segment, Gina discusses sleep, stress and hormones with Dr. Olinca Trejo. 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 find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:The factors (other than what you eat and when) that affect weight loss Sleep & hormones - their combined effects on weight lossHormones - chemical messengers that respond to the environment we put them inSleep - the hormones playing a role in getting good sleepMelatonin - should we supplement or not?Hormonal transitions (puberty, perimenopause and menopause) - their effects on sleepThe orchestra of hormones - what are they and what do they do?Poor sleep - how it impacts hunger the next dayThyroid - the hormones involved and their effects on our bodySleep deprivation - how it affects weight lossThe Livy Method - how it helps support higher quality sleepInsulin - its relationship with stress, sleep and weight lossMenopause and hot flashes - supplements to support quality sleep at this timeReconsidering sleep - "It’s more like landing a plane rather than turning off a switch"Caffeine and alcohol - how long they stay in your system and their impact on quality sleepStress - the importance of managing it throughout the day to support sleep at nightRestless legs - what’s happening there and what can we do about it?Stress - how it affects hormones and weight lossHow to manage stress - top tips Mental health - medications, how they can support us and our weight loss journeyFinal words from Dr. Olinca - the importance of patience with our bodiesWhere to find Dr. Olinca - info@drolinca.comTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy 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 re-listen 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,
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Starting point is 00:01:14 You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. Weight loss, weight loss, weight loss, weight loss is such a big conversation. And I find that there are a couple of things that people are always focused on. They're always focused on what to eat and when, and not really understanding how so many other things play a role and or they're focused on hormones. I've gained weight because of hormones. I can't lose weight because of hormones. And really one of the, I think most mind blowing things I've discovered in all my years of helping people lose weight and talking to our amazing guests, like our guest today, Dr. Alinka Trejo, is how sleep and stress factor in
Starting point is 00:02:07 to why you are carrying extra weight, why you can't carry, why you can't lose weight, and that bigger conversation of hormones. I'm trying to wrap my head. The conversation is so huge. We're going to try to break it down, bring awareness to it today. Why sleep and stress may be your ticket to your finally end forever weight loss goals. Dr. Darlinka Trejo in the house. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi. Good morning, everybody. I'm trying to like, this conversation is so huge. I mean, I feel like all the conversations that we have are so huge. This is probably why obesity like all the conversations that we have are so huge. This is probably why obesity is like an epidemic and, you know, obesity rates keep climbing year
Starting point is 00:02:50 over year, as opposed to decreasing year over year, even though there are more diets out there than ever, more people talking about it than ever, but I think they're not talking about the right things. And so where do we start with this conversation is it sleep is it stress is it hormones where do we start I think it's all of them I think you know honestly I think that sleep and hormones are so tightly linked that problems with one usually lead into problems with the other one ah okay yeah and so that's why I think that you honestly can't separate the two. And if, I mean, if you kind of want to even take it back to what is a hormone, a hormone is just a mystical message, a mystical messenger, a chemical messenger, right? That's
Starting point is 00:03:37 released through your endocrine system message, a mystical messenger that is released through this mystical, uh mystical hormone system. That's called your energy. It feels like that. It feels like that. It feels like that. Okay. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:03:51 It feels like that. They could be magical or not. They could be diabolical if you let them be. But anyways, and so they're supposed to deliver specific messages. And one of the things that I always go back to is that your hormones respond to the environment that you put them in. And so if the environment that you're putting them in is high stress, underfed, you know, irregular eating patterns, or whatever it is, your hormones are going to be out of whack because of that. And then if your hormones are out of whack, there's going to be a lot of the other,
Starting point is 00:04:26 it's going to also impact those things. Right. So I think if we, if we, you want, we can start with like the hormones that dictate sleep if you want, and we can kind of take it away and then we can kind of go into, to stress maybe.
Starting point is 00:04:40 And like how it impacts our weight journey. You take it away. Yeah. I mean, Dr. Link is going to join us again in a few weeks and talk about the menopause conversation. So we're going to, we're going to get into that later on, but we want to really keep this conversation focused on stress and sleeps, which if you are concerned about any of the pauses, this is the conversation you're going to want to listen to. Just like what you are doing
Starting point is 00:05:02 right now with the, with the basic food plan in the first few weeks of the program is laying the foundation to address these issues and be able to even have a conversation about what to do. You're already doing so much just by following the basic food plan. And then when we start making the changes to the food plan as we go, and we really start kind of digging deeper into these types of topics, you're going to find you're already doing the things you need to do by looking at that maximizing post, helping to get better quality sleep and help manage your stress and move your body more and all of those things. Okay, so let me just recap. So hormones are chemical messengers. They tell your body like what to do with your, the food you have coming in, what, when to go to bed, when you're waking up, when you've had enough food, regulating blood
Starting point is 00:05:53 sugar, right. Regulating your stress, all of that. So there, there, there are the things that tell your body what the fuck's going on. And they respond to the environments that you put them in. So they're very adaptable. I always say the body is so smart. It figures out a way to like the reason why a lot of people, their body's storing fat is because they've spent so many years starving and depriving themselves. And so your body's like, Oh, okay, well I, I got to keep you alive and you keep starving. So I'm going to, every time you do eat, I'm going to just take all that. So I'm going to, every time you do eat, I'm going to just take all that food and I'm going to store it as fat because I need it for every time we go through a starvation period. Right.
Starting point is 00:06:32 For sure. So, so do we start with sleep? Let's start with, let's start with sleep because we were building on the conversation that we had with Dr. Beverly last week. And she came on and talked about the psychology behind sleep and what's happening in the brain, especially when you're not getting enough sleep. And then of course, tomorrow, Alana is joining us. She's going to give us tips for getting better quality sleep. So let's talk about sleep and hormones then. What's happening to our body
Starting point is 00:07:00 physically when it comes to sleep? Okay. So physically there is three main drivers or three main hormones that are going to regulate your sleep cycle. One is going to be melatonin. The second one is going to be cortisol. And the third one is going to be adenosine. Melatonin is your sleep hormone. It is the one that regulates your circadian rhythm, but it only really increases with red light, actually, that sometimes you see first thing in the morning or right as it's getting dark. Like that's actually when your body will produce that melatonin and your your super charismatic nucleus will actually just like store it there until it's ready to go. You know, until it's ready for sleep time. Cortisol is the hormone that wakes you up in the morning. That's actually the hormone that responds to daylight and blue light.
Starting point is 00:07:53 And cortisol is the hormone that also your body releases when you're stressed out or when you're exercising. But in a sleep cycle, what will happen is that you wake up in the morning, you have cortisol that's really, really high. And throughout the day, that cortisol will decrease ideally in like a really nice smooth trend down. And then at about seven to eight o'clock, once your body is starting to get ready for sleep, it's starting to get dark outside. Cortisol is actually the one that has almost like the brake on the pedal and that su and that super charismatic nucleus that tells your brain, we're not ready. We're not ready. We're not ready. Once you're ready, then cortisol almost like releases that break.
Starting point is 00:08:31 And then melatonin starts increasing. People think that it's actually the other way around. And this melatonin is calling the shots and it's not, it's actually cortisol, which is actually why we're going to, we're going to loop back into cortisol and why it's so important. And the third one is adenosine. And adenosine is this like neuro, I think of it as like a neurochemical waste that your body produces as you spend energy through the day.
Starting point is 00:08:57 And so the more energy that you spend through the day, the more of this chemical you have in your brain that makes you really, really sleepy. And that's what creates the sleep pressure that gets you ready for like, yeah, I think that I'm like ready for bed. Adenosine you only really build again when you're spending energy, which is why things like activity through your day and why like moving your body and just like doing things that actually build up this chemical, create that sleep pressure that also allows you to go into that really nice, deep sleep. It's all three of them. Because the body's interesting. And I say this with like exercise, like your, your, your, your physical brain's not seeing what you're doing, right?
Starting point is 00:09:39 Like, it's like, we have this sense that our body's understanding what we're doing because we're, it's seeing, it knows everything that we're doing, but it only knows what we're doing based on the chemical reactions that are happening. Like moving your body signals, like you've been super active. And so you're creating that adenosine, right? Like it's, it's, it's all internal based on these chemical messengers. That's what your, your body basically functions on that. But I think because we see stuff, we assume like our body's just interpreting what we're
Starting point is 00:10:11 seeing and then functioning based on that when it's more nuanced than that. Of course. 100%. Okay. All right. So where do we go now? Do we want to... Where do we go now?
Starting point is 00:10:24 Do we want to get into like melatonin? For example, you talk about melatonin. Everyone just thinks, let me take a melatonin supplement. Do we take melatonin supplements or not? Honestly, I, I, um, the, the research on melatonin is great for shift workers and it's really great for jet lag, but it's not really great for chronic insomnia or insomnia that's as a result of like stress or as a result of anxiety or menopause or things like that. And so we actually don't really find that melatonin works super, super well as a supplement. It can work when you take it for onset insomnia, which means that if you're having a hard time falling asleep, sometimes it can be more effective. If you find that it's harder for you to stay asleep, sometimes if you use a time release
Starting point is 00:11:23 melatonin, it can be effective, but I don't think that melatonin is like the be all and end all that people think that it is. And to be honest, often we're taking like a thousand times the dose that we should be, because the study dose for shift workers and for jet lag is less than a milligram. It's like a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of hormone. And if you go into your health food store, the lowest that you'll probably find is going to be starting three milligrams. And then it goes three, five, 10, 20. That is a massive dose of melatonin. And the problem is that then you wake up the next day with your brain not having cleared all of that
Starting point is 00:12:01 melatonin. And that's going to impact your circadian rhythm the next day right because now your cortisol is like i don't really know what i'm supposed to be doing and your adenosine is like are we clear are we not clear and so i actually do find that melatonin um you have to be really careful with and um there is some evidence that if you take it for too long of a time your brain will just kind of get used to that and it will start down, regulate its own production. Um, so it's not, it's not usually something that I give blanket statement to everybody work with somebody that understands your sleep and maybe it's for you, but I don't, I don't think that, uh, I don't think that it is for everybody. I mean, we talked to Dr. Beverly, uh, last week, right? About insomnia, about sleep apnea, about, you know, if you have sort of like what you think there's something really underlying
Starting point is 00:12:50 health issue going on there, you know, to have these conversations with your doctor, there are sleep clinics that you can go to, they can actually investigate what's going on. Let's have a, I know you're going to be back, I want to talk about menopause. But let's talk menopause and sleep because so many people, their hormones, I can't sleep. I got night sweats. I'm waking up in the middle of the night. I'm wired before I go to bed or I fall asleep, then I'm awake all night. So what's happening there? So I mean, you know that this is my favorite. And this is where I'm like, I get lit up on fire. Okay, so listen. In childhood, boys and girls have absolutely no difference in their sleep patterns.
Starting point is 00:13:34 Everything really starts getting different around puberty. In puberty, with the hormonal changes, we start actually seeing these sex differences in sleep quality and in structure, right? Because they're two different things. And as women go through pregnancy, perimenopauseause and menopause, these differences become more pronounced. In fact, women are about twice more likely to develop some sort of sleep disturbance in their lifetime. And as they go through that perimenopause and menopause transition, about 40 to 60% of women will report having an issue with their sleep. And it's so interesting because, you know, right around that time, we always talk about how you end up in this like stress sandwich in menopause where you're getting pressure from like your aging parents, you're getting pressure
Starting point is 00:14:16 from like your kids growing up, you're getting stressed from like, I don't know who I am because like now that my kids are leaving me, like, you know, there's like, there's all of these changes in transition that can on its own be an independent risk factor for problem with sleep. But we do know that the hormonal changes will start happening and that haphazard release of estrogen. What it will, what it will cause is that it will cause us to have a harder time falling asleep, a harder time staying asleep and a harder time sleeping in if
Starting point is 00:14:46 we want to, because we become, we become very face advanced. So this is where, this is where stress is factoring in. This is why you can't really have the sleep conversation without the stress conversation, right? A hundred percent. And you know, and I think that this is where like a lot of because your your hormones, you and I talk about this, your hormones are like an orchestra. Right. And menopause and perimenopause can be extremely stressful for your body. stress system or your your autonomic nervous system be a little bit more in that sympathetic nervous system overdrive or in that fight or flight in that period of time and so when we talk about sleep with menopause we have to talk about the hormonal piece and like yes you know estrogen and the haphazard release of estrogen through this period and the loss of estrogen has an impact but also that and its impact in cortisol decrease the quality of your sleep and
Starting point is 00:15:47 decrease the duration of your sleep. There's, and I think Dr. Beverly talked about this too, but menopausal women are also about three to 4.5 times more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea in this period of time. And even if you have normal weight, even if you don't develop high blood pressure, even if everything remains the exact same, you are because that loss of estrogen, again, softens a lot of those tissues that then collapse onto your throat. And so the hard thing is, is that, you know, in medicine, women go into their doctor often, complaining that their sleep is not great, they don't feel great, like their energy is not great. And because of the timeframe of when these complaints are made, we get very invalidated by medicine. Right. And it's not that we're offering people like a sleep study or more
Starting point is 00:16:34 hormone tests or whatever, which is like, well, you're busy. Like your parents are sick. Like, well, look at the kids. But the conversation is so deep and so much more than that because of everything that's happening to our bodies in that timeframe. Yeah. And this is why you and I are always talking. This is such a huge conversation, even menopause itself. It's really the state of your body when you enter menopause, which is really the underlying
Starting point is 00:16:59 issue, all the stress that you're under, all the diets that you've done, just the way that we live are, you know, hugely stressful lives. It's just, it's just the evolution of, of how we live. And so, okay. So, all right. So, God, it's such a big conversation. It's such a big conversation. It's such a big conversation. When we open the lid, it's like, poof. I do want to take a hot second. I just want to take a second though, for you just to talk about, because I've had this con this kind of feeling when of running these groups and paying attention to the questions that people are asked when we talk hormones, people just talk about like the sex hormones, right? Hormones relevant to menopause
Starting point is 00:17:41 and whatnot. And can you just do like a really quick overview of when you talk about that orchestra of hormones, sort of all the different hormones involved in your body? I know there's a ton, but just can we just take a minute for that? Yeah, yeah. You know, why don't we focus, we can focus like really quickly on the ones that maybe pertain to weight and feeling more breast because otherwise I'm going to be here till like 11 o'clock. And I can be, don't think that we, we can't be you guys, but like you guys have things to do. Okay. So female hormones are a huge conversation. We are touching on this in a couple of lives in a few weeks coming up, but really your female hormones and your male hormones are the ones that are coming from your gonads. And they're in charge of really like your fertility.
Starting point is 00:18:29 That's how you want to think about it. Like your, you know, your sex hormones, your fertility, your sperm quality and production and like your ovulation. Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Then there's going to be the hormones that regulate your appetite. So the big two are going to be leptin and ghrelin. And the interesting thing about those two, especially when it comes to weight loss, is that so ghrelin, I always think of gr because it actually makes you hungry. And leptin is a hormone that deals with satiety. And it's really interesting because we actually know that things that happen in your environment, like not sleeping properly, will really impact those two the most. What will happen usually is that your ghrelin, because you're hungry, your ghrelin levels will increase.
Starting point is 00:19:18 So you're going to be way hungrier than you would have been if you didn't sleep or if you slept properly. And then your leptin levels, which are the ones that deal with satiety, they are way lower than they would have been if you had a proper sleep. And so when it comes to weight, what will happen is that if you don't sleep properly, then you're going to be hungrier and you're not going to be as satisfied, right? We actually even have research that says that when people have a really crappy night's sleep, and we're going to talk about like maybe five to six hours of sleep, and it's just one day, five to six hours of sleep one day, that's like maybe interrupted, maybe not the best quality. They will tend to eat anywhere between 300 to 400 calories more than on days that they actually get proper sleep.
Starting point is 00:20:07 That's, that's another one. So huge. Cause we were like, I'm so hungry and I'm not, you know what I mean? I'm eating all this food. I'm doing this. I'm so hungry. Like they would never think that the reason why they are hungry is because they're just getting a crappy night's sleep. And then you,
Starting point is 00:20:22 then you factor in crappy night's sleep after crappy night's sleep, after crappy night's sleep. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, oh my gosh. Okay, okay. Then there's the thyroid hormones. And we always hope it's the thyroid. I always hope it's the thyroid
Starting point is 00:20:35 because thyroid regulates a lot of things, like your metabolism mainly is what we always associate it to, but it regulates a bunch of other stuff as well. But thyroid, when it comes to sleep, actually, thyroid gets impacted in a massive way because what happens with thyroid is that you have this center in your brain
Starting point is 00:20:58 that's like a command center. And that one releases something that's called thyroid stimulating hormone for your thyroid to then produce two hormones, right? That we call T4 and T3. So really the moneymakers are T4 and T3, because those are the ones that go to receptors and activate those receptors that help you lose weight, help you like keep your, you know, metabolism in check and your heart rate and like all of these things in balance. When you don't sleep, we actually know that all of these hormones get impacted. Your brain doesn't release as much TSH to stimulate your thyroid. So there's going to be
Starting point is 00:21:31 less production on its own. And then what will happen is that there will be less T4 to T3 conversion. And T3 is the key that fits in the lock that opens up your metabolism. T4 doesn't really do anything. T4 is only released because like to protect you from like always having this active hormone. But it's T4 that literally has to be like during the day that we cleave off like almost like a chunk of it. And then it becomes active with the three. And so when you don't sleep properly, that's completely compromised because you actually just become inefficient. It's almost like you're trying to cleave this off to become an active T3 hormone and you just can't, you keep on missing it because you're tired and it's almost like you're drunk and you're like,
Starting point is 00:22:17 oh God, I don't remember how to do this because I'm just so tired. So then you just have all these hormones floating around that just can't be activated. And so honestly, I, even with people who suffer from chronic insomnia or have really crappy sleep qualities or even obstructive sleep apnea, we'll always talk about this and it look, they can look very hypothyroid and they can feel like they can come into an office and be like, I will bet my house and my wife and my kids and my puppy that I am hypothyroid because I Googled it and I have all the symptoms. And I listen to it and I'm like, yeah, you're right. But then when we get the blood work, it's completely normal. And it's probably because it has nothing to do as much with like the production. Your brain is trying to do as much as it can.
Starting point is 00:22:57 It's just that you not sleeping is preventing your body from actually doing what it's supposed to be doing at the end game. I love this conversation. So again, I want to remind people, Dr. Beverly talked about that brain part last week, right? Dr. Olenka is talking about the physical part. And tomorrow, Orlando is going to give you tips to help you get better sleep. But this is really like, we need you to understand how important this conversation is and to not blow off your sleep, not blow off your stress, and just singularly be hyper-focused on what you are eating and when, because it's just, it's so much bigger than that. So much bigger than that. Okay. And I think, honestly, I think that when it comes to weight loss, the one thing that I always try to hone in on with people is that as little as one week of sleep deprivation, and that could be from sleep apnea, that could be from not sleeping enough, that could be because you have really crappy quality of sleep, that could be because your partner has been snoring all of a sudden, and then you're not necessarily getting that quality
Starting point is 00:24:06 sleep that you're used to getting as little as one week can impair the glucose regulation and insulin sensitivity that your cells have by up to 40%. And so then what, what that, what that means truly is that you, even when you don't like when you're eating the exact same things that you would be eating on another regular day your body is not dealing with those carbohydrates or those nutrients in the same way and it's not using them as effectively and it's going to store them as fat a lot more we actually honestly have a lot of research on this. But there's that really interesting studies that say that if individuals are individuals that are deprived to less than about, I think it's five to six hours of sleep. If they're on a weight loss program, they will
Starting point is 00:24:58 lose about 50% less weight from fat than they typically would if they were just sleeping properly because your body is way more likely to give up muscle mass as like weight loss than fat mass right because it's under stress it feels like you're not i'm not restoring i'm not replenishing like i can't get out of the cycle of stress so like you said before it's going to hold on to that fat for dear life because it's going to be like no no, man, you're doing this to me again. You're doing this to me again. And I need this fuel because eventually there's a bear that's about to eat me and I need this fuel to be able to run away from it. And so from a weight loss standpoint, if you're not sleeping, your weight loss is going to be way slower. And if you do lose weight, it's going to
Starting point is 00:25:44 be more likely that you're going to lose that muscle mass than you're going to lose that fat. And this program is about fat loss, right? Yeah. So sleep is such a huge component and such a huge conversation because if we're not talking about it, we're not giving you the magic sauce that goes along with everything else. So it allows us to maximize what you're already doing for sure. Incredible. I love this whole program. I love these conversations. And I just want to take a minute for people who are listening right now and be like, Oh, I get, I'm a new mom. I sleep sucks, or I'm just menopausal. I'm never going
Starting point is 00:26:18 to get better sleep or I'm, you know, been a, I have sleep out, like whatever that is. There are so many things that you are already doing, just following that basic food plan, like regulating your blood sugar, regulating the amount of insulin your body is using. Like there's a lot that you are doing without even realizing that you are doing it. And again, that's where that maximizing post, like going for that walk after dinner, you know, there's so many things that you can do. We're going to get into like actual like sleep tips, dimming the lights when you go to bed. If you wake up, what do you do do. We're going to get into like act actual, like sleep tips, dimming the lights. When you go to bed, if you wake up, what do you do then? We're going to get all that into that conversation with Alana. But if you're feeling overwhelmed by this conversation, fucking right, you are. It's a big ass conversation, right? But we're going to,
Starting point is 00:26:58 we're breaking it down. And that first step is to bring awareness and really truly understanding why weight loss is so much more than what you eat and when. Let's just touch on that insulin a little bit and sort of where that factors in. Because I know when, so there's a couple of things going on when you're not getting your sleep, the way that's being effective in your body is one, the food that you're craving and two, the way that your body is processing that food. And then there's that added layer of all the diets that you've ever done, which are based on deprivation, starving and depriving where you're losing. Yes, you are like to your point, this is
Starting point is 00:27:35 about fat loss, not weight loss. All those other crappy diets are about weight loss, water weights, right? And you're also losing fat. Yes, but muscle So that by the time you even enter into menopause, you're getting a little bit older. You don't have the same muscle mass, which is also kind of compounding the whole thing. So if you're not getting sleep, you've done all these diets, you're not doing resistance training, it's the way your body is processed, what you're craving and the way your body is processing foods is all being affected. All of it. All of it. All of it. And then the way that you gain weight is also affected, right? Like the easiest way that I explain, and everybody can relate to this. When you're insulin resistant, you don't even have to eat the muffin. You look
Starting point is 00:28:19 at the muffin and you feel like you gained the weight. Yeah. Right. Because what's happening is that you're, you eat something and your body is like, I can't listen. I can't listen. Like your cells don't really want, like they don't have the ability necessarily to take up, you know, and use that in that moment for fuel. And so your, your body's like, okay, well, I guess we're just going to store it somewhere else. And it usually ends up storing it abdominally or peri-abdominally, right? So around your liver, around all of the areas that you don't want to. And it's tricky, you know, because insulin, again, insulin responds to your environment, but insulin, we knew that we know that there's a huge overlap between insulin resistance and also like high
Starting point is 00:29:01 stress, high cortisol states, right? And it also makes sense because cortisol, like I talked about before, cortisol is what wakes you up in the morning feeling like amazing and fabulous and great. But cortisol is also the hormone that your body releases when you're in that chronic fight or flight mode because you feel like you've been running away from a bed for the last 30 years, right?
Starting point is 00:29:22 Like the first thing your body releases when you're under stress is going to be adrenaline. But then like, if you were feeling like you're on adrenaline every day, every second of every day, you have a heart attack, like that's not sustainable for your body. And so then your body kicks in with something else. That's called cortisol. And cortisol keeps you in what we call that hypervigilant state, like you're just waiting for something to happen. in cortisol is gluconeogenic which actually means that cortisol is supposed to mobilize some of what you have uh stored as fuel to kind of like move it into your bloodstream so that you can run away from a bear when the bear
Starting point is 00:29:58 comes however the bear doesn't actually come right like you're just waiting for something to happen. And that the moment that your body also sees sugar floating around, it starts increasing your insulin. And so the higher insulin states are not just because you've eaten a lot of carbs. It literally can be just as a response from you putting your body through a lot of stress, even from just yo-yo dieting on its own, right? Or from avoiding carbs because you ended up doing like a ketogenic diet, or because you're not sleeping properly, or because genetically you couldn't be a unicorn. And like, this is the one thing that your family genetics like here, you know, you're a little bit more, you're at a higher risk of insulin resistance. And so it's such a, it is such a big conversation because all of these hormones, like I always go back to, they're an orchestra.
Starting point is 00:30:50 They all play together. And so we can't talk about just being insulin resistant or the cause of being insulin resistant only being what you eat and how much you move. Because it goes well beyond also, honestly goes into exercise it goes into menopause because we know that when you lose that estrogen estrogen actually makes you more insulin sensitive right and so now if we have somebody who is like not sleeping properly because you have hot flashes or because you're really stressed out that has a super demanding job um that has kids that has all of these has yo-yo dieted for like 20 30 years of their life like your body's gonna try to hold on to the spot as much as it can because like what else
Starting point is 00:31:31 what what other choice does it have you've trained it to do this right so this is why we're this program is unlearning all of what uh we've we've trained your body to do over time, consciously or subconsciously. And this is also why sometimes, I mean, you have so many participants and I have so many patients that do your program that like at the beginning, they feel like, honestly, I feel like my skill is not necessarily moving as fast
Starting point is 00:31:57 as like everybody else on the program. And I'm like, your body just needs time to feel safe so that it feels like we're gonna balance out these hormones and we can tap into these fast doors and we can just achieve greatness. needs time to feel safe so that it feels like we're going to balance out these hormones and we can tap into these fat stores and we can just achieve greatness. I hope everyone was just listening to that because that's probably the most important few sentences of the program in a nutshell, right? Like I would rewind this part and listen again and again and again until you really, truly understand that. Oh, OK. Well, this is why we're here. Let's get into it.
Starting point is 00:32:30 So that was a kind of like that wasn't a quick overview. I know. I know me. I know. When you say quick, I feel like I just take that. And I'm like, like, like quick Mexican quick or like Gina quick, because when you don't specify, I would just do the Mexican quick and it's going to be half an hour. Yeah. It's like me. I was doing the live last night and Tony's like, okay, you got to go. And I'm like, I don't know. I was just about to go into this like quick little, and I,
Starting point is 00:32:56 Tony's like that was not going to be quick. That would have been 20 minutes. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you,
Starting point is 00:33:20 whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need whenever you need it find your push find your power Peloton visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca um okay so let's get into like let's let's let's blow through these then let's talk about supplements and strategies for sleep let's talk about waking up at night what causes it why is it so hard to get back to sleep? What can you do? Restless legs. And then we'll see if we can get into the stress conversation. So supplement strategies to get quality sleep despite menopause symptoms. What
Starting point is 00:33:53 the fuck do we do about it? Oh, gosh. Okay. Menopause specific first work with a practitioner that understands hormones and can get rid of your hot flashes. Honestly, that is like the very first thing you need to do. There are a couple of supplements that you can try for sure that are very hot flash specific. One of them is sage. Sage is great. The other one, believe it or not, is soy. There's good enough evidence that shows that having about 15 grams of organic non-gmo soy protein um will decrease your hot flashes by about 21 percent and at least and as little as like six weeks um but what what i always say about sleep is that you should think about sleep as landing a plane rather than turning off a switch oh yes because everybody thinks that you're like, you know, you finish your day,
Starting point is 00:34:47 you turn off your lights and you're like, okay, good night. But it's not really that. It truly is that wind down. Like you have, like you had babies, you know, that like when you wanted to put them to sleep, like you, you went to bed, they like got a massage, they got a little reading book, like they did, they had an entire routine to want them down. But somehow, we forgot that as adults, we also needed that. We're like, no, no, it's time for bed. And listen, my husband can do that
Starting point is 00:35:14 and it's a superpower that he has that I sometimes want to murder him for. He's the same. He goes to sleep. I'm lying there. He's on his phone and I'm trying to meditate and thing and sleep. And then he's just like, he goes to sleep. It's like, like I'm lying there. He's on his phone and I'm like trying to like meditate and thing and sleep. And then he's just like, okay, good night. I'm like, what the, are you fucking serious? I'm awake for six more hours after that.
Starting point is 00:35:36 There's times if he was here, he would tell you this is true. I've like kicked him just to like wake him up so that he knows what it feels like. And he's like, did you kick me? And I'm like, no, it must've been the dog. Like I just, because it gets so annoying. Um, but anyways, we digress. So the landing the plane really is just the reason why I use that analogy is because I need you to think about the, the hours before you want to go to bed and what we're going to do with that time to get your body ready for bed. Okay. If we look at just the simple hormones that dictate the circadian rhythm, one is going to be cortisol. So there's going to be a lot of things that we're going to do with that hormone, right? So light, we need to avoid even like decreasing overhead lighting, going off
Starting point is 00:36:18 electronics, all of the things that you're going to talk to Lana about tomorrow. Yeah. Um, um, then there's going to be adenosine. So adenosine we talked about, you need to spend energy through your day. If you're not spending energy through that day, the adenosine, there's not going to be enough adenosine, right? To like create that pressure. Sleep hygiene becomes so important as you age. And I honestly cannot stress this enough. The two things that I always talk about, because they're things that come up in my practice a lot is caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine, if you're a good metabolizer of caffeine, caffeine will stay in your system for about
Starting point is 00:36:57 maybe 12, maybe 16 hours. If you're a bad metabolizer, it's going to be staying in your system for about 19 hours. And so then the problem is that caffeine, even if habitual drinkers usually can fall asleep with some caffeine in their system, the problem is that it will always interrupt the quality of your sleep, right? It will always cause more frequent awakenings. It will give you lighter sleep. It will prevent you from getting that deep, super restorative sleep or the REM to actually like rest and restore. Yeah. People are the same with food. They're like, I need to eat and that helps me sleep. No, it helps you get to sleep maybe because you have
Starting point is 00:37:36 that up and then that crash, but then you always get a crappy sleep. Same thing with coffee. People are like, oh, I have tea before bed and I sleep. Yeah, but you never get a good night's sleep. You're kidding yourself. You never do. 100%. And it's the same thing with alcohol, right? Because maybe it relaxes you, but the problem is that it will always, again, prevent you from getting the quality of sleep that you need in order to rest and restore and relax. And because it increases your core body temperature, similarly to when you eat something too late at night, like you can't get into that deep restorative sleep because your body actually has to drop
Starting point is 00:38:10 about half a degree to a full degree in order to get into that deep sleep, right? So when it's too busy digesting or working through something that's increasing your temperature, that's gonna take you four hours to get into the good quality sleep that you need for your next day.
Starting point is 00:38:25 Yeah. Even when you're like so hammered, you just like, you're like, oh, I'm going to sleep. I'm going to pass out. Then you're like three o'clock in the fucking morning. You're like, what the fuck? I can't. Then you're just awake and hung over already. It's not helpful at all. But you know, but I mean, for me, usually me usually the the the biggest component of sleep hygiene um is deal like managing your stress and managing your stress through the day and managing your stress or trying to shut that down with a meditation or with a breathing exercise or something like that right before bed because we actually do know that meditation before bed increases brain waves in your brain they're called theta waves that just like take it out of this mode where
Starting point is 00:39:08 you're constantly overthinking and a little bit more into this mode, which is closer to that relaxation and that deep sleep. And, you know, and I, I think that we, we all think that we are immune to these things, right? Because we're like, Oh, my phone doesn't like, I can watch TV and I'm like, I'm totally fine. I fall asleep. And I'm like, no, I'm not arguing that you can fall asleep. It's actually when you fall asleep, what's happening to your body as you're sleeping. Your ability to fall asleep quickly does not at all mean that you're getting
Starting point is 00:39:41 good quality, restful, restorative sleep? Yeah, I'm the biggest offender of this. And I was like, not getting great sleep, but really insisting I was doing all the things that I had my, like I had my office in my bedroom, thinking, well, that doesn't bother me and have a TV and I have all these things. And you know, I'd have Alana on, she would talk about sleep hygiene and I would be like, yeah, okay. I turn my lights down. And you know, I, I, I, in my mind, I wanted to believe that I was doing the things I wasn't doing the things when I moved my office out of my bedroom down to where it is now in my basement. Um, there was a massive shift in energy when I
Starting point is 00:40:22 walked into my room, it was way more calming seeing my workspace ignited my brain, like all the little things that you can do because people think I'm already doing everything. Yeah, no, you're fucking not. No, you're not. You are not doing everything. And it's amazing how the little things that you do not just before bed, but throughout the day, add up and make a big, massive difference. Once you figure that out, it's a game changer. Now you might slide back into old habits like me and you're drinking wine and you're on your phone again and you're watching a movie until, so then I was up late and then we had a little like snacky snacky and then, you know, I feel like garbage today. But there's a, the point is there's a lot
Starting point is 00:41:05 that you can do. There's a lot that you can do. And we're going to go through a lot of those tips tomorrow. I do want to move on to conversation of stress because of the time is a perfect segue, but there's so many people asking about restless legs. I just, I have to ask about that because it's a, it's a hot topic with people. What's, what's happening with restless legs. I wish that I knew. I wish everybody knew, to be honest. Like I wish my true story. My mom actually has one of the worst cases of restless leg syndrome I have ever seen. She's seen everybody. And every time I go in, I'm like, do you know what happens? And so honestly, the truth of the matter is that restless legs is super common. It actually impacts up to like 15 to 20% of adults. And there is, I know, um, in, in,
Starting point is 00:41:47 there is a higher incidence of restless legs in people that are, uh, of European ancestry and less in people that are Asian or, uh, African, which is really interesting. Um, and while the cause of restless legs is completely unclear, we know that people who have chronic iron deficiencies tend to have higher risks of developing restless leg syndrome. And I know that this sounds wild, but the link that they've made is not that your serum level of iron, so your blood work or your blood levels of iron are low. It's actually that the concentration of iron in your brain is low.
Starting point is 00:42:32 Oh. I know. And we know that, and we also know that, you know, there's a genetic component to it. We actually know that like, if you have restless leg syndrome, there's probably somebody in your family about you know uh somebody in the family that has it it's a 40 40 to 50 60 percent of
Starting point is 00:42:51 people have a family history of restless leg syndrome if you have it but anyways but in but we the tricky thing with with the low iron in in your brain is that there's not really a way to test it like we just know post-mortem and like a lot of experiments that we've done, like, oh yeah, all these guys look alike and like they don't have a lot of iron in their brain. And so magnesium for some people tends to work really, really, really well
Starting point is 00:43:16 when we find that it's got to do a little bit more with that like motor movement. If it's, you know, the pregnancy is related to restless legs too, sometimes that can be related to your iron deficiency, because it's actually the most common nutritional deficiency in pregnancy. If you have neuropathy or nerve damage or kidney disease or things like that, like there's nothing that we can do to help you, like you probably need to be talking to your other doctors. But if you have suffered from chronic iron deficiency, and it is
Starting point is 00:43:45 the one supplement that you're not necessarily taking, I would encourage you to talk to your healthcare practitioner to see what would be the right dose and the safe dose for you. Because clinically, what I see is introducing an iron supplement, even if it's every other day, or every third day, even if it's at a super low dose, it doesn't have to be like a huge one from your local pharmacy. It literally can be a small dose, can improve restless leg syndrome by like 30, 40, sometimes like 80, 90%. I was going to say now iron is not something that you just take will and nearly because your body can can absorb too much and then you can store it in the wrong place right especially if you're a male if you're
Starting point is 00:44:31 menstruating female as you're going to be less likely to have the um over absorption of iron that then is going to lead to issues so definitely talk to your health care provider but iron believe it or not can actually be something that can be a game changer for restless leg syndrome and hydration, which I know everybody in your plan is doing. So I'm not going to talk about that, but hydration can, or dehydration can also cause it too. But I'm- The issue that you're having with your health and your wellness and your body in general is if you can help your body function in the most optimal levels, that's going to have an overall impact in all areas of your life. Okay. Let's get into the stress.
Starting point is 00:45:09 Yeah. Yeah. We don't have enough time for these conversations. Stress, how does stress affect your hormones and what kind of impact does it have on the body, especially when it comes to weight loss? Yeah. Okay. So ultimately we are mammals. We are mammals and our stress response is very primitive. Your stress response is that you see a stressor and you either run away or you get eaten. And I always say this, but it's true. It's like if you ever go on a safari and you either run away or you get eaten uh you know it's kind of and i always say this but it's true it's like you're if you ever go on a safari and you see a zebra that's about
Starting point is 00:45:51 to get eaten by a lion like she's chilling like eating with her girlfriend so she sees a line she's like oh shit and so she like runs away to safety right and then as she makes it to safety she doesn't spend the rest of her lifetime looking for other stressors. She just goes back to like chilling with her girlfriends and like eating grass. However, in our environment, our stress response is overloaded by stimulus, right? That like you constantly feel like there's a tiger and now there's a bear and thenors often is compromised because it's not like your brain has this dial of like big stressor, little stressor, big stressor, little stressor. And so what happens is that physiologically, the moment that you see a stressor that actually sends a signal to your brain for your brain to say like danger. And it activates a bunch of stuff that gets you ready to run away from a bear acutely. If your body feels like that's like chronic stress and it's like stress or danger, danger, danger all the time, then there's other hormones that kick in. And this is where cortisol comes in, right? Kick in to kind of keep you in this hypervigilant state.
Starting point is 00:47:00 Like you're constantly waiting. It's like that zebra, like you're constantly waiting for that bear to come and eat you. And so the problem with that is that that actually, from a sleep standpoint, that becomes super taxing because cortisol is the hormone, you remember, that we talked about that wakes you up in the morning and it has to decrease so that it takes that break off of the super charismatic nucleus so that then your melatonin is released yeah when your body is in chronic stress and it's just like this what will happen is that your release doesn't look like this like really really nice like up and down right it's like chronically like this up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and then at eight nine o'clock at night when your melatonin is just like waiting for her time to like come out and shine, you're using electronics, you're doing all of these things that, again, further release this hormone, this cortisol that then suppress your melatonin even more.
Starting point is 00:47:58 And melatonin is not just for sleep initiation. It's also for maintenance of your sleep right in the quality of sleep and so with stress in that cortisol dysregulation output through the day what will happen is that often if the stress is if the cortisol is way too high you're not going to be able to fall asleep because legitimately it's a survival mechanism right like your body doesn't want to get eaten by there so when you're like okay it's bedtime and you haven't worked on that landing the plane, you're just treating it like you're turning off a switch from your stress, right? You're literally, you're like, okay, it's bedtime, babe. Like, give me a kiss. And you just kind of like down. And then literally what will happen is like, your eyes will be like, bing, bing, bing, bing, because your body's like, no, no, no, no, no,
Starting point is 00:48:42 no. The bear's coming. The bear's coming. Like, what are you doing? The bear's coming. The bear's coming. The bear's coming. And if you're lucky enough that eventually, you know, your cortisol is like, okay, yeah, okay. Maybe the bear's not coming right now, but the bear's going to come tomorrow. Yeah. You know, your, I guess like melatonin will start increasing ever so slightly to then
Starting point is 00:49:00 make you feel tired and then wake you up the next morning. At about usually three to four o'clock in the morning when naturally your cortisol is going to start like increasing ever so slightly to wake you up at seven literally that small change in cortisol that your body senses naturally right because it's always done this your entire life naturally your cortisol does this and your body goes into the bear's coming i told you the bear's coming let's run and that's often why people experience those wake-ups around that through like the bend when you fall asleep but anywhere between two to four
Starting point is 00:49:36 o'clock in the morning and you feel so alert and you just can't shut down anymore and you're just like i honestly have no idea like why i'm awake. And if you fall asleep again, what will happen is that you'll fall asleep and you'll wake up and you will feel half as alert as you did at two or four o'clock in the morning. Because at two to four o'clock in the morning was your stress waking you up and telling you like you're in danger, like get out of bed. And so then when it comes to your weight, obviously, that means that you're probably not sleeping enough. And even if you're sleeping enough, your sleep is crappy, crappy, crappy, crappy, crappy quality. Your immune system is not restoring. Your cardiometabolic system is not calibrating. And so what that's going to happen is like, yes, of course, it's going to be harder for you to lose weight. Yes, of course, you're going to give up more muscle mass than you would have if you slept properly. Yes, of course, you're going to become more prone to high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems, right? Yes, of course. Yes, of course. And anxiety, depression. There's like so many magical things that happen when you sleep. And you're depriving your body of and almost like not giving it its best chance to just thrive the next morning. Yeah. I mean, some of us live like the shoe's going to drop all the time. And, you know, people might be listening like the bear, the bear, whatever,
Starting point is 00:51:00 like this is what they're talking about when we were at the Canadian Obesity Summit. This is a very real thing. Although we are very technologically advanced, our bodies still function on a very primitive level. I remember a few years ago when I got so sick and I was like lost like 30 pounds. I was like, couldn't like, I just was like barely surviving. And I remember starting to do things. Like I remember I went to go drive my kid to school. The school is five minutes away. My brain, the stress of like the stoplights, other cars, there was construction. There was like, I was like, wow, we really do not understand the stress in which we live. Just the everyday little tiny stresses. So when you see something on TV and you get triggered or
Starting point is 00:51:45 someone calls you or you have to take your kid here or do this, and it's just a constant state of stress. Okay. I want to talk about depression and what we can do because I want to talk about, okay, what can we do about the stress? What are, what are your, what are your biggest stress busting tips? I am a big fan of like deep breathing, calming down that vagus nerve, you know, calling a friend, going for a walk, those types of things. So, so what would be your top three? And then I want to get into medications for stress and how taking antidepressants and can, can, are factoring in. Cause people ask that a lot, right? I'm on antidepressants. How is this going to affect my weight journey? So if we can just finish up with those two things,
Starting point is 00:52:29 because I know we're running out of time. I know. Sorry, guys. You got me talking about hormones and then that's, you know, that is like, I know. This is where I crumble. Okay. So I think that there's, and this is why I'm going to loop it back into what you just asked me.
Starting point is 00:52:44 But I think that you guys want me to understand that there is like external stress and also internal stress right and internal stress honestly can be restricted dieting it can be not feeding yourself like the way that you uh should be eating negative self-talk. It can be too much stimulation from light, from caffeine, because you think that caffeine is your lifeline, but it's actually not. It's actually feeding a bunch of the things that we're trying to fix in the first place. It can be toxic people in your life. There's so many ways that stress comes in. It doesn't just come from the bear and you being really, really busy. It can literally just come from, from so many different ways. And so my top three ones, honestly, I, I, and I know that I've said this before on this
Starting point is 00:53:30 podcast, but I used to think that exercise and diet were the pillars of health, but I realized that sleep is actually the foundation that both of those stand on. And so the first thing that, that I always, always, always try to fix is sleep always, always, always. And it's not just the duration, it's the quality of the sleep, right? So with that, for me, with fixing the sleep goes a lot of the like, we have to decrease stimulation with like lights and caffeine. And if you're going to drink alcohol, because you love it, like we're going to become day drinkers because we need to like drink it at least four hours before bed. Like we change some of those lifestyle things.
Starting point is 00:54:10 I actually think exercise is one of the most effective strategies to close the cycle of stress that your body's in. And the simplest way that I explain it to people is that, you know, if your body feels like it's constantly waiting for something to happen and you're waiting for that bear to come, what exercise or movement, I'm just going to call movement, what movement does to your body is that your body's like, okay, yeah, the bear's coming. Yeah. Now it came, it came, it came, it came. And now it feels like you're running away from a bear and you're running and you're running and running. And then when the exercise stops, your body's like, oh my God, well, I was close. I was crazy, you guys. And then it just kind of closes that cycle of stress so that it feels like that was hard, that was close i was crazy you guys and then it just kind of closes
Starting point is 00:54:45 that cycle of stress so that it feels like that was hard but i made it to safety and that's amazing and so i think that exercise is really important with that and also because it helps me create that sleep pressure because of adenosine it kind of feeds into my sleep um as well and then the i'm a huge fan of anything that will help activate the vagus nerve or improve the vagal tone that will help your body get out of fight or flight and a little bit more into resting and digesting. So we talked about this, I think last time that I was here, I love deep breathing. I love, love, love, love, love deep breathing. I often get patients to do deep breathing exercises for a minute to three minutes before every meal and, and snack ideally.
Starting point is 00:55:29 So that you are way more mindful of what you are eating. Your body also has the ability to disconnect for that fight or flight mode for five minutes so that it doesn't go into like, I just need to finish this because the bear's coming at any time. Right. It just kind of go, kind of go, goes like,
Starting point is 00:55:47 okay, well we're going to eat. And like, I don't think that the bear is coming. So like, this is good. And that on its own is going to change the way that your body is responding to that food.
Starting point is 00:55:57 Right. Because if your cortisol can be a little bit lower, then that insulin can be a little bit lower as well. Ah, I love that. I love bitters. as well. Ah, I love that. That's why I love bitters. I love that. I love that.
Starting point is 00:56:08 Okay. It's simple. Those are great tips. This is such a huge conversation. I love it. I could not love it more, honestly. Antidepressants. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:18 I know it's kind of a, I know there, you know, cause mental health is real. We are super stressed. Anything that, anything that, anything that we should know about those when it comes to trying to lose weight? Yeah. Oh God. Um, listen, I love medication. I think that medication are floaties and I think that sometimes people, yeah, for sure. And I think that sometimes when you are swimming towards your goals, if all you're doing is spending time trying to keep your head above the water and not drowning because of the
Starting point is 00:56:57 stress or because of what's happening at sometimes if we can just give you a little floaties to make it less hard or make it feel like you're not constantly dying, it can just give you a little bit of a break so that you can remember that you know how to swim. Yeah. You know how to swim and you can keep on swimming towards your shore. So someone once explained it to me like it's like a life raft. Like it's like it's like trying to teach someone to swim when they're drowning. You can't teach someone to swim when they're drowning.
Starting point is 00:57:25 So they can be a life raft. You give them a life rat. They're able to keep their head above water. They get safely to shore and then you can teach them how to swim at the end of the day. What is happening? I don't even know where to have this conversation, but what would be the takeaway for people who are taking them to know when it comes to trying to lose weight, I guess, would be the takeaway for people who are taking them to know when it comes to trying to lose weight, I guess would be the conversation. Yeah. So there's different types of medications for sure. And there are some that are more likely to cause weight gain. Like, you know, big ones are mood stabilizers. There's one in particular that is called mirtasapine that we know for sure causes a lot of weight gain, Abilify for some people does. A lot of the SSRIs and SNRIs that we typically give for anxiety and depression,
Starting point is 00:58:15 they can cause a little bit of weight gain for people. The data is a little bit wishy-washy on how much to be honest. But I, I think that what I see clinically is that if they don't all cause it, I will say that there are some that are weight neutral. And if you are afraid of taking something because of the weight, like we have other options. And also I do think that these floaties or the, the, the floaties allow you to make all of the other changes that you need in order to lose the weight and keep it off. And so I have a hard time always with like the medication, like, should I go off of it because it's not helping with my weight? Only because I feel like sometimes, not sometimes, often the medication, what it allows you to do is that it allows you to change your life and deal with all of the crap and the bottom that like you need to in order to make the changes that you need to live your best life by applying all of the things that we're teaching
Starting point is 00:59:16 them in this program. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, if you were in this like super high stress mode all the time, and that is what's preventing you from like feeding yourself well, sleeping properly, moving your body, your meals and snacks, and then you go off of this medication. It's like nothing really changes. Right. And so I would rather people think about it as like this is just a bandaid for now so that I don't feel like I'm drowning all the time. And I know that I know how to swim. And I will learn to be an Olympic swimmer by following this program. But right now I just need the floaties because I'm just not comfortable enough to like take them off on my own. And I think it's important for people to hear that from someone like yourself. And this doesn't just go for antidepressants. This goes for any type of health issues that you're having and medications that you're taking. You know, they
Starting point is 01:00:08 help to just like supplement, supplement to help the body when it has a deficiency, when there are irregularities, when there are things that it is dealing with. And all the things you are doing on this program are going to have such a massive impact because all the little things that you are doing to manage your stress and your sleep and moving and this and that are going to add up. It's not one big significant thing you need to focus on, even sleep. It's not like one thing that's going to do it for you. It's all the little things that you're doing throughout the day, when you're going to bed, when you're waking up, things that you're drinking, things that you're eating, things that you're feeling, even keeping a journal beside your bed can help with both
Starting point is 01:00:46 your stress and your sleep. So I hope this conversation today helps you understand how complex finally and forever weight loss is and how you are already doing so many things to be proactive about it and how there are so many things you can do. And that is why you are going to reach your finally in forever weight loss goals. You are going to lose your weight in a healthy way, physically, mentally, in a way that you're going to be able to maintain and sustain because it's addressing these things along the way and having that deeper level of understanding. That's what's going to get you there. Final words? I, you know, taking away what you said, I always tell patients or tell people, especially where
Starting point is 01:01:35 we're at right now, is there has to be a certain level of kindness and compassion and patience that we have with our bodies, because I think we live in a society that loves immediacy and loves results. And I think that often with weight loss, we can feel very frustrated when it's not happening like this. However, what I typically see, especially when the difficulty with losing weight is rooted in the stress being caused by yo-yo dieting and under restricting and the trauma that in one way or another, honestly, I always say like, I feel like your body has PTSD from everything that you've put it through for the last, however many decades. I just need you to remember that this program, sometimes like you might have to do it two or three times or whatever it is,
Starting point is 01:02:31 because like every time we're changing something and you, you might see that you're like, okay, it's like really slow to move. And eventually your body gets to the point where it feels safe. And it feels like this is our new life. I don't need to do this anymore. I don't need to be like that anymore. She's going to feed me forever. We're moving, but we're not over exercising. This is amazing.
Starting point is 01:02:54 Like we're dealing with our stress because we're breathing and we're journaling and we're doing all these things. And you'll get to the point where then your body feels safe and you're thriving. And honestly, sometimes you don't even change anything. And all of a sudden you start melting and you're like, what happened? And I think that you just need to understand that weight loss is so much more than like, obviously, like what you're eating and how much you're exercising. But the reason why sometimes your body holds on to weight has to do with all of the background stuff, right?
Starting point is 01:03:21 It's not just because what you're doing isn't working or you have to be doing enough. And so sometimes we talk so much about the non-skill victories because that's what we want you to focus on. We want you to focus on like, my digestion is amazing. I have more energy than I've had in X amount of years. I have so many patients that do the program. They're like, my joints used to hurt and they don't hurt anymore. And I'm like, uh-huh, because we're decreasing inflammation. We're decreasing the risk of chronic disease, right? By changing, not just what you're eating, but how much you're eating when you're like all of these things. And so I, what is this, especially when it comes to weight, I just, I would love for all of us to exercise a little bit of self-compassion and a little bit of self-kindness.
Starting point is 01:04:10 And I promise you, your body knows what to do. It's just that up until now, it's probably been responding to what you've done. Amen. Honestly, I, oh my goodness, this, this right here, again, rewind this part because still three and a half weeks in, you know, I'm doing everything. My weight's not moving. What am I doing wrong? I'm following the food plan. And I'm just like, Oh gosh, just like, let's think about where you've been, what you put your body through, you know, like it's just, it just takes time. This exactly what you just said is exactly when I say to people, sometimes you're doing all the things and your body needs time. Your body just needs time. Because your body just wants to survive. That's all it does. Your body wants to survive.
Starting point is 01:04:48 It wants to run away from that there. You know, it just wants to survive. And that's what we talked about. Your hormones respond to the environment that you put them in. But you just can't take them out of the environment for one day and be like, this is amazing. You know? It was like, oh, God, I don't know. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:04 Well, that's vacationations you go yeah you come back oh my god and then immediately you're back in the shit again um dr alinka trejo i could not love you more thank you so much for spending the time with us today i know these are big long conversations i think they're so important honestly like and please invest in your please invest your time into listening to these conversations that we have with our guests. Again, just amazing people who really want you to be successful, who know that you are trying really hard to reach this goal, to, to, to do better, to feel better, you know? Okay. So people are going to want to know where to find you again. Info at D-R-O-L-I-N-K-A. I need more coffee. Dr. Olinka.com.
Starting point is 01:05:54 I think I'm like, go off coffee people. Embrace decaf. You're like, oh God, I know. Info at Dr. Olinka.com is where you can find Dr. Alinka. She's going to be back. We're going to have some other big ass conversations in the next few weeks. So join us for that. Thanks, everyone who joined us live, who asked questions, who commented. The segment will be available in the guides if you want to watch it 15 times over because honestly, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

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