Welcome to Fat Loss Demystified!

First of all, thank you so much for being here. We are going to have a lot of fun as well as get educated and create new habits over the next several weeks.

Here are the important things to know:

Each week on Monday at 7:30PM EST you can log into our Zoom meeting(make sure to register so you can get access) for our weekly group call. Each call will have a 40-minute lesson, an action item to get started on for the week, and Q and A about either the information or best practices on how to implement the action item. Each week will be recorded for you if you can’t make it live and we will send recordings and handouts out within 24 hours.

Our Curriculum:
This is the weekly breakdown:

Week One: History/Insulin and Other Hormones… The Science of Why We Get Fat
Action Item: 12/12 Fasting period, reduce refined carbs

Week Two: What is Fasting/Why Fast?
Action Item: 12/12 Fasting period, eliminate snacks

Week Three: Eat Less-Move More Fallacies/The Role of Exercise
Action Item: 16/8 Fasting Period, increase good fats

Week Four: A Calorie is Not a Calorie
Action Item: 16/8 Fasting Period, keep a food journal

Week Five: Cortisol and Stress’s Role in Weight Gain
Action Item: 16/8 Fasting period and add one stress reliever to your daily routine

Week Six: Moving Forward and Next Steps
Action Item: 16/8 Fasting Period and one 24 Hour fast (dinner to dinner so you don’t go an entire day without food!)

We will send out one more reminder on January 6th and I look forward to seeing you on the Zoom call on January 7th!

If you have any questions prior, please do not hesitate to reach out! I’m SO excited!

I tell everyone that I love intermittent fasting because of its fat loss results and health benefits. People then say to me, “But that’s so hard!”

But it’s also so simple.

Simple doesn’t mean easy, but do you want a method that’s easy or one that works?

I value simplicity. A decade ago, I was in fitness competitions and counted every gram of protein, fat and carb daily to hit a certain number of macros and they HAD to all add up perfectly. This meant that if, at the end of the day, I had all my protein and carbs but not all the fat I had to drink a measured amount of straight olive oil. If I had all my carbs and fat but not protein I had to eat a measured amount of egg whites from a carton. This was not fun and not psychologically healthy. I was a slave to my spreadsheet and obsessed with the next meal.

When I “retired” from these events, I vowed to never do a diet where I had to count anything. I would happily eliminate entire food groups as long as I didn’t have to count and plan. I jumped on the “Paleo” bandwagon (although I have always hated that term. Nothing about modern day farming and eating is like Paleolithic days, but whatever…) and got great results.

These results were because the Paleo diet eliminates refined carbs. Eliminating refined carbs meant I was eating foods that caused less of an insulin spike. And from what I know, insulin – not calories – causes weight gain.

There are many ways to lower insulin levels. One is through a diet low in refined carbs. Another is through intermittent fasting (IF) because with IF even if you do eat refined carbs, your body has a chance to regulate insulin before you eat again. But if you want quick results or have a long way to go, the real magic happens in combining the two.

In my experience, there is no simpler way to lose weight and lean out than to combine intermittent fasting with a diet that is low in sugar and refined carbs.

The cool thing about intermittent fasting is that it fits into any diet and any schedule. As Jason Fung says:

You’re Paleo? You can fast.

You’re a vegetarian? You can fast.

You’re an omnivore? You can fast.

You travel a lot? You can fast.

You don’t have time to meal prep? You can fast.

Jerry Seinfeld said, “People want a show about something. This is a show about nothing.”

Well, this is a diet about nothing. You are taking something off your plate (pun intended) not adding shopping and measuring and prepping and counting. It’s so simple.

You absolutely cannot outexercise a bad diet. The Biggest Loser actually proves that.

I do not like reality shows, all that fake emotion and oversharing bugs me. Which is why I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit that I loved the Biggest Loser TV show. The show centered on overweight and obese contestants who competed with each other to see who could lose the most weight; the winner received a cash prize and of course, lost a lot of weight.

I didn’t like the way the show pitted the contestants against each other and the way the trainers yelled at the participants (as if being obese isn’t challenging enough), but I must admit, I was hooked, I tuned in every week to see who had lost weight and how much. I was rooting for these people, my people. No, I’ve never weighed over 200 lbs., but I could certainly identify with the constant battle and emotional roller coaster.

What Happened?
The Biggest Losers did what they thought it took to be winners. They cut their grapefruits in half and separated their whites from their yolks. They spent more time at the gym than most of us spend at the office. Some of them shed an entire pound of fat each day, and on average, they lost 128 pounds each over the course of the 30-week reality show.

And then they gained much of it back. Only one of the 14 Biggest Loser contestants weighs less today than when the competition wrapped. Four of them are now heavier than before they went on the show.
It’s a nice, comforting thought: eat a whole pizza tonight and head to the gym for 45 minutes the next morning to make up for it (and let’s be honest most of us don’t do this).

Unfortunately, out-exercising a bad diet doesn’t work for a few reasons, the main reason being it takes a lot longer to work off the energy in junk food than we may realize. It is much easier to over-consume or eat excess energy than it is to burn it off. However, it’s not all about calorie content. Our bodies process healthy and unhealthy foods very differently. That is, 500 calories of candy and 500 calories of vegetables will have different effects on our bodies, which is why calorie counting often doesn’t work as we’re focusing on calories, not nutrients.

The weight loss equation, energy in versus energy out, is flawed and outdated. Instead, we should be focused on the source of the energy or nutrient composition. Saying  “A calorie is a calorie, so eat whatever, just not too much” is about as accurate as saying, “Liquid is liquid, so drink whatever, just not too much.”

Fasting is flexible and will complement any style of eating you choose while amplifying your weight loss efforts and enhancing your metabolic fitness. There is something incredibly powerful about taking control of your hunger, and not being a slave to cravings.

You will learn through fasting, that you do not need external things to satisfy you, and that you can break your hunger patterns. That in and of itself is liberating and empowering. Fasting honors our biology and helps us take back our power from the food industry and their constant demands that we eat all the time.

If you are interested in learning more on HOW to ease yourself into fasting as well as more education on benefits and myths, I am launching a 6-week course (with Diane McCoy) starting the first week in January.

It’s called Fat Loss Demystified: 6 Weeks to Understanding How to Lose Fat (and Keep It Off Once and For All Without Hours in the Gym Expensive Diet Supplements or a Quick Fix that will Leave You Yo-Yo-ing and Worse Off Than You Started.)