Drop Belly Fat by Reducing Insulin NOT Calories! with @drleahatoz | Empowering Midlife Wellness

[Music] hi friends and welcome to this week's episode I have Dr Leah antonich with me again um as you know Leah is one of my fantastic partners and has a wealth of knowledge but not only and but especially in the field of nutrition so we're going to talk today a little bit about this belly fat and insulin resistance thing because I know it's so frustrating for so many of you would you say I think it's one of the most common questions that we get welcome absolutely thank you so much and thank you for having me back uh yes it is one of our top complaints that women coming in saying I'm doing the same thing or I'm doing more and I'm still getting this belly fatter I'm feeling softer the number on this scale is going up yeah so we believe you it really is true um part of it's lifestyle and part of it is hormonal so we want to talk about both of those aspects because it is a really annoying thing that happens in midlife and not only is it annoying like why do we care about insulin resistance and fat ging around the middle I mean what's the big deal about it really so we know that increased visceral fat and insulin resistance are absolutely connected to all cause mortality so as those things go up inflammation goes up they're hand inand it's kind of a cyclical Cascade and we know that um all diseases cancer heart disease all of it um increases and you can die prematurely of these things right of course we think about type two diabetes related to insulin resistance but you're absolutely right I mean heart disease cancers even dementia and all kinds of things and just dying early so it is really important not just looking good in our swimsuit but having the healthy long life that we want to so let's delve into how we can address that not just to look good but also to live longer right so when when I was growing up until quite recently we were taught that you eat fewer calories you lose weight right the calorie model or the so-called Weight Watchers model just eat less lose weight that's not working for us anymore like what what are we missing there with the calorie counting method well um a couple of things with calorie counting because not all calories are the same number one so we know that we are very very very good at metabolizing carbohydrates 100% um whereas something like like protein we don't metabolize all of it in fact we utilize a lot of energy to metabolize it so probably about 80% of a gram compared to 100% of a gram of carbohydrate um also uh fiber so fiber although it's a carbohydrate is going to be processed differently and it's going to have many beneficial effects and not Spike insulin so if I go and have white rice compared to having a sweet potato uh same amount of calories the effects on my body and the hormonal effects on my body are going to be completely different even including my sleep that night yeah so it's really time to abandon counting calories I think and so that that model doesn't work it doesn't work certainly as we're getting older not that calorie restriction won't cause us to lose weight but it's not the end of the story by any means so so much more to it so you mentioned about you know carbohydrates and protein so let's just talk about insulin where does it come from what's its function and body and we know there's juvenile diabetics and type two diabetics kind of what's the basic story about that sure so um insulin is one of our many hormones in our body it's secreted by our pancreas and it has we'll just simplify this and say it has two main jobs one is to um put glucose into our cells or even store that glucose a little bit as glycogen not important but that's the way it's stored also once the glycogen storages are full it actually gets stored as fat for us to use later on yeah which would make great sense right and our biological ancestral days we would have periods of time when we didn't have food so in times of excess it would make a lot of sense to store it as fat and then during the day even during the hours that we're not eating we need that glycogen in our muscles so that we can run fast if we haven't eaten for four hours so all of this makes sense when our metabolism is working well but what can go wonky with that picture and what's causing this new thing where we get the belly fat so a couple of things can happen you know specifically in midlife something women experience is uh hormone deficiency so estrogen is very important for the liver to function to grab that Sugar out and testosterone plays a role as well and so just by fluctuation of just those hormones we can become insulin resistant because those receptors aren't being expressed in um the way that we process glucose is has changed when that happens and the sugar is sitting in our bloodstream the body thinks hm well I'm going to go ahead and save this for Dr Susan later when she's trkking three days to go find Buffalo or running from the saber-tooth tiger and so our body is super smart that way well in our modern society we never go three days without food and we don't run from wild animals most of us anyway and so we keep packing on that fat and our hormones decrease and there's other things that are affecting us in our modern day life like cortisol cortisol has a huge role to play on insulin um and over time as we're chronically stressed it keeps playing that role and we get fatter and fatter and fatter so for example similar analogy cortisol is another hormone and it's very important for fight ORF flight well if we're chronically stressed the body is constantly making sugar available to us to go run and to flee or to fight whatever we need to fight and so that also ends up making us pack on on weight and it decreases our metabolism and our immune system among other things yeah all it's amazing isn't it that our lifestyles really lending towards this um fat storing model um you touched on cortisol also affected by sleep deprivation which I talk about a lot because it's it was so and do Leia struggles with this too you know for per menopause and menopause it's it can be really difficult to sleep that's a huge factor and then just the prevalence of of high carbohydrate easy to reach for foods and and our environments so it seems like it seems like one thing after another stacking up against us almost isn't it absolutely but we can be successful right so you're going to tell us some ways that we can help this what feels like a fire burning out of control sometimes absolutely so I mean some very simple obvious things are you know our activity we all get tired of hearing that we have to move our body but when we are exercising even if we're using our muscles a little bit more than normal we actually open up these channels for the sugar to just Dive Right In they don't even need insulin so just moving is an excellent way for us to fight insulin resistance and bring our glucose levels back to normal um we basically alluded to the fact that we need to get good sleep we really have to sleep like it's our job not only do we repair our bodies during that time but we also are able to decrease our cortisol and so many other things that will come into play if we are chronically stressed and our cortisol is chronically High then we are going to stay insulin resistant and it's actually going to get worse yeah and it it can get a bit overwhelming can it because this is it it is very complex I mean hormonal science is very complicated and we are learning more about it all the time uh but it we can simplify it I think and and you do such a good job with this just to break it down to like what are the most important things so what I'm hearing is over time we're producing more insulin than we need our body's not sensitive to it so we're storing sugar as fat how do we turn that around like what what are some simple things that any person could Implement Without Really disrupting their life and you can eat how about that you can eat quite a bit so high protein high fiber how simple is that I mean just start there and um if it doesn't have fiber in it and it's a carbohydrate just don't eat it there's plenty that are and you will feel full and you will feel good but the protein recommendations we've talked about as well and then you know we could say let's just talk about the rule of 30s so we want 30 grams of protein at a meal we want 30 grams of fiber in the day and we don't want more than 30 grams of carbohydrate at a time and that's pretty simple right so I think that's very simple so if you can break it down to something you can actually Implement so for me if I focus on eating enough protein during the day that by itself solves a lot of other potential issues because eating 30 grams of protein four times a day so for me I'm trying to get 120 grams we've talked before about one gram per ideal body weight one gram of protein per ideal body weight in pounds so maybe that's around 120 pounds different than your goal weight much be might be much higher than that but what your ideal body weight is on a BMI chart so if I'm eating 120 grams of protein I'm pretty full pretty full yeah and then the fiber element of course makes us full as well 30 grams of fiber I we've talked here about fiber before that is hard to get now you're speaking to someone who's had a plant-based diet much of my life a serving of vegetables may be two to three grams of fiber so it it's really takes some intentionality or fiber supplement which I do me too I love my fiber supplement so yeah so what's a what's good about fiber and how does it interact with sugar and Insulin fiber does so many things for your body but specifically regarding that it slows down the absorption of sugar um it also feeds the good bacteria in your intestinal tract which increases your metabolism it also makes your intestinal tract more efficient and so it in its own way increases its energy in metabolism it also decreases cancers and makes you feel full so so many good things and it's so easy to do I've talked about the product I like there's so many out there I take a scoop of this product by happens to be by Thorn you know I love them it's it's made with Sun fiber so you mix it with water and it's not gritty and it's about 8 gr of fiber which might not sound like a whole lot but that's a big chunk of my daily requirements and then several servings of vegetables so it takes a bit of time to get there but talking back to easy things protein fiber and water that's how sort of three-part nutrition Point absolutely so water fill us up absolutely water not only fills us up but when we're dehydrated it actually triggers a hormone in our brain to tell us that we're hungry so sometimes we just need to drink it also increases your blood sugar when you're dehydrated as well so being hydrated is really really good as you know you don't necessarily have to carry around one of those jugs that I see people carrying around all the time but you know eight glasses or whatever it is is a a pretty good goal yeah I've heard there so many different recommendations for water just stay hydrated I think a really simple way is to make sure your urine is a very clear color not dark yellow uh some people say uh one ounce per half of your body weight so 60 ounces a day for me for example many ways to think about it I just try to drink water regularly throughout the day yeah I I like the the urine test personally I think if it's light yellow to clear I know I'm hydrated that's really simple I we can over complicate things and it's very easy to go down a rabbit hole with any of this stuff right uh where we count for me if I'm counting all day I'm obsessed with food and for me being able to remove food from something I'm thinking about all day is really important so simple absolutely and that's a stress in itself right because it's taking more effort and that's why people give up like I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this so find the simplest things that you can that that work for you and we'll do those you know like you like said on your last video people get so granular and they're down to the like 0.01 gram of this that or the other that's not important you know the big things the sleeping the moving your body high fiber High protein you know if you do that in the water then you're way ahead of the game that's right so try that first now if someone came and saw you or saw me and said look I'm doing all this I'm eating my 120 gr I'm doing all those things or even if you wanted to do it before then we can do some diving into measuring your insulin measuring your sugar so let's talk about that and you you you can ask your doctor to do it but you can also do it yourself right and then just talk about what our goal value values are for those particular Labs because the lab has some pretty extraordinary ranges yes the lab does have some extraordinary ranges you know they they take you know let's just say a thousand people off the street and they could be literally on death's door they could be in Optimal Health well we use different ranges we use Optimal Health ranges because we want you to be a blossoming flower not a wilted plant that's right you've always we want you to have an A+ not Aus exactly so um well let's start with fasting glucose most of y'all that most of yall know about that so 100 or less than 95 would be really fantastic that's uh something though that if I don't eat long enough I'm I'm going to be able to hit that number so that's why we also look at to other values including our fasting insulin which ideally we would really like to be less than five and I believe the reported reference ranges go anywhere from two to 25 yeah they're really wide yeah if you have a so if you get your labs done and it say it's falling in the normal column actually look at that number because you could have a fusting insulin of 24 and it would still be red as normal and you would be very very metabolically ill in that case so we want to look at the actual number so really as low as possible yeah but even even less than eight is very good very good um but then we also can move to another lab which yall are familiar with probably called the hemoglobin A1c and that is taking a look at Red cells that have kind of sugar on them we'll over simp that but it's a thre Monon calculation average of what we think the glucose is by looking at how many molecules of glucose or how glycosilated the red blood cells are and again that's a range issue um a lot of people are told oh if you're 5.7 or higher you're a pre-diabetic well no there's no such thing as pre-diabetes that just means that you aren't yet being given a medication it means that you're already insulin resistant and as a matter of fact at 5.5 or higher there's a linear relationship with each tenth of a point that you increase your risk of all cause mortality that means cancer dementia heart attack everything yeah so we don't want to wait till you get sick again if we're seeing that Trend up and I talked about this last week even if it went from five to 5.1 to 5.2 that's still going to be well within the normal range but it is suggesting that something's changing that we could intervene with early and you're probably noticing on as the human being in that equation that you're getting fat around the middle so in a certain respect you know we want to listen to you and what your symptoms are now I have patients I'm sure you do too who their lives look great they might have a fasting insulin that's seven and a fasting glucose of 85 and their hemoglobin a1c's normal they're still struggling with this and in fact they are insulin resistant where it's not picking it up on that fasting panel so there's some other ways if you feel like that's happening like oh my gosh they said I'm fine dig a Little Deeper because sometimes our sugar goes up later in the day we might have spikes going on that are not being picked up on that test our average sugar could even be normal but average of 100 it could be ranging from 40 to 180 so digging into that a little bit more what are some suggestions for that well that's a person I would absolutely recommend a continuous glucose monitor yeah um and I I do we do see patients like that so we know that we're just not catching with those tests what's really going on and we know that they're insulin resistant right yeah sometimes that's so true and if you feel like this and I I have so many patients who do that are being told you're fine your Labs look great it must just be in your head or you're secretly eating in the closet I've had patients tell me this terrible no you know when you're not fine you know when something's changed and you're always right we just haven't found it yet so dig a Little Deeper CGM is a great idea you don't need to be diabetic to have a continuous glucose monitor anyone can get one I mean Insurance might not cover it but it's an investment that you and I worn ourselves I think it's very useful and surprising sometimes um how our sugar can change with fruits that one might not think and then other ways that we can intervene if it is spiking high so for example what's an example you can think of if you eat a certain thing your sugar goes up and what's an intervention that could change that so for in my personal experimentation I um absolutely love ice cream so much yeah so I actually ran the experiment so I ate the ice cream and with one kind my sugar actually got up to 180 I couldn't believe it actually it was an ice cream it was straight up cookies with no fat but um then I did the same thing and I had um fiber and protein before it and it only went up to 140 and now it did stay it did take a long time for it to come down but the point is that it didn't Spike um and that just goes to show you how fiber and protein and the changes that they make in our intestinal system and changes that they make in the hormones on the brain can allow us to kind of hack things I'm not saying go around and eat a salad and then ice cream that's not what I'm saying but have fiber and protein before you have your carbohydrate for example and then sometimes we are going to want to enjoy something that's off our uh personal rules for what we know we should eat and those are really great interventions and then uh you'd mentioned something really interesting too about how sugar is stored in our liver and muscles in the form of glycogen another way to to drop your sugar is use your muscles right exercise I've seen that myself it makes a dramatic difference you go for a walk and it's dropped absolutely so um you can if you have a continuous glucose monitor on you can actually walk around for a couple of minutes or even just do some jumping jacks or some body squats and things like that and you will just just see it go down so one thing that you can do if you're kind of struggling with well gosh after I eat my sugars are really going up you can titrate the amount of carbohydrate and you can also move your body until it goes down to 140 or 120 preferably or something like that so these are all little things that you can do and measure well what do I need to do in my own body you know can I eat regular potatoes or can I not eat regular potatoes does it have to always be with the peel or without the peel and you can figure all of those things out this fruit does this to me and this fruit I was totally even K so important really important point I think you made is that there's not a nutrition plan that works for every person the same way because it is really interesting with this type of technique where you can see what works for you and I found that in my own body so if you are interested in ordering a continuous glucose monitor you do need a doctor to prescribe it for you I would simply ask your doctor to do that um quite easy to do and certainly not covered by insurance but it might be an investment that will help you if you're struggling and wondering why is this happening like I don't know what else to do that can often unlock some answers so what I'm hearing is protein fiber water sleep movement I mean could we do five things it sounds like a lot of things and I talked about 10 things last week it seems like a lot of things but these are these are doable not too diffult I think they're not too difficult and again if you're just if you're not overthinking it and you even start focusing on one thing for the month and then that becomes a habit then you don't have to think about it anymore and then you can build on these other things that's another reason I think people get frustrated and stop is they try to change too many things they make it too complicated and the Brain literally rejects it because it feels like too much work it's not not memory for them it's not natural for them so don't overdo it think about easing into just one thing at a time some things that I've done and you might find some things similar in order to get the supplements that I need putting them in a memorable place I just thought of an example my fiber is I like my coffee every morning right by my coffee pot is my little thing with my fiber so every morning I'm reminded oh I do my scoop of fiber with my probiotic and then I have my cup of coffee whatever works for you to make it easy so I've done that thousand times now so I do it every day and actually now I'm at a point where for some reason my fiber wasn't there or if I'm traveling I'm like oh thought something was missing exactly so these are such simple habits um if you're consistent you to do it over and over in like any habit do it over and over it becomes ingrained similar with the protein habit just I love what you said about the 30 grams and just I'd love for you to repeat that because it's such a good thing to remember sure the rule of 30s um so 30 grams of protein in a meal not more than 30 grams of carbohydrate and you want 30 grams of fiber in the day yeah so looking i' I've gotten in the habit of doing this which is quite fantastic because of your advice thank you I'll look at whatever it is that I'm about to eat and that will just occur to me okay does this have 30 grams of protein um does it have more than 30 grams of carbs maybe I can switch a ruid a little bit in order for it to meet that or maybe there are times that no it doesn't and I'm going to mindfully just eat something that I know isn't perfect but I'm not doing it without being aware that that's what I'm doing exactly and progress not Perfection that's right progress not Perfection so don't don't get all tied up some other some other little helpful hacks too that um you know I do a lot of people do drinking a little apple cider vinegar before a meal and or after a meal which also can help with heartburn um you know there's a supplement that um we've talked a lot about berberine which can help stabilize blood sugar cinnamon U turmeric you know there's other things I'm not saying go go and and um start taking all of these things and don't make any changes I'm not saying that at all but these are tools that can help us especially when we're trying to find that new normal to get those blood sugars down and get our insulin down more importantly so if you came into an office and we measured your inulin and and we see this all the time um and it's a bit high so for example over eight as we were suggesting and your sugar's a little high you're not diabetic but you're struggling with fat around the middle and you're starting to walk down that path to WS type two diabetes it's remarkable how quickly that can change and and tell us what you see in your patients like so they they start these interventions they're following the rule of 30s and doing their movement they're sleeping better watching those stress it truly can change in you know several weeks and a couple of months I mean very quick results for sure I mean a lot of times I see people back at about the six week Mark and I definitely their body compass change by doing those five simple things the Sleep the protein the fiber the water and the changing the carbohydrate again just making it a complex carbohydrate so uh it's really that fast it's that fast and you did get this way you know it took you two decades maybe to get in this state so give it more than two days to work but it does it does work anything where you lose weight rapidly is very likely not going to result in long-term success so we're really interested in getting you to your healthiest body composition and staying there forever so let's talk about that a little bit because a lot of uh very nutritionally restricted or calorie restricted weight loss plants are going to result in weight loss and we see this a lot actually with um some of these weight loss drugs that we do love The glp1 Agonist in particular in the community where people are just not eating at all right and so what can happen that goes wonky in that situation that causes us to gain a bad well a a couple of things so a um you're slowing down your metabolism so your body is very very smart and it says oh my goodness you know there's no food around so I'm going to slowly is metabolism down so there's that and then there is the fact that you are depriving yourself of precious nutrients that you need so I have seen people go into the hospital for all kinds of things I've seen them have neurologic difficulties because they're so deficient I've seen them um have to go in the hospital for uh problems with their kidneys I've had all kinds of things and you need nutrition you need to eat especially protein has we talked about so starving ourselves a protein absolutely protein has so many nutrients in it eggs have nutrients all of that and then thirdly we found out that in more recent studies that actually the yo-yo dieting even just the five pounds up and down probably has more longterm um Health detriment than if you had just stayed whatever weight that it was because of the metabolic changes that are going on and the stresses in your body and the inflammation that that can cause so anything that's done rapidly not to mention the muscle loss as well so if you're losing weight rapidly so there is a way to do things in it and nothing almost nothing is going to be you know a quick fix yeah slow and steady but it's remarkably fast when I say slow and steady so um we frequently see patients in a healthy manner losing up to 10 pounds of fat a month without losing muscle now that would be someone who has quite a bit of weight to lose but you can imagine you know I always think time's going to pass either way it's going to be a year from now soon enough so where am I going to be a year from now you know so just thinking of it as a long-term plan and then just let those habits settle in and it just sort of takes care of itself I think rather than like you said being so I've done it obsessed on details right so make it simple and it'll stick I think that's great advice so we talked about muscles so muscles really interesting in this whole insin resistant picture isn't it because not only do we store glycogen and now muscles but having more muscle mass independently is beneficial for weight loss on so many levels right so let's talk about the importance of muscle again I know you're tired of me talking about it but it's so important well it Bears repeating because H you know I had a patient the other day that just did not want to increase her protein intake and I just started explaining so many things so if I sit here and I have more muscle mass I'm going to burn more calories just sitting here doing nothing um not to mention if I have more muscle I'm also just GNA extract glucose from my bloodstream and I'm not going to turn it into fat which is going to turn into inflammation which is going to turn into all kinds of metabolic diseases and disorders I also as a woman well even as a man but as a woman am i g to protect my bones I'm going to be strong I'm not going to fall if I do fall fall I'm going to have a cushion I'm not going to have a fracture um and I'm also if I have more muscle mass going to have more energy throughout the day when I walk up the stairs I'm not going to be winded when I take those groceries home I'm gonna just you know walk with them freely and not be yeah out of breath so it it impacts our complete and total lives all aspects that really does and that reminds me of something personal story in my skinny fat days which happened in per menopause I was very did a lot of aerobic activity but didn't do any strength training and my body fat got up higher than it should be and my muscle mass was quite low I remember carrying the Christmas ornaments up to the attic which is an activity many of us do annually and just thinking I can't even pick up this box I'm just feeling weak which for me and you might resonate with this it corresponded with the feeling of mental weakness like help me I can't I need like I can't do it by myself rather than I got this this I can do it so I think there's so many factors but the physical strength correlating with just sort of mental Wellness too is something that often is not talked about it's all of the things I mean there's just nothing there's no downside to have more muscle mass you have to exercise to get it which is good in the meantime and then once you've got it it helps you to be healthier so it's a fantastic virtuous cycle yeah and having that muscle mass you're going to burn that cortisol I mean it's just it's the opposite of the bad Cascade it's the good Cascade so we all know how to get muscle we just have to do the work and it is a commitment to your future and you alluded to this but if we have insulin resistance the the treatment is quite well written we just have to follow it and it's those things right just what I heard you say protein fiber water movment muscle mass sleep the things that we know are good for us and I think um we were talking about this earlier today sometimes and I've been one of these people too no judgment sometimes we have patients who just are like I don't want that watch the magic I need the watch the pill for this like what the magic button there isn't one really and if someone tells you that there is I mean it's just it's a it's a lifestyle change and it's one that I can tell you it really does feel good it feels good to be strong it does I I get the same thing if I feel weak I get depressed and I mean you know I was like my gosh what am I going to be like in 20 years it feels very I felt very old like oh my this is going in a direct just nothing good a very negative emotional state I think and then we all know exercise helps us to feel better because of the endorphins we all know too we feel terrible when our Sugar's too high or too low absolutely it's a nice feeling to have stable sugar throughout the day the brain fog that goes with that sugar low too so I mean I eat a low carb lunch and um that way I can continue to function you'll all know what food coma is and you know and your brain's not functioning and you're already feeling maybe not great and then you're like oh one more thing I'm broken I'm broken I'm broken it's just this I to do when I feel like that eat a candy bar for sure and that's why your your brain's literally telling you to do that too your brain's like I'm I'm low on sugar we need to yeah go get the dut yeah yeah and these Cravings are very real so um it happens and I felt that way too so not negating that it's it's simple but not easy which lends into this is I think a really important part of any program that's addressing weight management or habit change is is the Mind State part and so that's a big part of our weight loss program and I know that's something you're really passionate about we can say all day do these things but it's very difficult to implement if our mind is derailing us so what are some this is very important I mean in any type of program where we're trying to change anything it comes from our mind yeah so what's your motivation and your motivation cannot be oh it's my high school reunion I want to be back in my skinny jeans it that is a very very limited motivation in a time that's going to pass and then you're going to be high school reunions over or I didn't make my goal and you might even gain weight so how is it how about I want to feel like this I want to be able to be on the floor with my grandchildren I want to be the whipper snapper that's driving all my friends around when I'm 85 well we'll all have autonomous vehicles at that point but you know what I mean you need a motivation that is longterm and that truly speaks to you so there's that so why are you doing this and then you need to think about the things and the roadblocks that you have faced and will continue to face and how to hedge against those um a daily morning practice spiritual practice in general but surrounding your goals whatever they are is very very important about the first half hour that you're awake your brain is still in that's theta waves and is very receptive to things so literally telling yourself things out loud writing things down I have statements written in sharpy and on my mirrors all over my house and they change and but they do work and I do say them out loud I also practice something called thought stopping um as soon as that negative voice comes into my head head and I assure you that it does I exchange that and I say I literally out loud say stop or in my mind I say no and I reverse that and I say the opposite because I have done X or because I know this to be true in my past uh one other thing for changing a behavior whether it's eating or decreasing um alcohol or decreasing screen time is to use an acronym called Halt and that's hungry angry lonely tired those are all triggers for us to eat or consume whether that's consume um television or consume alcohol or drugs or whatever it is and you can um look at those things and be mindful and be like okay I am truly hungry I'm G to eat real food first and then if I still want X Y and Z then I'm going to mindfully take a portion of that cake or whatever it is but um being angry it could be any kind of extreme emotion usually anger lonely um also could be bored you're looking for something to do and then tired of course is tired so you can try to take a nap do a two-minute breathing exercise that empowers your um brain or you can actually you know go to bed early and practice sleep hygiene all of the above which is such a beautiful idea and it Al it sounds like it's all just different forms of being aware of what what going on in our mind because I've certainly had this experience and I'm sure you have too listening of eating mindlessly eating while I'm doing something else and not paying attention to what I'm eating not even enjoying what I'm eating um so not noticing even did I wow did I just eat a bag of chips I didn't notice so just uh television and devices off when you're eating right yeah really good ideas so just as a review I think he did a beautiful job talking about what ins slers is this hormone gets too high it tricks our body into storing more sugar and turning that into fat for the Arctic winter that's not coming anytime soon and we need to turn that around so our body thinks it's okay to burn fat right because I I think our body's so smart and me so incredibly intelligent it's really trying to help us but our body sort of forgot that we're not caveman living in a state of potential starvation or not going to be chased by a tiger uh so was chronic stress is tricking us into thinking something's going on so yeah I want to I don't know nurture with compassion this body that's so intelligent and trying to help us by feeding her really healthy food and you know just going back to what we've talked about before this whole idea that we really are what we eat you know and treating your body as a temple and all these things that we know yeah treat her kindly feat her some good delicious nutritious food not that crappy bunch of chemicals on the back of the box uh and she'll respond well to compassion just like every living being would absolutely yeah well I I'm just so glad to have you here and I I think your message is so positive because it can lead to despair I was there it's like why is this happening to me how can I be gaining fat around the middle when I'm literally running marathons and I know many of you resonate with that I can tell you in my case I wasn't eating enough protein I was over exercising not sleeping enough living a very high stress life eating lots of sugar you know it happens and there's nothing wrong with you but we can address it so you can live a longer healthier life absolutely any final words that um you think are helpful because I know you have such a there we could talk for hours about this we really could well um just nurture yourself be kind to yourself be mentally and physically kind to yourself treat yourself like you would your very best friend or a sister that you love or someone like that so yeah really good advice well I'm so glad that you were able to highlight some of these things and if you would like to see Leah in the office uh you know how to reach us at complet midlife Wellness center.com um Leah has different visits you would visit with a patient for hormone consultation nutritional consultation to be part of our weight loss program any of the above whatever we can do to help we can assess your CGM data if you have that all of these things because it it some we just need a part partner and a friend on this journey doing it by yourself is hard yeah so uh we're we're here to help you to be successful and you can be I'm an example she is too how patients are living proof that this actually works and it's really not that hard and then you feel great yeah yeah well thanks so much for being here thank you so much if you enjoyed this episode please don't forget to subscribe share it with your friends and I can't wait to see you next week [Music]

Channel: Dr. Susan Hardwick-Smith

Views: 205,865

Keywords: drsusan, susan hardwick-smith, women's health, Menopause, perimenopause, menopause symptoms, menopause age, what is menopause, symptoms of menopause, menopause signs, hot flashes, early menopause, post menopause, estrogen, signs of menopause, menopause hot flashes, menopause weight gain, menopause test, menopause supplements, age of menopause, menopause weight loss, menopause treatment, middle age, middle aged woman

Id: JSoCd5xK76o

Length: 38min 32sec (2312 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024