Lifelong Weight Loss

We start every New Year being bombarded by hundreds of dietary theories and weight-loss plans, promising quick and easy results. Does this make you feel overwhelmed, trying to figure out which one might be more successful this time? Do you look for a quick fix, and figure you’ll worry about long-term health later? Are you disillusioned by the failure of every past weight-loss attempt, and with your persistently haunting temptations and cravings? Do you crave a sustainable way of losing weight, without obsessing over food? Are you fed up with the growing number of health issues you're encountering, and being told that they are just a normal part of the aging process? What if there was a way of regaining control over your physical and emotional well-being, and maintaining your health for the long-term? There are certain key components involved in the re-cultivation of our innate ability to heal, lose weight and feel awesome. Your answer lies not in a restrictive diet, but in an inclusive lifestyle. 

It’s easy for us to convince ourselves that the latest fad diet will heal our issues and miraculously change our bodies forever. We become brainwashed by advertising and images of perfection. Unfortunately, the restrictive nature of diets means that their promised results are unsustainable. The answer lies, therefore, in a refreshingly liberating approach that cultivates better health, slowing down the aging process and improving life expectancy. Its powerful healing effects can result not only in lowering body fat and improving metabolism, but also in improving blood pressure, normalizing blood sugar and reducing inflammation. Incorporating these choices into our lifestyles, we can lose weight, regain control of our eating habits and subsequently re-cultivate health.

This inclusive ‘diet’, or nutritional lifestyle, is a highly effective weight loss strategy due to its resultant satiety and nutrient completion. It involves a balanced, unprocessed food-intake, rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, lean meats, fish, nuts, seeds, eggs, good fats, and nutritious beverages. It doesn’t involve the restriction and deprivation associated with other short-term diets. The focus is not on calorie counting or portion control, which is usually associated with dieting. It encourages us to rethink our mindset towards maximizing nutrient-density through satiating, wholesome foods. 

The abundance of delicious, nutrient-rich foods included in this lifestyle, and it’s satiety factor, make it sustainable for the long-term. Due to the blood sugar- and hormone-balancing effects, cravings, fatigue and mood swings stabilize. Consequently, we are left with less of a void to be filled with sugar-loaded, fat-promoting junk-food. This then eliminates the feelings of guilt and failure, which typically go hand-in-hand with other diets. Feel-good hormones subsequently outweigh such fat-promoting ones as insulin and cortisol, resulting in a leaner physique.

Think of it as a good carbohydrate, beneficial fat lifestyle, with a moderate intake of quality protein. The goal is to re-educate the body to rely not on the next influx of gluten, sugar and processed junk for fuel, but to become efficient at burning its own resources for fuel. It involves the body’s breakdown of fat stores for energy, as we’re removing its  reliance on quick-fix energy in the form of modern-day carbohydrates. As soon as we eat foods that quickly turn to sugar in the body, we are forced into ‘fat-storing’ mode. When we switch it up and make beneficial fat, metabolism-churning proteins and fibrous vegetables our main sources of food, we are back in  ‘fat-burning’ mode, improving our metabolic efficiency. The resulting benefits are not only a stabilization in blood sugar levels, insulin sensitivity and hence steady weigh-loss, but also a healing stabilization in our stress hormones, one of the causes of our weight gain in the first place. Satiating, nutrient-rich fats such as olive, avocado and coconut oils, nuts, seeds, nut butters, olives and avocados feature highly. Protein sources are organic meats and eggs from wild, cage-free animals, omega 3-rich fish, and other vegan sources. Low carbohydrate fruits and vegetables make up the rest of our daily regime. Higher glycemic-index carbohydrate vegetable such as sweet potatoes certainly deserve a place in this lifestyle due to their fiber, anti-oxidant and pre-biotic status. Incorporating carbohydrate-rich starchy vegetables such as white potatoes, refined and genetically modified grains, pasteurized cow’s dairy and refined sugars and sweeteners would our weight-loss progress to a halt.

Diets set us up for ultimate failure. Incremental lifestyle changes incorporating the contents of our refrigerator and pantry as discussed, along with a supportive supplement protocol, pave our path to success. Couple these new habits with quality sleep, regular exercise and stress management techniques, and we have a winning formula. Start where you are, not where you want to be. Change happens one step at a time. Today is a good day to start your journey to optimal weight - I’m here to help:)