The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Lose Weight In A Healthy Way

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Struggling to put together meals that are both delicious and healthy? Not sure if you should focus on weight or other markers of health? In a wellness-obsessed world, it can be difficult to see through the noise (and the ultra high protein recipes). In this conversation, MS RD Nicki Parlitsis answers top questions on weight loss, nutrition, dieting, and more.  Nicki and I discuss whether you can truly be healthy at any size, different types of health markers and what they tell us, losing weight in an anti-fat culture, and more. Tune in for tips to help you manage your diet and feel better. In this episode, we get into: How Important is Weight When it Comes to Good Health? Set Point Weight: Fact or Fiction Weight, Heart Health, and HRV (Heart Rate Variability) Common Weight Loss Myths Go-To High-Calorie Nutritious Foods The Protein vs. Fiber Conversation, Vegan Proteins, & Protein-Infused Processed Foods The Stress Eating Problem Fad Diet Hot Takes For more from Nicki Parlitsis, find her on Instagram @nutrition.nicki or online at https://www.nutritionnicki.com/. You can apply for 1:1 coaching with Nicki here. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is sponsored by: LMNT: Go to DrinkLMNT.com/LIZMOODY to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. MasterClass: Go to MASTERCLASS.com/LIZMOODY for 15% off an annual membership.  IQ Bar: Text LIZ to 64000 for 20% off all IQBAR products plus FREE shipping. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 333. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I thought of myself as a healthy eater, but I was making these really big mistakes. Another common misconception is that beans or lentils or peanuts, these legumes, are protein foods. Because we live in a society that's very much fatphobic. Fat loss, weight loss, weight gain, all of that has become a moral issue. And also a class issue. What does the wellness world get wrong about weight loss? We do have to think about protein. But on a much larger scale, people are not eating enough fiber.

Are there other commonalities that you see in people who are able to lose weight in a healthy way and really sustain that weight loss? Research also shows the enjoyment of eating exponentially decreases after the first three to five bites of a food. Walking is one of the most helpful tools for weight loss. It is one of the first things that I will bring in with a new client. Why? Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. I have been hesitant to tackle this topic for a while because as somebody who has struggled with an eating disorder in the past and somebody who absolutely hates the fat phobia that's

unfortunately very, very common in the wellness world, I really, really did not want to contribute to anyone feeling bad about their body. And also, there is so much that we are getting wrong about losing weight in a healthy way, so much misinformation floating around that is hurting people's health, and I wanted to serve the people who had that goal as well. And I had my own wake-up call recently about my weight and my heart health, which sparked a deep dive into the real science of how weight impacts our health in all different ways. This is an incredibly compassionate, shame-free conversation about the impact of fat on our bodies and how we can lose weight in a healthy way if that is a goal or desire for us. My guest has had an eating disorder herself,

and she works with many clients who deal with that as well. That said, if you are not somebody for whom a weight loss conversation in any format is right for at this moment, I completely get that and I will see you on the next episode of the podcast. Our guest today is Nikki Partlitzis, a certified personal trainer and registered dietitian with a master's in nutrition and dietetics from NYU. Nikki actually has been working with and helping me for the last few months on my own journey, which we get into in this episode, and I will say she has the best, understanding of both mechanism of action science and how people actually operate in the real world

that I have ever come across. This episode is packed with a lot of science, but also really actionable tips that you have probably never heard anywhere else before that are so, so helpful. I've tried these on in real life and a step-by-step plan to help you reach any weight loss goals that you have in a healthy, sustainable way. Nikki, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you. Just for context for everybody listening. I've been working with you for months on my own journey, which has been really incredible and something that I've had to grapple a lot with the meaning of and if it's okay to feel the way that I feel. And if it's okay to want these things and how it fits into my perception

of what healthy is, which you've experienced in our sessions. And I think people will experience through the conversation today. Oh, yeah. And I have experienced that myself as well, which is why I do what I do and why I do it, how I do it, because there is a lot of back and forth, especially in in the world that we live in now and all of these movements that have come up. I really just want people to kind of be okay with what their goals are and find their path to feeling the best that they possibly can. Well, let's just start with. Is weight unto itself a metric that's important to health?

Or should we not be talking about weight and instead be talking about other biomarkers? Weight is, it's nuanced. So I would say more so than weight would be body composition. We know that weight at either extreme can be. a health risk. So if we are too underweight or to overweight, it can be a direct risk for health. But that's also due to many different factors. So if I'm looking at the best possible indicator of health risk, I'm not necessarily looking at scale weight. I'm looking more so at waist circumference, waist to height ratio. So that body fat that's around our midsection, it's around our organs,

it's pro-inflammatory. And so that in itself is more of a risk for health health conditions. When it comes to weight, we can also have two people at the exact same weight that have a completely different body composition and completely different health indicators. So for that reason, we're looking at body fat percentage as well as another indicator. And at the same time, we're never wanting to look at one piece by itself. So even lab work, I'm never looking at one lab in isolation. We're zooming out. We're looking at everything as a piece of the puzzle. And then we're piecing it all together to see the overall landscape of your health. So we might look at waist circumference along with weight, along with your labs, but also how are you feeling? How are you

sleeping? What's your energy like? So all of those different biometric indicators are going to give us the full picture of what your health is. And then how do things like prediabetes and cholesterol and heart disease fit into the picture? How does weight or circumference of waste fit into those conversations? This is interesting too because we know that two people can have very different health at very different sizes. So for example, there might be someone at a lower weight that has insulin resistance and someone at a higher weight that doesn't. So when it comes to looking at what our overall health is, we really want to look at those indicators in terms of, like you said, pre-diabetes, cholesterol. Now, one thing that we forget is we think that fat and muscle just kind of sits on our body, right? And we think our other organs are active and those just kind of sit

there. But that's not exactly what happens. Both fat and muscle are metabolically and hormonally active. So when a fat cell expands, it actually releases pro-inflammatory cytokines. And so what that does is it can actually increase your risk of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, meaning when you look at your labs and you see high triglycerides, high LDL, low HDL, increase your risk for plaque development in your arteries. So when it comes to actual metabolically active fat mass, it actually is directly impacting our health. And that inflammation can also cause changes hormonally in the body too. Now, when it comes to muscle, muscles also metabolically active. So muscle, when it contracts and after it contracts, it can release myokines. So those myokines are anti-inflammatory. When the muscle is contracting during and after, it releases these myokines and they're actually reducing inflammation in our body. The contraction of the muscle needs energy. So it's going to pull glucose, sugar from our bloodstream into the muscle. And it'll actually have to be. help us be more insulin sensitive, which is the opposite of insulin resistance. So our insulin is

working better to move the sugar out of our bloodstream into our muscle. When we're thinking of the concept of cholesterol and prediabetes or diabetes, body composition and how much fat in relation to how much muscle we have also becomes a really important indicator. So if you have more muscle, because it kind of balances that fat, your body can perhaps carry more fat on it without having these negative health effects? If we look at it like a scale, it's kind of one thing is counteracting the other. So we definitely do want, of course, we need body fat for many different reasons. But the more muscle we have and the lower fat we have to an extent puts us in a better place metabolically. Now, one thing that's actually really interesting as well is when we think about

weight gain in general, we typically say weight gain, but we might mean fat gain because weight gain can go to our muscle or fat. The way that we gain fat is our body kind of has this excess coming in and it has to put it somewhere. So we have our fat cells and all of that excess is going to go into our fat cells and they expand. Now, they can only do that so far. So, When they're done expanding, we actually create new fat cells to put the other excess. And then when that happens, we might also store some excess in our organs if we think about like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that kind of goes a little bit hand in hand with that cholesterol issue that you were mentioning too. Part of that expansion of the fat cell

as it grows and as we accumulate more fat, that is a pro-inflammatory process in itself. So that's why when we're thinking about weight gain or particularly fat gain, when we're thinking about it in the context of our overall health, it has to do with behaviors, but the actual mechanism can be an issue on its own. Is the creation of the new fat cells the reason that we have like a weight set point and why if you've hit higher weights throughout your life, it can be harder to lose that weight or is that something else entirely? No, that is a great kind of piecing that together because they are. are related. There also is some research to say, now, when we're losing fat, we actually don't lose fat cells. So when we have that process where they grow, they cap out, we get new ones, they grow. When we lose fat, they just shrink back down. So we have the same amount of cells, they just get smaller. And fat cells, because they are active, having more of them makes it

harder. So for example, if someone in their youth gains more, accumulates more fat in their childhood, it becomes harder to maintain their weight as time goes on. Now, the concept of set point is interesting because it definitely has some truth behind it, but there's, I think it's a little bit of a myth that we're just locked into this and there's nothing we can do about it. Research also shows, first of all, it's lots of a set point and more of a set range. Usually it's somewhere between like 10 to 15 pounds that we fluctuate between. You might notice that just like in your day to day life that you see like, ooh, I kind of flip-flop between these two numbers. Now, that range is changeable. We can adjust. Our body really likes to stay where it is. It really does.

So it gets harder. So basically, for example, let's say, let's take someone who's yo-yo dieting. A lot of my clients have that experience, particularly women, just because of, you know, the pressures that we are under in society and many different reasons. Let's say that someone is accumulating fat and then they go through a period of fat loss, particularly rapid fat loss. Now they are outside of this range that the body really wants to be in. So it's going to do a lot of things to try to get you back to where you were. So your hunger hormone might increase, your fullness hormone might de-reveen. decrease, your actual driving force, your cravings are going to increase, it gets a lot harder, especially the faster we lose weight. Now, the faster we lose weight, we also lose muscle mass.

And muscle mass increases our metabolic rate. So muscle makes us burn more energy more quickly. So if now we're in a place where we exited our set point range, our body really wants to get back to where it was, we lost a lot of muscle. So now, at rest just lying in bed, we're burning less energy. Now, when we end our diet, we are way more likely to gain that weight back and extra. And so now we actually can create a new set point range above the previous one. Now, we can also do that in the reverse. So when we lose weight slowly and particularly maintain it, some research shows between three and six months, I would say more so if you can maintain that weight for like six to 12 months, you can create a new set point.

Same thing where if you add more muscle mass on your body, then you're actually increasing your metabolic rate. You can burn more energy at the same weight. You're more likely to maintain that new set point that you've created, but it takes consistency and it makes it a little bit harder. What about heart health? Because this was the spark for my journey is I got a Dexascan. I did a V-O-2 max test. And it was clear that I was putting extra pressure on my heart to simply pump the blood to fill my body. And all four of my grandparents have died of some variation of heart disease. So this was like my wake up call of like, oh, maybe we should look at this weight part of the situation. Can you talk to me about the relationship between fat accumulation and heart health?

Yeah. What's interesting about heart health is, I know you in the beginning you would ask me about weight particularly. That's one thing that we actually do see a correlative. For example, when you have a larger body mass, you have more blood to pump around. You have more cells and more tissues that you're trying to feed. That increases the strain on your heart. So we actually see that in like bodybuilders that have an insane amount of muscle mass, really low body fat, but they're actually still prone to heart issues. So that isn't one of those pieces where I'm like, oh, let's actually look at the weight and see where that is coming in.

But if we're looking at cholesterol in particular, when I talked about how fat is metabolically active, especially visceral fat. So the fat that's in the belly area around our organs, and that is increasing inflammation and oxidative stress. So when we think about cholesterol, it's less of an issue that we have it. It's really supportive. Like we really need cholesterol. But we don't want it to be. oxidative in the body. So we don't want it to be atherogenic, meaning we don't want it to form plaque and kind of get stuck in our arteries. Now, those inflammatory cytokines that the fat cell

releases, especially when it expands, and around that visceral belly area, it's increasing our susceptibility to the plaque forming type of cholesterol. So it changes the type of cholesterol that we have. But what's cool about it is when we shrink those fat cells and we're embarking on kind of like a journey to change how we're eating, how much we're eating and what we're eating, we can actually work to reverse that and increase our anti-inflammatory processes in the body and kind of neutralize that, you know, process from happening. So just like how we can change slowly in one way, we can also kind of pull it back in the other direction. If people are looking for these indicators in themselves of like, maybe it will be healthier for my body to take off some

fat versus I'm succumbing to these societal pressures. How do we suss out those two things? Yeah. And first I want to say, I would probably say like maybe 50%, maybe a little bit less of my clients who come to me that are technically in an overweight BMI category, let's say, which I'm not even really looking at. But they're coming to me to change health markers. They don't mention weight. and I don't mention it either. Like if a client comes to me, their goals are their goals, I can support them in those goals. Who am I to tell you what your goals are for your body?

Now, what was interesting is also we had talked about blood sugar too. When we look at blood sugar, so if I'm overall looking at like, okay, what are the most key indicators when I'm looking at your labs for your health? We're looking at lipids as well, which we just talked about. And then we're looking at blood sugar. So how is your body managing the sugars in your bloodstream and how is it utilizing those as energy? So we want to look at hemoglobin A1C, which is a marker of your blood sugar over the past three months. We want to look at insulin, which again shows us insulin is going to be like the little shuttle that moves our glucose into our cells.

And then I want to know what's your blood sugar doing. So when our blood sugar is elevated chronically for a long period of time, that's also pro-inflammatory. and can cause downstream effects. Again, something that we can have at any weight. So you can be in a larger body and have fine blood sugar and a smaller body and have not so fine blood sugar. That's also one of the other pieces that I'm looking at. Now, we also want to look at things like thyroid hormone, which kind of regulates like a temperature thermostat of the body. That's important from a weight piece, but also it governs a lot of other things in the body that we just want to make sure that that's kind of doing okay.

When I'm looking at labs, I'm never looking at one thing in isolation. So they're an indicator that the body is either regulated or dysregulated. I look at labs as signs from the body. They're kind of a signal that something might be up. But our body also gives you symptoms. So even before we had science came to the point where we could like extract your blood and figure out what's going on in a laboratory, we were looking at symptoms. So we're saying, how's your sleep?

You go to the doctor at that time and they're like, you know, how's your energy? How are you feeling? That stuff is really important to me as well because I have people who come to me who are having crazy symptoms and feeling like they are not in a body of their own, but their labs look completely fine. And at the end of the day, that's still an issue. We still need to make sure that you're feeling regulated because that's a sign that the body is back to its equilibrium. Yeah, two things that I've noticed that have shook me a little bit. And I've only lost, about 15 pounds. I'm feeling very good in my body. But one, going uphill on hikes has just gotten so much easier. Like I feel like my hiking self has just get a gold star now. It's really,

really nice. And then two, my HRV went from being 30 on a regular basis to being 60 or 70 on a regular basis. And this is the only thing that I have really changed in my routine. Can you explain what HRV is and why weight might have an impact on that? HRV is heart rate variability. And so it's one of those markers that the higher it is, the better. So it's a sign that our heart is kind of working at optimal capacity. Now, what's really interesting is, and I know going back to the original question of weight, when our body has more mass to carry around, it is a strain. It can be a strain on the body. Even in things like sleep apnea, when that pressure is kind of on your airway, that can be an issue. A couple of things that I notice in clients is that maybe when they're losing weight, maybe their HRV gets better, maybe their cardio capacity gets better. But a lot of times also, sometimes their joint pain improves. And they have other markers that improve. It's cool because it's a positive feedback loop. So for example, you're walking up that hill and it's really difficult.

So not only is it physically difficult, but mentally, now you might be feeling like, oh, this is so hard for me. I don't want to exercise because I feel like I'm not good at it. I hear that all the time. And it's discouraging. Why would you want to do something that you feel like you're not good at? We don't like to do that. So even just losing a little bit of weight or improving all of these other markers in terms of sleep and energy, if that can help you walk up that hill a little bit easier, not only are you now improving your heart health, but you're improving your self-efficacy, your confidence. So now you're in a place where you're like, oh my God, how cool am I? I walked up that hill halfway and I was out of breath two months ago. Now I'm all the way up the hill and

I feel like a rock star. That self-efficacy and that confidence can actually lead to other positive behavior shifts that then improve your health at a more rapid rate. So when we're looking at making these behavior changes, not only from a weight perspective, just overall, improving your quality of life. They start to feed on each other. And the more you do and the more you improve, the better you feel, and then the more motivated you are to continue. We don't usually start with motivation. Motivation comes when we have some evidence that this stuff is working. And then it propels us even more forward. Yeah. I feel like our first three sessions were me being like annoyed that nothing was happening.

Very common, by the way. And, well, because I felt like I was making such drastic shifts, which was really interesting, again, because I thought of myself as a healthy eater, but I was making these really big mistakes when it came to healthy eating, which we'll talk about later. But one of the reasons I was so loath to have this conversation,

even with myself, but certainly on the podcast at large, is because we live in a society that's very much fat-phobic. Fat loss, weight loss, weight gain, all of that has become a moral issue. also a class issue, there's food deserts, people have a hard time accessing healthy foods. How do we have this weight loss conversation and acknowledge the very real problems with

the weight loss conversation in the world that we live in? It's very distressing. While I have not personally lived in a larger body, I have many clients who have and currently do. And they have come to me after working with five, six, ten practitioners who kind of gaslight them medically and make them feel even worse about themselves. And it's so frustrating because, in my opinion, that's just malpractice. Like, as a health care provider, you're here to improve the health of your patients.

And we know that weight stigma actually decreases your health outcomes. We know that. So the fact that that's still going on is incredibly frustrating. But one thing that I do when I'm, working with a new client is, first of all, I want to know your whole story. Usually that doctor's visit is not the first time that that's happened. There might be issues that have come up in childhood. There might be weight stigma that was coming from peers or parents or loved ones. And that creates a lot of shame. And I work with a lot of clients also who experience binge eating, stress eating,

emotional eating. And what's really interesting and very distressing and confusing is that shame can be an individual trigger for binge eating. And it's incredibly disorienting because you feel uncomfortable in your body. And then you feel like I wish my body was smaller or my body looked different. But then that shame is causing distress, it's causing discomfort. hurt and your body wants to feel comfortable, and it does that through seeking food. And so then we're in this perpetual cycle where then we binge and we experience more shame,

and then I call them like aftershocks, kind of like when there's an earthquake and then you have the aftershocks. You're in California. I mean, you would know. I'm in New York. I'm like, I experienced one earthquake in my whole life. Those aftershocks are kind of a result of the shame. And so it's incredibly important.

We cannot talk about weight without talking about this. And all of those clients know, they know what foods are healthy. They know a lot of the behaviors that they could do to lose weight or change their body. But it's that psychological piece and also some physiological factors that make it a lot harder that kind of keeps them where they are. And so the only way we can help people improve health is through compassion, understanding, getting to know what is your story from start to. finish, and me telling you, lose weight isn't going to do anything. It might actually have a negative effect. So when we approach these things through compassion and also from behavior change, then we start to see actual results. I also, when I talk about having goals, you can have an

outcome-based goal, meaning I would like to lose 30 pounds. But I like the outcome-based goal to just be something that we mention and then we put on the back burner. Even in my chart, I keep it like all the way at the top and then I really don't look at it again. Because at the end of the day, we want action-based goals. So an action-based goal is what actions do I actually take to get to that outcome? Because the body is a system of millions of moving parts. I can't tell you with complete certainty that we're going to get to that 30 pounds. But I can tell you that we're going to get your steps from 5,000 to 7,000 to 8,000. We can work on bringing an extra snack in between lunch and dinner so we don't feel ravenous at dinner. So when we're thinking about goals and

weight changes or health improvements, especially when there's shame or stigma involved, I just care about how are we going to change behaviors to get you feeling more like yourself and feeling better in your body, whatever that means to you. Do you have any pragmatic advice for addressing that shame either within ourselves or externally as these societal pressures are coming at us from all directions? It's incredibly difficult. And most of my clients, I always recommend working with a therapist, especially if there's, especially a trauma-informed therapist, if there's a history of trauma there as well. But one of the things that I also work on a lot with my clients is building confidence in self-efficacy. So we think that confidence comes from like mantras and I'm going to wake up and look in the mirror and be like, you're awesome. But at the end of the day, we don't believe what we don't believe.

So if I look in the mirror and I say, you're fabulous, but I don't believe that. Now I feel like I'm lying to myself. And that's not helpful. So one thing that actually has been shown to improve confidence and outcomes is having actual evidence of things that you're proud of. So that could be your health goals, but it might have nothing to do with your health. So for example, you might have just gotten a promotion at work. So I want you to have a list in your notes app on your phone. And I'm going to keep talking about the notes app this entire episode because I love it.

Like pinning notes to the top is I do it myself. It's really helpful. But having a notes app for things that you are proud of and things that you are proud of in your health journey and your life. So you might have gotten a promotion at work. You might have gotten up 15 minutes earlier and gone for a walk in the morning. Now you have actual proof that does say, hey, you're awesome. Not because you walked, but because I made a promise. to myself and I showed up for myself and did that thing. And that over time, little by little,

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are we doing this because of what society is telling us we should look like or because of a real health outcome, a real feeling different in our body that we're looking for? My answer would be sometimes it's a mixture of both. and sometimes that's okay. So it depends on the person. The reason it can be a mixture of both is I've heard from my clients who have grown up in a larger body that life is harder for them because of that. And that's just a fact that they cannot deny. And that when they are living in a smaller body, things are easier.

They can find the clothes that they'd like to find easier. They find that there are certain social interactions that feel like there are less barriers. That makes me so angry, though. It's horrible. Are we cowtowing to this societal bullshit by doing this? So the way I also look at it is we have people on the front lines in all of these different areas. So we have people who are fighting for systemic change and we need them. I am not that person.

Yeah. I'm helping you one on one to feel better in your own body and your life. And if that very unfortunately means that you, you know, you're not that you. you'd like to change your body for a societal reason partially, because I will never allow that to be the full reason. But if that's a piece of your reason, we can work with it. And that, unfortunately, might help improve your quality of life if that's something that you believe. Because like I said, I have many clients who weight loss is not a goal at all. Now, part of your reason, though, and what I like to try to help people find in our initial

session, like when I first get to know someone is, I will always ask why are we doing this? Because it's going to get hard. Changing behaviors that you've had for decades and then flipping them on their head is incredibly difficult. So we always need something to anchor us back to why are we here in the first place. And that looks different for so many people. It's really cool. The answers that people have. So some people, it's literally just, I want to, you know, my son just had kids and I want to be able to run around with them and I feel like I can't do that right now. Or I feel so inflamed and I want to bring down my inflammation because it's hard for me to move. Or, you know, it could be I'm getting married and I want to feel my absolute best and

my honeymoon is on a beach and that's okay. We're all for my grandparents' diet of heart disease related things and I'm scared of that happening to me. Fear is also a huge driver. Yeah. And so my My point is I think whatever your reason to make any change you want to make is valid because it's your body and you can do whatever you want with it. So if you tell me your wedding's coming up and you want to lose weight for that wedding, I will help you do that. But at the end of the day, my job is to continuously reflect back to you all of the other

things that have changed because of these behaviors. So I'm taking all of these data points and showing you, oh, did you see your sleep improved? Oh, did you see your energy improved? You said you had better periods this cycle. That's interesting. So all of these pieces of the puzzle, I want to show you that these didn't change necessarily because your weight shifted. These changed because you optimized behaviors in your life to improve your overall quality

of life and your confidence. and that's the most important thing at the end of the day. And then this might start to get into some of the pragmatic stuff, but what does the wellness world get wrong about weight loss? So when it comes to the wellness world, I look at it as a spectrum. I have lived on both sides of the spectrum. So one end is your macro counting, bodybuilding.

I used to be into powerlifting and like very, very rigid structure in terms of what I was eating. that's sometimes also a little diet culturey on that end. And so that end might say calories are the only thing that matter. So the calories in or the energy inside of that equation is the most important thing. Now, the other end of the spectrum could be the wellness world, a little bit of the functional medicine world, holistic world. We're overemphasizing the energy outside of the equation.

So I see a lot of the time we're saying, oh, you know, as long as we're eating all of these nutrient dense, colorful foods, our metabolism is going to be optimized and we never have to worry about our weight, which is so kind. This is me when I came to it. And also the crazy thing I believe that, like, got mixed in with this that I feel like we don't talk about is I also believed that, like, gourmet food was fine. So, like, a farmer's market cookie was, I could eat as many of those as I wanted. I could eat as much sourdough bread as I wanted as long as it was sort of. homemade from ingredients. It didn't include ultra-processed foods. I was good to go, which was not the case. Yeah. But what's cool about that, though, is it does help support all of the systems in our body and help give our body the tools it needs to function optimally. I would say if someone is engaging

in a weight loss journey, having eaten in that way, where we're getting all of our nutrients in, we have, you know, all of these healthy foods in our diet, it does make it a little bit easier because all of our systems are online. It does make it a little bit easier, but that is so common because that's that's that side of the world. And so when we're thinking about that spectrum, the answer is somewhere in the middle because it's not just calories in calories out, that there are just two separate sides of this equation. First of all, both sides influence the other side. So, for example, if we dramatically decrease the amount of calories that we eat, our metabolic rate can actually slow down. So that's one side influencing the other side.

On the flip, if we are getting all of these nutrient-dense foods, maybe we're getting some extra fiber and we're fuller quicker. And so we actually then can end up without even trying maybe to eat less calories. So both sides, there's like an interplay between the two. And so we just can't neglect one for the other. So one of the myths that I hear all the time is that calories don't matter. And in practice, I would say that most people underestimate the amount of energy that they're consuming and overestimate the amount of energy that they're expending. So what would you say directly to people who say, if I eat real whole foods, my body will find its natural happy weight. We know that regardless of what the food looks like, if we are in an energy surplus, meaning we're eating more calories than our body is using up, we will gain weight. If we eat the same amount, our weight will stay the same. And if we take in less calories than our body is using, we'll lose weight.

regardless of what's coming in in terms of what those calories look like. Now, that can also happen. You can be in a surplus eating really healthy foods. People would say those really healthy foods are going to fill you up in just the right way, so you're eating the natural great amount of calories for your body. So here's the thing. Maybe if we had no other factors at play and we were kind of like caveman times, let's say, right? So we have a lot of movement.

We are honoring our circadian rhythm. We're going to bed with the sunset and waking up with the sunrise. We don't have desk jobs where our manager is screaming at us and we have to get home to our kids. And oh, our kid called in sick. And so now we have to go home early and deal with the fallout from the manager. Even as I'm saying this, I'm getting stressed. Like there's so many factors at play in the world that we live in. and it makes it so much easier to be disconnected from those signals in our body,

even if we're eating colorful nutrient-dense foods. So I see a lot of clients as well who are eating these very nutrient-dense foods. But for example, like, let's say we're making a sweet potato brownie made with almond butter and all of these other, you know, avocado oil. if we're even just looking at something like almond butter, one tablespoon of almond butter is about 15 almonds. So the cavemen weren't running around, like churning their almonds into butter.

And by the way, nuts come in like a hard shell. So it's kind of like if you're eating a pistachio, you have to like take a lot of effort to crack it open and then your thumb gets calloused after like 30 minutes. It was so hard to eat 15 almonds. But these things are so accessible. Food is so accessible now. In the grocery store and in our home, we also have stressful inputs from our life.

We're also not sleeping as much as we should, and our quality of sleep goes down. And so when sleep is disrupted, we literally see a decrease in leptin, which is our fullness hormone, and an increase in ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone. So just that alone is shifting these signals. I look at the signals as like, it's like Google Maps. Okay. So all of these hunger, fullness cues in your body are guiding you on this road to eating intuitively, let's say. But the world that we live in is kind of like spotty service. So if we're just trying to follow this, these signals with no structure, we end up 15 miles off course.

So we do need in a world that's not. not intuitive. We do need some planning and some structure in order to maintain that balance of that equation if that's something that we're choosing to do. Yeah. Like in the caveman days, I couldn't have five slices of sourdough bread like available. I'd have to be like out there making the bread and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not doing that. I'm just eating the bread. Which by the way would use up a lot of energy. Energy. And so going back to that bodybuilding conversation is that we also underestimate the complexity of the calories and calories out equation as well. So the energy that we take in is that one side,

but the energy that we put out comes from many different sources. So we have our metabolic rate, which is like laying in bed all day. I'm watching Netflix. I'm still burning energy. That's most of it. That's like 60 to 70%. The next biggest source of our energy out is going to come from non-exercise. activity. That's just like pacing, fidgeting, walking, kind of like, you know, moving. And so you're

churning your butter, you're like mixing your bread and your caveman days. That's increasing your energy out. So that's increasing your non-exercise activity. That's going to be also a really big component of that side of the equation as well. How do we square the fact that some really nutritious foods have a lot of calories? So the way I look at this is if you are, you are, you are, you not engaging on a weight loss journey, maybe it's not something you have to worry about. But if you would like to lose weight, we do have to understand that food has calories and some foods have more of them. We don't need to hyper fixate on it, but we do need to be educated on the fact that it exists. So, for example, like an avocado, your standard avocado has about 250 calories. Now,

that could be like a full snack. But I have a lot of clients who come in and they're putting like a whole avocado on two pieces of toast as part of their breakfast. So if we want to lose weight, then we do have to look at, hey, all right, it's not the food. There's not one food that's bad in that sense, but how much of it are we having? So for example, if you love your avocado with breakfast, maybe we have a third of the avocado, We cover it up. We put it in the fridge. And that is part of our dinner or breakfast the next day.

Nuts are another big one. And I ask people this all the time. It's one of my favorite questions to ask because I feel like it changes some people's entire perception. But if you're having a handful of nuts as like a snack, let's say, I'll ask people, are you having the nuts because you were dying for cashews? You're like, I have the biggest cashew craving right now. Or are you having them because you're like, this is a heart healthy snack and I want to be healthy?

Because I don't know any person who had a handful of cashews and was like, I'm so satiated. I'm good for the next three hours. It really kind of doesn't do much in terms of satiety. So I want to know how important is this food to you. If you love your cashews, okay, maybe we use them as a garnish. Maybe we crumble them up on like a yogurt bowl. And you're saying this because nuts. particularly are very calorie-dense food?

So it's fat. Fat contributes the most calories per gram. So you could have 10 grams of fat and carbs and you get more calories from the fat. That's why in a lot of these examples, I'm using avocado and nuts because they do provide more calories for the amount that you're eating. So while we do need fats in our diet, it usually is one of the easiest macronutrients to look at in our meals and our snacks to kind of pull back a little bit on when we're trying to focus on fat loss.

True or false, 250 calories of avocado is going to impact your body differently than 250 calories of Cheetos. True. In a couple different ways. I do want to say, though, that we tend to overestimate the metabolic impact that it will make in a direct way when the calories do contribute a large. amount. So maybe it's affecting your metabolism by maybe like 50 calories, but it's much easier to eat 250. So that's why, you know, I kind of make that side note, but it will impact it differently.

And one of the biggest things, and I know you love talking about the microbiome, which is why I'm excited that this is coming up. Because the foods that we eat are directly feeding the microbes in our gut, which then are actually involved in the hormonal conversation in our body, which then makes weight loss either harder or easier. And if we're going to engage on a fat loss journey, let's just make it as easy as possible. So if we're eating the Cheetos, we're feeding microbes in the gut that are actually pro-inflammatory. And they're also kind of like hijacking those signals, the hunger and fullness. It's also going to increase dopamine and can also lead to a little bit of like a dopamine resistance where we just need more and more of it to get the same effect.

We also are probably going to absorb way more calories from the Cheetos. We might absorb like all 250. Now, if we're having the avocado, we're feeding microbes in the gut that are enhancing those hungerfulness cues. They're making the conversations clearer in our body. So we're better able to kind of notice all of those signals. and they're also helping to improve our metabolic health by helping our thyroid hormone and kind of all of these different processes in the body. So we want to make it easy on ourselves. Also,

I wouldn't use avocado as the primary example, but let's say we're eating a really high fiber food and high protein. I know I talked about the things that contribute to the energy outside of the equation. Part of that 10% of it is the thermic effect. of food. So the act of digesting food takes energy in the body. So if I'm going to break down a food that's really high protein, protein would have the highest thermic effect of food, I might actually be using 30% of those calories to break that food down. So I'm actually using energy to break the down the energy that I'm eating. Fiber also has, takes a lot of energy to digest. Now certain types of fibers are also not even absorbed in the body. So we might be eating 200 calories of a super high

fiber food, but maybe now we're only absorbing 150 of them. So it does kind of affect then the calorie component because of that gut microbiome. So it's a little nuanced in that way. So giving our body the nutrients it needs to support our microbiome and to support our hormones is going to make fat loss easier. And conversely, if we don't give our body, the nutrients that it needs, those things will get harder. Yes. Okay. A lot of people talk about protein in the weight loss conversation.

And on this podcast, people keep saying that we are over-indexing on protein and we are under-indexing on fiber and that actually we're like filling ourselves up on protein before we can get enough fiber. So where do you fall in terms of the protein fiber conversation for weight loss? I'm laughing because if you asked me this question like two years ago, I would have been like protein all the way. We don't eat enough. Now, a lot of my clients, especially women, come in and don't eat enough protein.

I mean, we do have to think about protein. But on a much larger scale, people are not eating enough fiber. One thing I do notice in practice, and I think it's been like an accidental side effect of the protein conversation, is that people are so focused. And I love it. It's like they're so excited about it. but we're so focused on getting in this protein that we're actually adding so much more to our meals and their calorie intake actually is going up.

And so I see a lot of people who are so frustrated and it's heartbreaking because it's taking so much effort and so much planning and so much energy to add all of this extra protein to their meals and they're doing such a good job at it, but they're eating like an extra two, three hundred calories a day. And so we don't want to, again, we're not only focusing on one thing. We want to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. So while I do want you to have protein at every meal and snack or whenever possible, because, you know, it's life. There's going to be some meals that just don't have protein.

We really, really want to focus on the fiber piece of the conversation. So fiber is going to feed those gut microbes that help us be more sensitive to our fullness hormone, help regulate our hunger hormone, help reduce inflammation. And also, we're not even absorbing as many of those calories, but that's not kind of the main piece. It's really also slowing down our digestion and keeping us more satiated. Because we also don't want to be walking around having to think about food all day. We really want to be satiated and satisfied with our meals.

And so fiber is going to be helping that for us too. So I would say we've done the protein thing. did such a good job at it. Marketing really, you know, 10 out of 10 A plus. And now it's time to kind of talk about fiber. But we also can't forget about strength training. The way I look at protein is like we want the tools to build the house. But if we don't have any workers there, it's useless. So we want to be eating our protein, but strength training is going to also be a really important piece of the puzzle to build and maintain our muscle. Muscle is one of the biggest contributors to that basal metabolic rate. So muscle is going to be like one of the biggest

keys for metabolic health. At rest, muscle is going to burn like six to seven calories per pound per day, whereas fat only burns like two to three. So even at the same weight, if we have a body composition that has more muscle than fat, our metabolic rate is higher. We're moving more glucose out of our bloodstream into our muscle, so we have better blood sugar regulation. And in terms of your, potentially, if you do have aesthetic goals, it will change the way your body looks at the exact same weight. We also know that as we age, we start to lose 8% of our muscle mass every decade after

age 30. two keys from that statistic. The first is that we want to, if you're listening and you're in your 20s or 30s, we want to have as much muscle as possible at that age so that when it does start to decrease, we do have reserves as we go forward in our life. And the second thing is, it becomes much more important as we get older to build and maintain that muscle. Now, we know that that is contributing to our metabolic rate. And so we, we know that we're going to, when it comes to protein in terms of that conversation, we do really want to make sure that we're getting enough. Protein is also super filling. When we have protein in our meals, we're not really

thinking about food as much throughout the day. I had a five-year vegan phase in my life. And it was probably when my history of eating disorder and binge eating was the highest for many reasons, but one of them being, I just was not satiated or satisfied at my meals. And I see this with a lot of my clients. When we do bump up that protein a little bit, if they are under eating it, it does help kind of regulate hunger as the day goes on. Per meal, what are we thinking about? So per meal, I want you to make sure you have at least like, I would say, aim for like 25 grams of protein per meal. What would that look like in practice? So that could look like maybe I'm going to do like three to four ounces of chicken. Maybe I'm going to do like around four to five ounces of

tuna or fish. You could do a cup of Greek yogurt. We want this to be spread throughout the day, but we also are looking at the day as a whole. So let's say your breakfast is super high protein. Maybe your lunch was a little bit lower. And then your dinner, you're like going to pick it back up a little bit. So we have all these numbers like in textbooks. But when I look at actual clients, we're not going to have every single meal, have 25 grams of protein. And if we, we can get very fixated on that very easily. So at the end of the day, we just want to have a little bit of a basis. And this is where if it's something that you can engage in in a non-anxiety-provoking way, having a little bit of a basis of tracking kind of your macronutrients and seeing

what amount of each food is providing a certain amount of protein does give you a little bit of that educational background so that when you are going to put a meal together, it just gets easier to make sure you have enough protein. And fiber, I would add too. Like, I spent years thinking that leafy greens had a lot of fiber. They do not. They have almost no fiber. Beans, legumes, things like that are really the sources of fiber that I can find. Are there any other things like that you think we're kind of getting wrong or we're misinformed about? I would say the fiber piece, for sure. I've even noticed this myself if I'm like putting a client's meal plan together. Not that I do that for all clients, but if I am, I'm like, ooh, that did not have as much as I thought it was going to

have. Like I picture a salad. I'm like, oh, there's a ton of fiber in the salad. But unless you're adding things like sweet potato has more fiber, like the greens themselves do not have very much fiber. And we're also looking at the difference in type of fiber. So we're looking at insoluble versus soluble fiber. Insoluble fiber is like your celery, like your stringy fiber. It's going to help with gut motility. Even just looking at it, you're like, this is going to just push things along. But that's actually not absorbed in the body. So it just really kind of moves from one end of the digestive tract to the other end. Now, soluble fiber, think about your stuff that absorbs water. So if you're chia seeds, oats, beans, stuff that's like dry and then you mix it with water and it's

plumps up. What that's going to do is mechanically in your body, it's going to create. It's going to create this bulk that helps to bulk up your stool. So digestive health, it's also going to keep you fuller. If you're looking at like an entire, like a little tablespoon of cheese seeds that you mix with water or milk, and then it just plumps up, you're going to get way more full because of just the sheer volume of it. The cool part about soluble fiber, I sound like such a nerd right now, but the cool part about soluble fiber is that it also kind of, it's like a little glue that like sucks up other things in the gut. So it's going to latch on to sugars, fats. And so the cool part about it is that it's one of those foods that we recommend for a lot of different goals.

So you want to lose fat and maybe work on how much you're eating. You want to regulate your blood sugar. You want to have a better lipid profile and improve your heart health. Soluble fiber is going to do all of those things. So especially when we're talking about having goals and many people have more than one goal. So many people are like, hey, I want to lose weight. I also want to improve my blood sugar. If you have only so much energy to give to the foods that you're eating and the diet that you're having, we want to say what's the biggest bang for our buck? Where is the most efficient use of our energy? So soluble fiber is going to be one of those things that is kind of is doing all of these little different things throughout your body and providing all of these different benefits.

And so it definitely is one of those things that we want to be including throughout the day. And it does contribute more to our overall fiber intake as well. Favorite sources of soluble fiber. Chia seeds are my favorite thing in the entire world. Now, taste-wise, I don't know, they're like fine. They're neutral. You know what I mean? They're not bad.

They're just neutral. So I like to do either like a chia pudding and then put a little bit of like flavor in it. So maybe you're doing like a little cinnamon, a little vanilla extract. You're mixing chia seeds with your milk of choice. Maybe you're throwing some blueberries and some seeds on there, and that can be kind of like a nice little breakfast or snack. I would say lentils are a big one. They are something that you can use as the carb source of any of your meals. And then I would also say any fruits as well.

So Kiwis are a really good source of soluble fiber. So really kind of looking at your fruits, vegetables, ground flaxseed is another one. I like the stuff you can toss into the meals you're already having. You're doing a smoothie. You throw some flax in it. You're eating a salad. You throw some flacks on top. Maybe you're throwing some lentils or sweet potato in your salad. We want to look at what are these sources and then what am I eating throughout the day and how can I integrate these foods into the things I'm already doing. So I don't have to do a complete overhaul of my diet. Yeah, this is one of the things you told me. We started off by kind of tracking and calorie counting, which I rebelled against pretty strongly. And I said, I want to just add things in and crowd out the things that I don't want to. to be there and you had me add in more fiber. And you also had me add in a fiber supplement, sun fiber. Is that a soluble fiber? It's a soluble fiber. So the cool thing about it's partially hydroly hydrolyzed guar gum, you'll see it as like pHGG on a supplement. I like it because it's

helpful for cholesterol, blood sugar, satiety. It also has zero taste. And the texture, I think, too. I just mix it with electrolytes. Yeah, you mix it in with water. It's like it never happen. And you could put in a smoothie, whatever you want to put it in. The other thing I like about it is if someone has bloating or digestive issues, it's tolerated pretty well, whereas something like a cillium husk, like it might cause some bloating or things like that if you're already having digestive issues. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to bring in, too. Okay, going back to the protein goals, is it possible to hit those on a vegan diet? It is possible. It will take a lot of planning and effort. Your sources also might look different. So on a vegan diet,

I really want to bring in some tofu, some tempe, like your soybeans, your edamame. That's going to make a big difference. Keep in mind a lot of vegan proteins are also carbohydrates. So when we're looking at the protein piece of your meal, it might be like a two-for-one where your protein might also be your carb. Another common misconception is that beans or lentils or peanuts, these legumes, are protein foods. Do they have protein?

Yes. When I'm classifying a food as a macronutrient, which is simplifying it, but if I want to look at what is the biggest contributor macronutrient-wise on the nutrition label, those foods have way more carbs than protein. So I'm putting them in the carb category. So if you're vegan, it certainly is possible. but if you're trying to regulate your carb intake and your overall calorie intake, it will take a lot more planning. So one thing I like to have people do is have some go-to meals.

So maybe you take a little bit of effort, planning and kind of looking at all of those pieces and putting together a couple meal options for yourself. And then you don't have to think about it. Then we're reducing decision fatigue and you have your meal, your go-to meal ideas, maybe two or three for the week. And then you just pull from them so that you're not fixating on this every single day. Are there a few vegan meals that you're like weight loss, healthy weight loss stamp of approval? Like I said, I love tofu just because it takes the taste of whatever you mix it with. I love like a tofu with sesame oil and then some veggies.

I use a lot of frozen stuff as well. A lot of my clients are really busy. They just have a lot of stress and they want to simplify. So you can basically have, let's say, a block of tofu. You have your frozen stir fry veggies. So those are going to be giving you a little bit of fiber. Your tofu does have some fiber and it's giving you protein. And then you have some more fats coming from something with flavor,

like a garlic olive oil or like a sesame oil. And then you're mixing all of that together. Maybe you want to do, depending on your goals, the more active you are, the more carbs you do need. So maybe we're throwing in some rice or some sweet potato into that stir fry. or maybe if you don't have as high of a carb goal, maybe we're doing a little cauliflower rice or something like that. Really simple meal where it's kind of like protein fat carb, but it would take you like five to ten minutes

and you have all of your little pieces of the puzzle. I don't love to cook. I'm like the worst dietitian in that way that I do not love to cook. So a lot of my meal ideas are just very simple. It's more of an assembly than like an actual, you know, gourmet construction. Can you talk us through kind of the ideal plate framework? Because this was also really helpful for me when I was like, I don't want my calorie count. And like when I'm traveling, what am I doing, blah.

And you were like, okay, just picture your plate. And here's what you want for protein. Here's what you want for carbs. And remember, these things are carbs. And then here's what you want for veggies. So I like to look at meal templates. This is so helpful, by the way, for people who are like, I don't want to track. Like I'm not downloading my fitness pal on my phone.

I did that when I was 16. I'm not doing it again. So we will start with something like a meal template. So I do want to say. say this is very individualized. If you do like a generic template and you're hungry, eat more. Like this is not a max. But we want to have your plate. We want to have protein, fat, carbs, and fiber, which can be your carb. We want to look at how much are we actually having. There's two ways to do this. We can look at your standard, like medium sized dinner plate. And we just want like a quarter of it as

protein, a quarter of it as our fiber or a carb, maybe a half of it. as our veggies as well, and then a little bit, like a tablespoon of fats. Or we can do it in terms of hand sizes. This is my favorite for like if you're going out or something. So about a fist size is like a cup of something. So for your carbs, we would say, okay, one serving of carbs is like a half a fist. By the way, way, way smaller than most people realize. About a half a cup of your carbs would be a half of a fist size. And then your protein would be about like the size of your palm and the thickness of that little pad like by your thumb. And so that's going to be somewhere between like three ounces of protein, maybe four. Four usually goes up to like the first knuckle. So we want to

have enough protein, enough carbs. We do want to make sure our carbs have fiber in them. So something like potato would have more fiber than like a white rice. And then we want to have one to two fist sizes of veggies, especially if you're on a fat loss journey, that's going to really provide more satiety. And then your fats, oils, butters are going to be like a thumb size, basically. So like a tablespoon. Avocado is a little different. It's like a third of an avocado depending on the size. So we're using kind of like our hands to assess what are my portions. It's a general estimate. It's a gauge. But we're not we're not bodybuilders preparing for like a competition. Like we don't need to be weighing our food and super specific about it.

We can use these portions to generalize and look at how much am I actually taking in and am I getting enough at each of my meals. Okay, so let's say I'm out at a restaurant and I want to order the pasta. How would that fit into this? This is where I will bring up the idea of looking at the calories of something to a client. And if I feel that we can have that conversation in a way that doesn't trigger any fears or history, this is how I think about it in practice. Because we just talked about the meal template, right?

But the way that you're living your life, are you going to go out and have every single meal of every single day that fits this exact template? No, my meals don't look like that. I don't have every meal like that. So we're going to have moments where we deviate from our general structure or a general plan. That's okay. So if you're going out to eat, there's two ways we can do this. So if you're someone who can look at the calories and you're like, yeah, I just want more information.

Because again, calories are science. The way we feel about them is a story. So we have to separate the story from the science. Now, I can observe and say this bowl of pasta, I looked it up. I usually use like a, you know, like a chain. If you go to any local mom and pop shop and you get a bowl of pasta, just look it up an olive garden or something and see, generally speaking, what is their serving of pasta in terms of calories. We're looking at that calorie number and we're saying, okay, so if I generally want X amount for the day, I want X amount per my meal, divide it out, all right, maybe I have half of this bowl of pasta or maybe I have a quarter of it, whatever. you know, I think I can do to fit into my general structure.

We can also look at it in the sense of like, okay, you know what? I know that about a fist size of it would be my carb. And so that's going to be what I'm aiming for. And then I'll kind of build out the rest of the meal. Now, one thing I also like to bring in, I don't like to talk about going out to eat without mentioning this, is what is your intention behind going out to eat? So what is the intention behind the meal? We have convenience.

So maybe the kids came home and you are like, I'm too tired to make dinner. Let's just go out to eat. It's convenient. In that situation, we're not getting the best thing on the planet. We're just there for convenience. So in that situation, why don't we put together a meal template, something that's as close to what we would have at home as possible? But then we have moments where we go out to eat for the food. Like, you mentioned pasta.

I live in New York City. There's so many great pasta places. So if I'm going out to eat at an Italian restaurant that has the best pasta in the city, I'm not thinking about my meal template. I'm just not. So in that situation, I need to make sure that I am satisfied with this meal, psychologically and physically. So the whole point of me going out is to enjoy the experience.

So my only rule is I have to enjoy it. Now, one thing to keep in mind is research also shows that hedonic pleasure or, you know, the enjoyment of eating exponentially decreases after the first three to five bites of a food. So we should make those three to five bites the best experience we can possibly have because that's the whole point. That's why we're there. But if I'm still hungry after that, all right, maybe I get a side of veggies. Maybe I add some protein to it. Maybe I had a snack like an hour or two before dinner to make sure I wasn't starving going into dinner.

But I still got to have the pasta. Now, I don't need a whole bowl of pasta to get that satisfying experience and enjoyment. I really just need the first three to five bites and maybe I'll have a little bit more than that. But I want to make sure that that's giving me the mental satisfaction. And then I have the physical satiety coming from either a snack before dinner or pairing it with some veggies on the side. What's a good example of a snack before dinner? I like to bring in fiber here or protein, depending on what's available to you or what your preferences are. But I really like something that is high fiber, something even like carrot sticks or some like cucumbers, bell peppers, any type of veggie as

well, especially if you're not going to get veggies at dinner as well. We're just kind of like supplementing a little bit. We can bring in something that's higher protein. Now, if you have leftover chicken from dinner the night before, that could be your snack. We tend to overcomplicate things. Like in our country, we have breakfast foods and we have snack foods. Food is just food. Like a snack can be a mini meal. So we can literally pull leftovers and have a little bit of chicken and some leftover over broccoli, and that's going to be my snack two hours before I go out to dinner. It's what's available to if you're out. I like to even just have like stuff in your bag as a go bag. One of my favorite is, I think we talked about this, the dry roast at amame beans are one of my

favorites. Do you remember what brand those are? The only bean is, those are really good. The brami beans I like, they're these little lupini beans, but the texture is not dry. Just know that. They're like a little slimy, but they taste really good. Even like a protein bar, I'm not, like, I definitely am for having something like a protein bar in your bag. And you have some favorite protein bar brands based on the fiber and protein ratio. So I always want your protein bar to have at least five grams of fiber, at least depends on the brand. But let's say like 10 to 15 grams of protein. And I want sugar to be below 10 grams, ideally below like six or seven grams.

This is why you nixed my favorite protein bar brand. You said I could have on hikes. You're like if you're hiking. This is a go macro bar. And this is, I actually have one of my purse right now, by the way. You were just like, if you're hiking, like, you need that sugar to fuel you, which I think it's nice. You're not saying like, you're not saying universally this food is bad. You're saying there's times and cases for you to need this much sugar.

And that's why every conversation with food is so nuanced because we can't say, you know, oh, never have a carb alone, like always have some peanut butter with your banana. If I'm about to go work out, that banana by itself entering my bloodstream super quickly, and bumping up my blood sugar, that's going to give me energy to go squat at the gym because now my muscles are using it. So it's all about context. Now, protein bars that have that little, like, layout of macronutrients that I like, I've really been loving the IQ bars lately. They do have extra fiber in them as a supplement, but they're really filling and they have a decent amount of protein, decent amount of fiber. And overall, if you are looking at your calories, they're lower on that

end as well. I really also love the pro-mix bars. They're like a little bit of a rice crispy treat type of texture. So I use them if, you know, like I kind of want something a little bit sweeter, but those are really good too. What do you think about like the diet foods, the ones that are kind of ultra-processed and designed? I'm thinking about like the bear bells bars or what's the new one that's like marshmallow-y that everybody's obsessed with? I see everybody's swearing by them for a weight loss journey and then I look at the ingredients. I'm like, ugh, like that looks terrible. How do you square those things? So I look at it as what are you willing to have and what is satisfying to you?

This is something that only you know the answer to when you're thinking about your own journey with this. So I'll give you an example. I have a client who she would not touch any other protein bar. She absolutely hated the taste of them. So if I'm going to give her an IQ bar and she doesn't like it, she'll be physically satisfied. physically satiated, but mentally unsatisfied. So now, even though she's full, she's going to go seeking more foods that are more rewarding and then found that she was going for desserts or chocolate when she had literally

also just eaten, which common experience, by the way, that doesn't mean something's wrong with you. It means that it wasn't satisfying enough. When she found barebell bars, she was just walking through Trader Joe's and, like, found them on her own. She came to session and she was so excited because she found this snack that she could carry with her everywhere she went. It was really portable, really easy, and she was so excited that she was meeting her protein goals. Now, bear bells are also low in fiber, I will say, but in her exact situation, for where she is in her journey right now, that was a really good choice for her.

I was happy for her and proud of her and we're keeping them in her diet right now. Now maybe she'll get to a point where as her palate changes or, you know, as she's a little bit younger as she gets older, you know, maybe when her life changes a little bit, then she won't need that bar anymore. But for right now, it's getting her through the period between lunch and dinner and helping keep her mentally satisfied and physically satiated. If we're trying to suss out, though, like it seems like sometimes if you're trying to stay in a calorie deficit, the best way to do that is by kind of eating these, like, like engineered foods to do so? How do we, I don't know, eat the whole foods or navigate, like that that makes it easier? It's also about context. So if that is the only, let's say, highly processed thing in her diet for the whole day

and all of her meals and, you know, any other snacks are more nutrient dense and have more vitamins and minerals and antioxidants, then when we're looking at the overall landscape, of what's happening in someone's body, the anti-inflammatory outweighs the pro-inflammatory. Now, what I don't want you to do and what can feel, again, this is not personalized medical or nutrition advice, we do get into tricky territory when we're filling up everything with diet foods. Typically, they are not as physically satiating. I do, I remember when I was younger and I would come home from school and I would have like four packs of the 100 calorie packs. For 400 calories, I could have gotten the most beautiful nutrient-dense protein and fiber-filled snack or a meal and all of these beautiful nutrients.

And that wasn't even satisfying. We also have to look at what is giving us the most nutrients and also making our lives easier. So there are plenty of foods that are whole foods, that are high foods, that are high. high fiber, high protein, low calorie in general. And so we don't necessarily need those diet foods if we have adequate planning. So I look at, you know, like we wouldn't go on a, we wouldn't schedule like a trip to Europe and go without a plan. Maybe it's a loose plan. Where am I going to go out to dinner? What sites am I going to see? Oh, I could do that on that day. That's near the Eiffel Tower. So let's do those together. When we're approaching our nutrition,

we have to look at it in the same way. We do need a little bit of structure and planning because of the nature of our lives. So with some structure and with some planning, we can reach that calorie deficit if that's our goal while still getting anti-inflammatory nutrient-dense foods and still have a little bit of room for the fun stuff in between. But I would say typically speaking, when I see someone coming in eating a lot of those diet type of foods. It's either a misconception that they're healthy just because they're a lower calorie or they're really quick and really convenient. And so we just have to find quick convenient alternatives like the only beans and like some veggie sticks or some even just like fruit with thick skin, like a mandarin orange or an apple or banana,

and figure out a way that make it so that your kitchen is always stocked with those. Maybe your car has them or your purse has them so that no matter where you are, we're not resorting to the diet foods as well. So one aspect of planning then seems like just making sure you have healthy snacks around or with you. Are there other plans or routines that if weight loss is the goal we should or could be incorporating? Yes. I can't talk about planning and routines without talking about the nervous system as well. Because if we're not getting adequate sleep, if we're not feeling regulated throughout the day, we have a hormonal landscape that is driving us toward food. So routines and structure help our body feel safe. It helps our body feel regulated. And when our body feels safe,

it's a lot easier to release our weight or be in a situation where we're able to manage the amount of energy that's coming in as well. So routine-wise, when I'm working with a new client, one of the first things I'm asking them as well is, what does your day look like? Walk me through your day from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. We don't need a one-hour TikTok morning routine to regulate our nervous system and engage in a fat loss journey. But we do need some type of anchor. So that could literally be three to five deep diaphragmatic breaths into the belly when you wake up in the morning. It could be waking up at around the same time every day, stepping out for some natural sunlight, or just stepping out

or going for a walk can be also really nice. Maybe it's just making your ginger tea in the morning, and that's your anchor point. Something that anchors you into the day. We also want to bring in regular meal timing. So, for example, having breakfast within the first 30 to 60 minutes of waking can also help regulate our cortisol levels and our blood sugar levels. that can help with our hunger and our stress as the day goes on. Then we want to time every extra meal event. Every, I would say average like four hours from the last. Some people three, some people five.

And then what that does is we don't actually have to say, oh my gosh, when am I going to get lunch? Now I'm strapped. I have clients who like to do it at night or in the morning. Look at your schedule ahead. You wouldn't show up to work, not knowing when all of your meetings are. So when you're doing that, just having the back of your mind, where does my lunch fit in here? Where does my snack fit in?

Am I having a five-hour stretch of time or I'm not eating anything? So planning ahead and kind of having that idea of when things are coming in throughout the day. Now, because I work with a lot of clients who also have binge eating behaviors, and I just notice even in people who don't binge eat, there's a little bit of a, we just eat when we're stressed. We feel discomfort. and food, the physical food and the act of eating, both regulate our nervous system. We also want to have routines that give us a little bit of joy or calm, sense of calm as the day goes on.

For some people, that's literally, I have some clients who work in a hospital and they're so go, go, go. And they will literally just go into the bathroom and do a breathing exercise for five minutes and come back out. And that is just their moment to have that connection with their self throughout the day. Now that can regulate your appetite then going into dinner because now our stress levels aren't super high. Our blood sugar is a little bit more regulated because of that. And we have more sensitivity to our fullness hormone and we can actually kind of identify when am I now full at dinner time. I call them your anchors. Everyone has a different list.

Pick like three to four things that keep you grounded, make you feel your. your best, think back to the time that you felt the best you've ever felt. Are your anchors, I need seven, eight hours of sleep a night, I need to get to bed by 10 o'clock. I know I need to have my breakfast every single day. It might not look the same every day, but it needs to come in in some capacity. Figure out where your anchors are, make a notes app, pin it to the top. Am I getting in my anchors every single day? That will definitely help you reach any of your nutrition. or health goals. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have.

Like, if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life. And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house,

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age. Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondere gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. One of the things that you said to me that really stuck with me was that the people that you work with who are able to successfully lose weight and keep it off are the people who are not eating due to stress. And one of the things that we worked on was identifying the times that I was eating to comfort myself versus eating to enjoy it or to fuel myself and trying to build in those stress-relieving activities. So I'm just going to do a shout-out for keeping a log, even without calories, involved in it whatsoever. But like, what did I eat and what was my mood at the time that I ate

it? That's something that you had me do. And it really helped me identify like, oh, at 3 p.m. on a workday that's really intense, I am reaching for foods to comfort myself. And how can I mitigate my stress in other ways? I call it like a food and mood journal, you know. We live very disconnected lives, and that's just the nature of the world that we live in. And so while we're engaging in any nutrition or weight loss journey, part of the reason you're doing this is to feel better. You just want to feel more you again or for the first time. Now, we want to build that connection with your body.

We want you to build that self-trust. So we want to engage in that connection, but that can be really confusing because it might be the first time you've ever done this. We learn as kids, food is very accessible. So if we feel discomfort or stress or loneliness or sadness as kids, we turn to food because it's readily there. It's just, it's easy. And so we learn at a very young age when I,

I feel something I don't want to feel and I eat, it makes me feel better. So now as adults, of course we're going to keep doing the same thing that we've done since we were kids. That doesn't make you bad. That doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It actually means that your body is trying to keep you safe. Your body is like, hey, I'm here to protect you and food is the only thing that we've known to do that. So let's go grab something. That's helped you up to this point in your life. That doesn't mean it's bad. It actually has protected you. but maybe it's just not serving you right now anymore. And so now we can learn from that behavior and pivot to something different.

So what I like to do is if you have a craving, then just notice when you're reaching for something. Now, we want to just implement a pause between the feeling and the action. So I have the urge to eat something. I'm just going to take a second before I actually eat. it. This can be a two-minute pause. It could be a 20-second pause. Whatever feels okay for you. And just notice what comes up. So physically, is my chest tight? I hear from a lot of people in my own binge eating journey, this would happen to me that there is like the ball of energy like in my throat

or in my chest. It could be anxiety. It could be overwhelmed. Just notice what you're feeling. Acknowledge it without judgment. So I am feeling X. Interesting. I'm just getting curious. Do I know why this is happening? I might not. Can I regulate this without food? Now, we're not saying you can't have the food. We're just saying, can I use this two minutes to support my body? And then I can go for the food.

Then over time, that two minutes becomes 10 and 20. And then we get to the point where maybe we can actually start to regulate our nervous system without needing to reach for the food in the process. Are there other commonalities that you see in people who are able to lose weight in a healthy way and really sustain that weight loss? I would say probably the biggest one is consistency. When we feel that we deviated from our behaviors that we are transforming in our life, if we deviated, how quickly are we coming back? So am I deviating and then feeling shame about it and then continuing for another three to four days? Or am I noticing, oh, okay, I had that piece of it.

cake and I'm coming back. That also takes awareness. So awareness would be the other one that comes from something like the Food and Mood Journal, noticing what your behaviors are and looking at them with neutral observation. So just seeing I am snacking more, interesting, why might that be happening, and then kind of pulling it back. The other piece of consistency is, consistency is just one day at a time. So when we're in any situation of our life, we want to keep those goals at the forefront because they're important to us and we have that reason for even aiming for them. The clients who are very successful, I would say they look at these behavior changes as improvements to their quality of life and so they bring them into every situation. So they might be on vacation and they're still

in the back of their mind. They might be at a party and they're still in the back of their mind. there's less of that flip-flop between I'm on and I'm off at all or nothing mindset, which again is something that we work on in sessions as well. And on the flip side, what are common things that you see people have in common if they're not reaching their goals? The biggest thing is like negative self-talk. Because I think that if we're having, either we're having a craving or we actually engage in a craving, again, separating the actual event from the story behind it.

So just because I had some chocolate and I didn't plan on it, that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of a weight loss journey. It just means I had chocolate. That's all it means. And so if I can just acknowledge that and move forward from it, that would probably be the biggest thing that I see that's beneficial. The other thing is also releasing that all or nothing mindset and incorporating things that you enjoy into your meals. So if you are someone that, I don't know, mac and cheese is like your favorite thing in the entire world, there's not a world in which you never eat mac and cheese again. But maybe you're including it once a week and you're having it in like your fist size portion and you're having it in the context of the rest of your dinner. Incorporating things that you actually really enjoy in a portion that's supportive to your goals helps you stay consistent and will help you reach your goals easier.

Okay, I'd love for you to weigh in on a few things that people talk about online for wait. loss. We're just kind of kind of do like a speed round. First of all, they healthy and then second, are they effective? So keto diet. It depends, but I very rarely recommend that. In a nutshell, why? Most people who do a keto diet are not actually eating a keto diet, not actually in ketosis. They're just eating incredibly high fat foods, incredibly low carbs, and they're slowing their metabolism. Their cortisol goes through the roof and their anxiety, especially women, anxiety goes through the roof and it is a hormonal disregulating nightmare for a lot of people. What would you say to somebody who's like, but I lost all this weight on the keto diet? First of all, you lose weight very quickly by dropping

carbs because carbs are stored with water. So you will lose a lot of weight at first and most of it's water weight. Now, one of the things I will say, though, if you feel good and you lost weight on keto and you're loving it, go right ahead. It's your body. Like, I don't know all the science. Like, if you're loving it, continue doing it. But just keep. in eye on how things progress over time and if anything becomes disrupted in your health profile as time goes on, be open to making shifts away from it if you need. Intermittent and fasting. I've seen intermittent fasting be really helpful for men particularly. Most of the time with women, not so much. Having breakfast for women helps regulate hormones and one being cortisol and anxiety

response. If someone's intermittent fasting, I do prefer them to start their fasting window earlier in the evening. That way, you're still having something within like an hour of waking up. Walking a ton of steps, like 20,000 steps a day. If you're doing it and it's not increasing stress and it's not taking away from other areas of your life and you enjoy it, keep doing it. If you feel like you're taking away from other areas of your life and it's affecting your sleep and making you stressed and you could be doing something like strength training with that time, then maybe keep walking, have longer walking days, but then have other days where you're incorporating a little bit more resistance training.

But you do like walking for weight loss. Walking is one of the most helpful tools for weight loss. It is one of the first things that I will bring in with a new client. Why? When we look at the energy outside of the equation, basal metabolic rate is the biggest control. next is non-exercise activity. That's something like walking. So walking is a huge contributor to the calories outside of things. It's also a low impact, low intensity exercise. So while something like

an intense strength training session or a hit class might actually increase someone's appetite enough to where they can't be in a deficit anymore, walking usually doesn't have that same impact. So you're still getting movement, but your appetite is a little bit more regulated. You're blood sugar is more regulated, especially if the walking is spread throughout the day. It's just one of the most helpful tools for weight loss. A carnivore diet. Carnivore diet I look at as a temporary therapeutic diet for certain conditions. But we just talked about how important fiber is and you're not getting any fiber. So for the microbiome, you're just kind of starving out all of these microbes that are going to be really supportive for you in the long run. Lemon water. So the thing with lemon water,

not one thing is going to be, there's not one contributor by itself that's going to give you the outcome that you want. Drinking lemon water is not going to shoot your metabolism up through the roof. But lemon water can help with digestion. It can be calming in the morning and it can help you break down foods better. It can help with bloating. And so if you're drinking lemon water and it's helping you in your day to day, keep doing it. There's no downside unless you have reflux and maybe pull back a little bit. Are there any other, like, fun little hacks that you feel like make an outsized difference?

One of my favorite things is something like using a whiteboard on your fridge and just having a little bit of planning. So I like to prep like you're a toddler. So meal prep in the beginning of the week or just buying things that are already pre-prepped or frozen, give yourself two proteins, give yourself two carbs or fiber sources, give yourself one to two veggies. and then you have your fat sources in the pantry, and now all you have to do is piece them together into your meal template for the week. I also like to have go-to-meal ideas on repeat

that you know you like. We make so many decisions in the course of a day. We go through so much decision fatigue. Figuring out what to eat doesn't need to be another one of your decisions. So have canned two to three meal ideas or snack ideas that when you're in a pinch and you don't know what to do, those are your options. you can have ones for at home and ones for on the go.

Keep in mind having a plan A, plan B, plan C. Life is life and it will never go how we want it to all the time. So if you have a plan A for a meal that you want and a snack that you want, always have a backup and a backup to the backup and you'll be good. Okay, I just want to summarize everything for people because we've covered so much our workout plan for the week. How many times do we strength training? Ideally, it would be two to four times a week.

Keep in mind, if you don't currently strength train or that feels like a huge barrier for you, start with something else. But I would say two to four times a week would be ideal. And we're walking as much as possible. Walk as much as possible. But keep in mind, you don't have to just shoot for 10,000 steps. If you're currently walking 2,000 steps a day, go for 3,000. 1,000 steps takes you about 10 minutes to walk. So if we're trying to go from 2,000 steps a day to 4,000, I just need two extra 10 minute walks and then I get there.

And then for food, we are either calorie counting and trying to be in a deficit. How much deficit? Usually about a half a pound a week is like 250 calories deficit. I don't really recommend more than that. If you're trying to do calories, try tracking for two weeks. Everything that you eat, no judgment, everything that's coming in. It's already coming in. You might as well write it down.

Once you know that, if your weight is staying the same, that means you're eating at maintenance. So then take that number and drop it by two to 300 and start that. And if we don't want a calorie count, are we doing the fist, thumb? If we don't want a calorie count, I would say separate your day into three meal events and one to two snacks. And when you're doing that, keep everything to the meal event, whether it's the meal or the snack, avoid grazing in between. Just that alone, grazing can be a huge contributor of hidden calories. So we know that if you're getting three meals and one to two snacks, you're probably getting enough calories, throughout the day. And knowing that you have a snack coming in two hours can also help reduce

your tendency to graze. So your general meal template, again, individually yours will vary. But ideally about like a half a fist to a fist size of fiber-filled carbs, about a palm to like first knuckle of protein. We want one to two fistfuls of veggies. And then we're going to have about like a thumb size of either nut butter, oil, or something like a third of an avocado. And what should a snack look like? A snack, I just want to make sure it has protein and or fiber in the snack. You might not need a snack. Some people can go three meals and they're okay.

If you're hungry, try to go for something that has fiber in the snack, like a piece of fruit or pair the fruit with something like a chomp stick or some type of protein. But keep in mind, you don't have to have the snack. If you're not hungry, don't have it. If you're ravenous at your next meal, you probably did need the snack. I also want to point out that a snack is just something that. that has calories. So my matcha in the morning is my morning snack because I probably have what, like 150 calories of nut milk in it and I have some sweetener in it as well. So that's my morning

snack. And then I'm a dessert early. So that is my afternoon snack. So if you want dessert or like a fun beverage that does have calories in it in the morning, those count as snacks. Again, because you love your matcha, of course you're going to keep that in as your snack. If you took it out, it would negatively impact your quality of life. Oh, I would have no reason to live. Yeah, it's over. So we must have that match because what would we do with that Liz? We cannot have that happen. Yeah, okay.

Is there anything else that you wish people understood more if they're pragmatically going out there and trying to lose weight in a healthy way? Your body is not broken. If you have not been able to lose weight up to this point or it's been a struggle, it just means that there have been barriers up to this point. and you haven't had the right tools or the right strategies at the right time to help you navigate those barriers. Those barriers could be physical, like a health condition. They could be psychological. But once you have the right tools and the right strategies, you can engage on a successful weight loss journey. It might be harder for some people than others, but just know that you can do this. and it's just one step at a time. I see more success in clients who don't have an actual weight goal and don't have an actual

timeline because their goals are much more based on behavior change. And when we look at just one little thing, what can I do today to get me closer to my goal? If you keep doing that consistently for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you will start to get there. Just take it one day at a time. Amazing. Can you tell everybody where they can find you online and even work with you if they want to? I am a dietitian in Michelle Shapiro's practice. So it's Michelle Shapiro Nutrition.

The website is Michelle ShapiroRD.com. We can have a link to our application to work one-on-one together. And we also have a workout fitness and nutrition guide, eight-week guide, that you can download as well called Just Start somewhere. If you just need a little bit of guidance and you need some place to start. Love it. Thank you, Nikki. Thank you. Okay, that is unfortunately all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. I know this is a very

complex subject that brings up a lot of emotions for people, but I hope it reached the people who needed it, and I really hope that you found it both compassionate and helpful. If you know anyone who needs to hear this conversation who's maybe dieting in unhealthy ways that they found on Skinny Talk, please take a quick second and copy paste a link to send to them. It is the best way to support the podcast and ensure that we can keep making amazing informative episodes for you. If you are new here, or even if you're not, check and make sure that you're following the podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify or on YouTube wherever you listen. 50% of you guys listening do not follow the show. And following is how you never miss out on an episode that might

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I'm at Liz Moody. I'll be sharing more about my weight loss journey over there if you would like to know more about my personal story as well. Okay, I love you, and I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist,

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