Hormones & Weight: Leptin

Hormones & Weight: Leptin

Mar 4, 2022

Learn how to get your leptin back online.

 

Leptin is made by your fat to let your brain know you are good. It actually inhibits hunger.

So when scientists figured this out, they were very excited, because they should just be able to inject you with leptin and you’ll lose weight, right?

The problem is that you can’t just add more leptin, because of leptin resistance.

You most likely have plenty of leptin circulating, but the problem is that leptin is blocked when insulin is high.

So here’s insulin again. If you’ve been watching my videos, you know insulin keeps us in fat storage mode. Now we learn it’s also blocking leptin from telling us to stop eating. Why is it doing that?

Well, when your blood sugar is high, that’s an emergency. If you know of anyone who has uncontrolled diabetes, you know high blood sugar can cause nerve damage, which can be quite painful, plus kidney damage, eye damage, hearing damage, Alzheimer’s, and depression. So needless to say, your body is going to prioritize getting the sugar out of your blood and into your muscles, your liver, and your fat cells above any other messages.
But what about those of you who are eating clean? You might find it interesting to know that partial sleep deprivation associated with decreased leptin. So be sure to get a good amount of quality sleep to help lose weight naturally.

Losing weight while sleeping more? Sounds good to me!

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

4 Types of Hunger and How to Beat Them

4 Types of Hunger and How to Beat Them

Feb 25, 2022

Distinguish between false and true hunger and what to do with these sensations.

So, there are 4 different things that we may describe as hunger. I’m going to teach you how to deal with them so they don’t stop you from losing weight.

 

Now, let’s be clear, I don’t teach starvation. I eat food and I recommend you do, too. But most what I am going to describe below is actually false hunger that we let stop us from losing weight because we think they are emergencies we need to deal with by eating immediately.

1. Low blood sugar.
For most people, this is a light-headedness and a sort of hangry “feed me now” violent sort of emotion.
What you are actually feeling is NOT hunger. It is the symptoms of withdrawal from your drug of choice, sugar.

There are some people who truly do suffer from medical low blood sugar, but if you don’t have a diagnosis from a doctor, what you are actually feeling is what we expect any addict to live through when they quit their drug of choice. If you quit using sugar (and flour, which breaks down into sugar) and break your addiction, this feeling will permanently go away.

2. Cravings.

A craving is an intense mental urge, either for a specific food or a category of foods. It usually is more mental than physical. If you pay attention to your mind, you will likely start to hear the thought that goes with this. It may be a thought like “I’d like just a little something sweet” or “two mint Milano cookies won’t hurt anything.” The best way to deal with this is to shine the light of awareness on these thoughts and realize where they are leading you – to a continuation of your weight problem. Then treat them like an urge (check out my other videos on how to deal with urges).

3. Emotional discomfort.

Again, we’ll need to get a little more introspective to pick up on this one. Most of us have been trained (or trained ourselves) that if we are feeling an unpleasant emotion, the solution is food. A great time to observe this is when we are sitting on the couch in front of the TV after dinner and have the desire to go get a snack. What emotion are we also feeling? Is it boredom? Restlessness? Loneliness? Let yourself actually feel that feeling instead of covering over it with a snack.

4. Physical hunger.

Physical hunger is a sensation that starts in the body and then lets your mind know something is going on. It can be a growling stomach or other feeling, perhaps in the throat or mouth. This is the most legitimate of the 4, because it is at least a physical sensation, so it makes the most sense to give that a physical solution, like food.


One thing to note, here, is that physical hunger, while it is legitimate, is like a warning light coming on the dashboard. It’s like needing to pee. It’s not healthy to completely ignore it, but you can wait a little while until you get to a safe place to address it.


It’s also important to note that sometimes physical hunger is programmed. If you eat at noon every day, you may start to get hungry at noon every day. It doesn’t actually mean that you will die if you don’t eat right that minute. It just means your body is reminding you “hey, we usually eat now.” It’s the same way the dog knows when it’s time for him to be fed. So while you may choose to pay attention to it, if you are 40 pounds over weight, you are unlikely to die within the first 5 minutes of feeling hunger. You do have a reserve source of fuel on your body that you stored for a moment just like this that can be utilized.

P.S. It's time for your to lose the weight.  You absolutely can do this once you have the right support.  Jump on a Zoom call with me and we'll get you started.  Just find a time on my calendar.

 

The Secret Ingredient That’s Keeping You Overweight

The Secret Ingredient That’s Keeping You Overweight

Feb 18, 2022

Learn how industry is using your brain against you and how to fight back.

 

Believe it or not, almost all the foods you buy that are in a box or a bottle are loaded with sugar or with high fructose corn syrup.  These ingredients keep us addicted to sugar, and keep us eating and buying more than we should.

 Food manufacturers know EXACTLY what they are doing.  They make their products as sweet as possible without tipping over into being unpleasantly sweet.  They call this the “bliss point”, and it’s when food has the maximum ability to hijack your brain chemicals, including dopamine, to cause you to buy and eat more of this food again.

Because most of us don’t understand how damaging and how addictive these ingredients are or how ubiquitous they are (there’s even sugar in ketchup), food manufacturers have us in the same position cigarette manufacturers used to have their customers.  As a nation, we are completely blind to the connection between this sweetness addiction and the obesity crisis.

Breaking the sugar addiction is the most powerful thing you can do to lose weight.  As a coach, I can help you through it.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

Hormones & Weight: Cortisol

Hormones & Weight: Cortisol

Feb 11, 2022

Stress makes you fat.  Get your stress level down to lose weight naturally.

 

When we feel threatened, our stress response kicks in. Cortisol is one of the chemicals our body releases to respond to that threat as part of the fight/flight response.

Our bodies are very much built to survive the conditions we have lived in for thousands of years – not the conditions we live in today.

So when we get stressed out, our body pulls energy from the core of our body and sends it to our limbs so we can run away or fight off our attacker. That’s fine in a short term situation where that response is helpful, but today, most of the threats we face are long term and mental or emotional, not short term or physical.

That means our bodies end up having energy pulled from the core of our bodies, which is the area responsible for digestion and for our thyroid, amongst other things. This is part of why so many women have digestive issues and thyroid problems – due to the long term effects of stress.

Cortisol also increases blood sugar, which again makes sense if we were in a situation where we needed physical energy. Instead, most of us eat too much sugar and already have too much circulating in our bodies, so the cortisol response just adds to that.

Cortisol assumes we’ve burned energy escaping our attacker and wants to make us refuel, so it makes us crave high calorie foods. It also leads to irritability, difficulty concentrating, and belly fat, which as we all know is the least cute kind of fat.

 Guess what?  I help clients deal with stress so they can lose weight just by changing their hormones. Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

How to Break a Bad Habit

How to Break a Bad Habit

Feb 4, 2022

Train yourself to lose bad habits.

 I work a lot with clients at the beginning of our engagement on how to create new, positive habits, but for many clients, breaking bad habits goes hand in hand with creating good habits.

If you remember the story of Pavlov’s dogs, they were trained that when a bell rang, they would get fed. So after enough repetition, they learned to start drooling as soon as the bell rang, because that meant dinner was on the way.

So having trained them to drool when they hear the bell, how do we train them to stop?

The answer is, you ring the bell and you don’t feed the dogs. You still have the cue of the bell ringing, but you don’t allow the behavior or the reward.

It’s the same with humans. If you currently have a habit that every time you walk through the kitchen you get a snack, you’ll need to provide the cue, but not engage in the behavior and not get the reward.

And instead of resisting the urge, you need to just allow it. Allow yourself to feel the emotion of wanting to engage in the behavior and not giving in to it.

It won’t be fun, but it won’t last long, and it goes a long way toward breaking the habit.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

The Vodka Trick

The Vodka Trick

Jan 28, 2022

Most of my weight loss clients are trying to cut down on refined sugar, since we all know sugar has a lot of empty calories.

Now, I believe, and there’s a good amount of research that shows, that sugar is addictive, so it’s important to know how addictable you are before you try this trick. For some people, any sugar at all sets off their addiction and cravings, so this may not work for everyone. But if you aren’t super addictable and you want to cut down on your sugar without completely eliminating it, this trick may help you moderate your consumption.

What I want you to do is go through and tell me everything you ate today, but if the food you are eating is sugar or has sugar in it, substitute the word vodka.

So here’s an example to a day with a moderate amount of sugar.

1. Black coffee – skip breakfast (intermittent fasting)
2. Lunch – salad with protein (chicken) and fat (vinaigrette dressing)
3. Dinner – fish with veggies, then vodka.

In this case, the “vodka” was a piece of chocolate mousse cake.

So for me, if I eat clean all week and then eat that way once on the weekend, I can still have a little sugar and lose weight.

Now imagine a typical America’s day.

“I got up this morning and put two tablespoons of vodka in my coffee”. Right there, your friends would be concerned.

Now add in all the sugary pastries, the mid-afternoon vending machine, desert every night – we see there’s a problem.

So if you are the kind of person who can eat sugar in moderation and wants to continue to do so, there’s a mental trick to help you balance how much you have and how often you have it.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

Treasure Coast Weight University

Treasure Coast Weight University

Jan 21, 2022

Losing weight on the Treasure Coast – from Sebastian to Palm Beach.

 

Are you a Treasure Coast resident who is looking to lose weight?  Local weight coach Lisa Duke can help you meet your weight loss goals from her office in Stuart, Florida.

Whether you are a Florida native or you just moved to the area, the fact is that living on the Treasure Coast means – for better or for worse – that it's always shorts weather.

In fact, whether you live in Palm City or Port St. Lucie, pool parties in paradise are a perk and a peril of our endless summer.

If you are tired of declining invitations from friends because you are self-conscious about how you look, weight coach Lisa Duke can help.  With her new signature program, Weight University, Lisa teaches the 12 concepts and 3 skills that she used to lose 50 pounds.

So if you are ready to go sleeveless at the beach (or just in downtown Jensen Beach), consider scheduling a time to chat with Lisa Duke about your weight loss goals.  She can help you with a unique and innovative approach to help you clear the blocks and limiting beliefs that have stopped you from keeping yourself at your goal weight in the past.

 Are you ready to get coached?  Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.

3 Strategies to Choose From For Weight Loss

3 Strategies to Choose From For Weight Loss

Jan 14, 2022

You can lose weight while still enjoying life – and food.

 I wanted to share 3 great strategies that you can choose from while designing your own weight loss plan.  You don't have to use all (or even any) of these, but they are tactics that have worked for me.

1.  Skip breakfast during the week.

Breakfast is only the most important meal of the day when you are trying to generate profits for a cereal company.  Otherwise, you may be able to cut it out and never even miss it.

I usually skip breakfast during the week, and then we often go out for breakfast on the weekends.  Even then, we try to delay breakfast so it can work more as lunch and then I can have an eating break between that meal and dinner.

 2.  Cut out all snacking.

Snacking between meals keeps your insulin high, which keeps you in fat storage mode. 

Often people advise snacking between meals to stave off hunger, but for most of my clients, hunger has zero to do with when they are eating or how much they are eating, so it's a moot point.

Snacking after dinner is also just junk calories.  You can't possibly be hungry – you just ate what is most likely your biggest meal for the day.  Figure out what is driving this eating.  Is it a habit you can break?  Are you just restless?  If so, can you deal with your restlessness by allowing it or doing a substitute activity, like having tea or doing a craft project?

3. Take half home.

When you do eat out, plan to put half your food in a to go box.  Restaurant portions are ridiculously huge.  You can go, eat half, be satisfied, and have a “free” meal for tomorrow that will still be yummy then.

 

P.S. It's time for your to lose the weight.  You absolutely can do this once you have the right support.  Jump on a Zoom call with me and we'll get you started.  Just find a time on my calendar.

 

One Question to Help You Lose Weight

One Question to Help You Lose Weight

Jan 7, 2022

Ask, answer, and then make a different choice.

 

Ready for one question that could change your weight?

 

There's one question you aren't asking yourself before you eat, that, if you ask it, could solve your weight issue immediately.

Ready for the question you need to be asking yourself?

The magic question is:  am I hungry?

Whut?

I know, right?

The average American woman is completely out of touch with her body and its signals.

We were raised to clean our plates and not to waste food – to get our money's worth.

But what about if instead of worrying about getting our money's worth and the state of our membership in the clean plate club we were to pay attention to our body's signals more?

Am I hungry?  If not, why am I eating this?

You might be eating for pleasure, which I get, but which may not be compatible with your goal of looking like someone who eats for fuel instead of for fun.

On a darker note, you may be eating to make yourself feel better.  Again, I get it, but if there is a problem in your life so serious you need to drug yourself with an outside substance in order to deal with it, it's time to change your life and/or your thinking about your life and/or how we deal with unpleasant feelings.

These are all things I could help you with as your coach. 

Let's get started today.

Ready to learn how I can help you lose weight?  Email me at lisa@lisaduke.net and we'll jump on a Zoom call and chat.

 

What Happens When You Get Weight Coaching

What Happens When You Get Weight Coaching

Dec 25, 2021

Understanding the Client Lifecycle

 

Most of my clients follow a similar path as they work with me to lose weight.  Here's what to expect.

 Each client is different and my coaching is custom, so I meet each client where they are, and not all of them follow this pattern.  For example, Sabrena came in, lost 20 pounds in two months, and THEN freaked out.  But here are the normal client lifecycle phases.

1.  Let's talk about food and exercise.

This is where most clients start, because for most clients this is where they believe the problem is.  And this is what diets teach us, right?  The first steps are usually cleaning up the diet and starting an exercise regime.

I don't share my clients' confidence that this is the issue or these are the solutions, but I do take advantage of this initial burst of energy and enthusiasm to support them in making a few changes.

We talk about everything I've learned about the science of habit creation to help them make some changes – changes that THEY choose (because we all basically already know what we should be doing).

2.  After two or three weeks, their enthusiasm for whatever they've put into place starts to wane.  This is where we quit when we start on our own (hello, New Year's resolutions).  But this is where I as a coach really start to swing into gear. 

 

There's a saying in ThetaHealing – the problem is never the problem.  And usually this is the phase where the truth comes out.  Clients are overeating because they feel bad and they are using food as a mood altering drug.  So we start talking about why they feel bad.  For many clients they are mad at their husbands, their adult children, or stressed out because of their jobs.  We dive into the thinking that is driving how they are feeling.

3.  This phase kicks in around week 6-8.  The client has dealt with some of their underlying issues, and they are feeling more in control.  We've done some coaching, and identified and broken some of their patterns (seeing patterns is one of my personal superpowers that really helps clients).  Now the clients have cleared the decks and are really ready to begin again in earnest.  This is where the weight loss truly begins.

4.  The next two months the weight comes off at about a pound a week.  Of course free will is a thing and everyone is different, but clients usually lose about 8 pounds during this phase.  That plus a pound or two at the beginning of the program brings their total weight loss for the 4 month initial engagement to 10 pounds, which is enough that they've usually dropped a size, and someone they know has said something to them, so they know they are getting results. 

At this point we usually decide if they want to continue on their own or if we want to continue to work together, but clients can see they have made a change, and they have tools and concepts they can take with them for life.

Ready to get your own results?  Email me at lisa@lisaduke.net and we'll jump on a Zoom to make sure my program is right for you.