Many of you are looking for more motivation. At PEERtrainer we believe that there is nothing more motivating than finding the strategies that will help you break through the levels of frustration that often result from traditional approaches to losing weight and getting fit.
One of the BEST THINGS that you can do to bust through frustration and start to build momentum is to learn about weight loss resistance.
Numerous conditions create weight loss resistance. Some might be obvious. For instance, too much caffeine could raise your stress hormone cortisol (which you'll hear about often in this article) and stall fat burning.
For others, you might not make the connection. Did you know that birth control pills, for example, could create insulin resistance by knocking hormones like insulin out of whack?
Hormones are what signal your body to break down or build muscle, blast or crash metabolism, and yes, store or burn fat. And oftentimes they play a key role in weight loss resistance.
In other words, you might be militantly watching calories, taking the right supplements, and exercising like crazy. But if your hormones are sending the wrong message, weight loss resistance could be the disappointing result.
Among the many culprits of weight loss resistance, these seven are among the most researched and prevalent.
If you get just one thing from this article, it's that hormones, not calories, run the show. Weight loss resistance happens when you send your body the wrong messages. If you're eating a 1,200 calorie high-carbohydrate diet, you're cranking up insulin and cortisol levels, both of which signal your body to store fat.
Strategy: Focus on food quality rather than just calories. Eating 500 calories of salmon and spinach, for instance, will help you burn more fat than 200 calories of pizza.
When you do this, you eat in a way that also reduces the effects of stress and insulin response
The way to do this is called a "nutritional cleanse." Now, this is not a juice cleanse or anything like that. It is just a "way of eating" that consists of some adjustments. PEERtrainer has put together a short webinar where you learn the exact foods to eat and not eat. You can get this sent to you for free, by entering your email.
We have also put together a video series that teaches you strategies for how to eat at different parts of the day to bring your hormone, stress and insulin response down. You'll also get some recipes to help you put this advice into immediate action.
Our "big idea" here at PEERtainer is to shift you into a new way of eating, that will leave traditional "dieting" in the past, along with the frustration that traditional dieting has been proven to generate. To help you even more with this, we will also send you a copy of the PEERtrainer Cheat System, which helps you shift to a new way of eating at your own speed:
(PEERtrainer Note: This is a segement of a recent Q&A session that was conducted for the PEERtrainer Hormone Reset Program. We are sharing the answer to this very important question, because it is connected to EVERYTHING that we are doing with our content, programs and focus. All of this helps us in our mission to help people feel fit, energetic and fully alive!)
Dr. Sara Gottfried: I want to say a couple of things here at the
beginning about hair loss because I imagine some of you might be women
in your 20s or 30s and perhaps this doesn't even effect you.
But
the truth is that hair loss is a really important message from your
body. It becomes crucially important, especially after you have a baby,
when you start to lose hair a result of that or if you have one of the
root causes that I'm going to go through.
This is definitely a really important issue. It's got a big
emotional charge behind it, which is why I really take it seriously. I
also feel like this is one of those places where conventional medicine
unfortunately just falls down on the job.
I can tell you from seeing several doctors for my own hair loss,
when I was in my 30s and early 40s, they basically said, "Eat more red
meat and use Rogaine," which I did not find at all to be satisfying.
That's what got me motivated to learn more about hair loss. Can you imagine, Jackie?
Jackie Wicks:
No. That's shocking, actually. Yes.
Dr. Sara:
It's worthwhile for us to go through a few of the root causes. I
actually want to mention some of what is in these questions, because I
really feel like a lot of you who are listening will resonate with some
of this.
The first question was a woman who said, "Starting
about three months ago, I had hair loss with burning and an itchy
scalp." She also says that the burning is elsewhere. It's on her ears,
neck, and shoulders. She described a few other things, including
difficulty with weight loss, trouble sleeping. She had her thyroid
checked, was told it was OK. Her gynecologist checked some other
hormones, including something called FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone.
The details on that aren't that important, but it basically tells you
how close you are to menopause, and the gynecologist told her it was
fine.
But here's the part where I really want you to listen in. She
says, "I am in tears about my hair. I never knew how much it meant until
I started losing it. Please help. I am not lazy. I am not crazy. I am
not having problems in my relationship. I am not depressed. I don't
smoke. I don't drink.
I don't drink too much alcohol. I don't eat junk food. My life
and my job are not stressful. I have plenty of me-time. I travel. I have
hobbies. I have a great guy. I exercise regularly and eat tons of
vegetables. What is wrong?"
When I read this, it just stopped me in my tracks, because this
woman is really suffering. It's not like she is not resourceful. She has
gone to not one but two physicians about this, and she's not getting
the help that she needs. So let's get her some help.
Here is a list of some of the root causes related to hair loss.
I'm going to hit the highlights, and as I said before, you could spend
hours on this. In fact, Jackie, we should actually do a course related
to hair loss. What do you think? There are so many women who struggle
with this.
Jackie Wicks:
After you told me, you mentioned the statistic of after 50, or
something like that, 50 percent. We were talking the other day, and you
said 50 percent of people over age of 50 have a hair loss problem. Was
that the statistic, or am I...
Dr. Sara:
You're absolutely right. 30 percent of women in their 30's have
significant hair loss, and 50 percent of women starting in their 50's.
This affects a huge number of women, and it's the silent epidemic where
women are trying to get help and they're basically being offered
Rogaine.
Jackie:
And meat.
Dr. Sara:
Yeah, eat some more grass-fed, red meat. So let's up-level the
prescription here. What would be helpful is just to share with you the
way about the root causes. This isn't an exhaustive list. I'm going to
give you a simplified version of it. Some of you might be saying, "Thank
goodness."
The idea here here is that I want to go with, how
does the 80-20 rule apply here? How do you really figure out the most
common reasons why you have increased hair loss, and really address
those first, so that you can be efficient about taking care of this. The
number one root cause I see is related to the red meat.
It's low ferritin, low iron in your system. There's a number of
ways to measure this. You can ask your doctor for a blood test, where
you measure your iron and you measure your ferritin. Ferritin is the
most sensitive way to measure how much iron you have running around in
your body.
Not surprisingly, because you've heard this mantra from me
before, when it comes to iron, you don't want too much and you don't
want too little. When it comes to the numbers, I can give you some
general information about that. You want a ferritin of around 70 to 80
to hang on to the hair on your head. When it's too high, that can be a
problem, and when it's lower, that's an issue.
You want a ferritin of at least 40 to be able to create new hairs
to replace the ones that you might have lost. Those are some general
numbers of ferritin. Of course, I'm oversimplifying. There's other
things that can affect ferritin besides your iron levels. But that's a
general guide.
That's the number one root cause. What I found, for instance,
with my own hair loss, was that it was a combination of these different
root causes. It's very common for women to have borderline thyroid
function together with low iron. That was my own story.
In fact, the next question that we got, I just want to read
another part of it because it just really spoke to me. This is a woman
who says, "I'm 55 and menopausal. I've been taking good supplements and
overhauled my nutrition, except for some trouble sleeping." Oh, OK.
Sorry, let me read that again. "Except for some trouble sleeping, I feel
pretty good."
"But the hair loss I've had over the past year is really
upsetting. I ordered a three month supply of Viviscal, and want to know
if I'm heading in the right direction. I've had my thyroid tested, but
my doctor says it's in the normal range, 2.865. She didn't want to test
my adrenals because she said that she's never seen a problem with
adrenal tests, but she didn't offer any other solutions to my hair loss.
I need a new doctor."
What I wanted to pull out of this woman's story is a couple of
highlights. One is, first of all, I don't think there's one magic
treatment. I can't tell you the latest research on this Viviscal that
she mentioned. I haven't done research on it. I don't know what the
latest is. Maybe it's some fantastic formula.
But I can tell you, we've been trying to figure out what causes
hair loss and how to correct it for decades, so I don't think it's the
magic treatment. It might be a really effective treatment for certain
root causes. Maybe at some point in the future we can talk a little more
about Viviscal when I've had a chance to do the serious research that I
like to do before I give an opinion.
Second of all, I love that this woman shared with us her thyroid
results, the 2.865. Now, what I assume she means is that this number is
her TSH, her Thyroid Stimulating Hormone level, which is the screening
test that most conventional doctors will run when they're checking out
your thyroid.
Now, we know from a lot of research on the thyroid, and we talked
about a lot of that research during our Hormone Reset course together,
we know that, if your thyroid is totally normal, ideally your TSH is
somewhere between about 0.3 and 2.5. In fact, there's a number of
endocrinology groups who agree with that.
If you want a more optimal range, I even like to run it a little
tighter. I like to see it between 0.1 and 1.5. I just find that women
feel their best, they're able to have that sense of buoyancy with their
mood, their hair stays on their head, they feel like they can really
serve on whatever calling they have, when their THS is in that range..
Now some women can't tolerate such a tight range, so even if we
use this more conventional standard of 0.3 to 2.5, this woman is out of
range. With 2.865, she is above that 2.5 cut off. One of the problems
here is that in conventional medicine the lab that gives you the range
for TSH is using a range for 95 percent of the population that's tested.
As you probably know by now, many women have either borderline or
completely underactive thyroids, so that 95 percent range doesn't mean a
lot. What I'm more interested in is what's the optimal range? What is
the thyroid level that really makes you feel your best and helps that
hair stay on your head?
I can't give medical advice as you know, but I just wanted to
mention that if I had a woman in my practice who had hair loss and a TSH
of 2.865, I would say, "Let's talk about some of the ways to improve
your thyroid function."
Many of them we've already talked about in the course, but I
would say go through the Gottfried protocol so that you are addressing
those nutritional gaps. For instance, I found out that my copper was
low. I also found out that I had mercury toxicity. Those are some of the
reasons for my thyroid being borderline and also for my hair loss.
In terms of root causes, we talked about the low ferritin, low
iron. Number two, the borderline thyroid and how that sometimes can go
together with the iron.
Pretty much every hormonal change can cause hair loss. That's one
of the reasons why women increase their hair when they're pregnant and
then lose it when they're postpartum. After they deliver their baby and
their estrogen and progesterone levels go down to zero from being sky
high, that triggers hair loss. Dramatic hormone shifts can cause hair
loss. That's a really common one.
Some of the things that we also see include a few other players.
You know, I like to talk about hormones come also as if they're part of
this cast of characters that we're trying to watch and manage.
The character here is insulin. If you're someone who is stressed out or...
I know that doesn't apply to the first woman that I mentioned,
but if you're someone who has insulin that is higher than normal.
Insulin is a fat storage hormone. It does a number of things to the
body, including causing increased belly fat. But if your cells become
numb to insulin. If you have insulin resistance, it also increases your
chance of hair loss.
Number one low iron, low ferritin. Number two thyroid problems,
borderline or low thyroid function. Number three dramatic changes in
your hormones generally. Number four insulin resistance.
Number five I'm just going to group together some different less
common reasons, including heredity. Take a look at your mother's
hairline. That might be your future. Fortunately, there are some things
you can do about it, but this is called "familial hair loss." That's a
common one.
Another one I would put here is auto-immune problems. And when
you have a doctor who's checking you out for hair loss, you should have a
long list of labs that they should check, ranging from looking at your
iron levels, looking at something called your CBC to see if you have
anemia.
That stands for "complete blood count." Also looking at whether
you have auto-immune problems. Looking at your fasting glucose. We want
that fasting glucose to be less than 87. Otherwise there's a big chance
that you've got a problem with insulin resistance.
We want to look at some other hormones. We definitely want to
look at your thyroid, of course. I like to look at the balance between
progesterone and estrogen.
One other thing I want to mention here is something related to
testosterone and the androgen family. This will be the last thing that I
mention here. Women who have either really high testosterone, like
their DHEA is high or something called dihydrotestosterone.
Women who have high androgens, which is the name of the family
that testosterone belongs to. These are the brothers and sisters. DHEA
gets made into testosterone. Testosterone then gets made into
dihydrotestosterone.
If those levels are high, any of those can cause hair loss. And
if they're low, testosterone especially, it can cause loss of hair
elsewhere, like pubic hair for instance.
Those are the most common causes of hair loss. The list is
actually quite a bit longer, but that's valuable just to help people get
into action.
Jackie:
This has been extremely informative, because even if you are not 100
percent experiencing it in an acute level like one of these questions.
These are just things where if it affects such a high percentage.
If
it does affect you in the future, at least you have a game plan. That
you know, "OK, I'm going to ask my doctor these questions." It just
gives you at least some starting point versus someone just saying,
"Here's some Rogaine."
Extremely informative. I definitely want to do a full course on
this, when you have a go to plan, you can really feel, at least
confident that you know where to start.
Dr. Sara:
That's right. You just described, Jackie, perhaps my most important
mission, which is I want women to have choices. I want them to step into
their power. I want them to feel empowered. Feeling beautiful,
understanding the reason why they're losing some hair is a really
important part of that.
We are reading surveys from people who have just started
our Point Of No Return Program that deals with the mindset
issues surrounding getting fit, energetic and feeling fully alive...
And we came across one that is probably relevant to
many others. This person has started to make some
simple changes like cutting out soda, which is great of course.
One question we asked was "what do you consider your ideal
day of eating to be" and she mentioned that it was pretty much
what she was doing. She was getting fruits and veggies in,
and finding ways of making them taste good.
However, one thing we saw was that she started her day with
Honey Nut Cheerios. According to the Harvard School of
Public Health (and the American Heart Association), this
particular cereal has 9 grams of sugar, representing 32% of
what they consider the "added sugar threshold" for women.
Additionally, from our own work with our panel of health
experts, we know that added sugar can simply turn off the
bodies ability to burn fat.
This blog post explains more in only a few paragraphs how
this happens hormonally, but the basic idea is that the more
sugar you have in your system, the harder it is to burn fat.
Additionally, the combination of the gluten and dairy in
the average bowl of cereal can help create an inflammatory
response making it very difficult to lose weight.
This is the reason we talk about "Clean Eating" until we
are blue in the face. Many traditional nutritionists think this
whole idea is a total scam. Our response to this is simply
remove it for 2 weeks and see what happens in your own
body.
This whole idea can seem very confusing and intimidating
for people, and this is the reason we run the Cleanses
every month. It allows people to test the removal of
foods, and for many people it gets them away from whey
and soy shakes and over to pea/rice shakes that contain
almost no sugar and are very filling.
The shakes are also great for those people who hear this
kind of advice and say, "easier said than done."
There are others who eat piles of vegetables for breakfast,
with some clean protein and healthy fats. That's great too,
whatever works for you.
But one thing we are going to be hammering on is
helping people redefine what "normal" is.
If you want to join a group of great people making these
clean eating shifts, sign up for our Cleanse January 2nd,
and then you can do them again for free as long as you
like.
Or try one of our recipes, and see if the pea/rice shakes
will work for you. Some people do this on their own
with plenty of success. Get them here with free shipping.
Every single one of the shake recipes we publish features
greens or fruit. If you are a competitive person, these
recipes will help you eat less sugar than the average
person, consume more greens than the average person,
especially for breakfast.
(How many of your friends blend Kale into their vegan Chocolate Shakes?)
The bottom line here is that if you want uncommon
results, you need to take uncommon actions. It's the uncommon things that will help you become the person you want to become. And you do have to be comfortable with being better than other people in certain ways. Not everyone is prepared for that.
Eventually
the ideas that we are presenting will be totally
mainstream, but until that happens, we challenge you
personally (yes you who are reading this!) to really start to make the shift away from
normal!
And if you have any questions or need to get back on
track, please ping our team at cleanse @peertrainer dot
com and someone will get right back to you.
PS: If you want to get our complete (free) guide on how to eat in a way that keeps your hormones working "right" the right way--what foods to eat, what foods to not to eat, the best vegetables for balancing your hormones, just enter your email and we will send you a webinar, a transcript of the webinar, plus 3 new videos that go deeper into this whole subject.
The webinar is hosted by PEERtrainer founder Jackie Wicks, and features nutritionist JJ Virgin, PhD. She explains how a very simple rebalancing (or nutritional cleanse) helps to promote the set of hormones in your body that take your fat and turn them into fuel.
The webinar teaches you everything you need to know to do this. One tip we have for you, is that you really need keep an open mind about what is taught here. In our experience, so many people are so focused on just calorie counting and exercising.
The most important point to make is that if you eat the wrong calories, you are going to shut off hormones like HSL, the one described in this blog post. We emphasize this, because it seems that we are all totally conditioned to think in terms of just portion control and exercise.
Even when we teach the exact science of fat burning, people seem to not believe it. There is probably a psychological explanation for this. Hopefully this caveat will help you make better use of this great information!
(PEERtrainer Note: This was an email that we sent out yesterday, and people LOVED it, so we made sure to put it in a blog post for easy access. And yes, we know that a lot of this stuff is "easier said than done"- but know that it is doable, and we are ALWAYS looking for real world ways to put this into action)
It is now common knowledge that increasing green vegetable intake helps to reduce food cravings over time. What is less known, (and this idea is still BITTERLY resisted by many in the "traditional" nutrition world) is that removing certain foods from your diet for a short period of time can yield tremendous benefits.
But we know that many people just don't believe this. In fact, the mom of a good friend of mine called her and asked if she had seen the JJ Virgin PBS special recently. Her mom said
something to the effect of "she is totally full of it, no way
this is true."
We are bringing this objection to the forefront here because for so many people this is 100% true for them. And for people who suffer from auto-immune conditions, the results from just BEING OPEN to this idea have been life altering.
Anyway, we just wanted to preface this discussion of food cravings so that you'd have a better understanding of why this is not something you have commonly heard!
This question was asked in a Q&A session, and we want to
make sure everyone processes the basic idea here:
Question:
"On a previous cleanse Q & A, JJ stated that
the more we crave the highly inflammatory foods, the more we needed to stay
away from it. For me, this is
hands down PEANUTS!
What is happening chemically in our bodies that causes
this reaction and craving?"
Notes From The Answer:
In JJ's view, food reactions are a measure of the integrity of your small intestine.
Most of us end up with guts that are more permeable than we need to be.
They are designed to be "semi-permeable" but most of us end up with
guts that are more permeable than we need them to be.
For example, gluten and stress open up the gut. Medications do a
number on the gut- lots of things impair the gut. Not enough healthy gut
bacteria is also a biggie.
Everyone has something going on here to SOME extent. A lot of the foods
we commonly eat are not broken down well, ends up in the bloodstream
often because of the compromised gut- and this creates reaction.
It is important to note that for most people this builds up very slowly. Starts low grade, and grows from there.
Then you jump into something like the PEERtrainer Fresh Start
Cleanse, and you get a little cranky for the first couple days, when you
first remove these.
The analogy is like a "drunk guy at a singles bar waiting for a
woman to show up. She's not there and he's getting mad"- these
antibiodies want those foods- they are waiting for them. So the
cravings happen. These antibodies need something to do, which creates
that craving.
When you first pull this out, you are going to crave them. It only lasts
3-7 days. This is a GREAT thing. This is not like sugar or carb
cravings- you can really "muscle through"
this and get some distance.
Important Note:
Dairy and Gluten in particular- have a drug like effect on the brain that creates cravings. JJ does not have cravings- people just don't believe her.
But when you pull out these foods like dairy and gluten, the cravings simply go away.
And then, with some distance, these foods often don't taste good any
more!! This is a HUGE long term benefit. People are often shocked when
they get some distance, and then go back.
You have to realize that when you are craving gluten and cheese, this is a real "druggie like" feeling.
We are seeing with people who have emotional eating patterns, this removal really can mix up this pattern.
We kick ourselves in the butts about discipline and willpower, but really have no idea about how many of these foods out there are really designed to trigger these cravings.
JJ gives an example about McDonald's French Fries- they have gluten coating on them which turns them into what she calls "little drug sticks." This is part of the reason that those fries are so satisfying, is that they give you this "hit" which cures your gluten cravings.
Apply this one example to the entire food industry- there is a reason that gluten is hidden in so many foods.
Sugar, carb and hunger cravings are a slightly different animal. This is where a supplement like the Metabolic Booster Pack can come in, and really help, especially
with after dinner cravings.
But you really have to address the underlying dietary issues first, pulling out
the reactive foods, adding in the green, cruciferous and sulfur containing veggies"
(PEERtrainer Note: We have a one day sale running on the Metabolic Booster Pack right now, 20% off for this very popular pack)
******
We have more questions we are breaking out for easy consumption like this.
Reminder:
The next Cleanse Starts January 2nd, and you can get started
on the pre-cleanse process right now.
Classes are held at 12pm PST (3pm EST) and you will receive dial in
info. If you can't attend the class via conference, you will receive
the class via email for you to listen at your convenience.
If you are looking to get back on track with your weight loss, fitness and health efforts, one of the most helpful tips we can give you is to go easy on yourself and embrace imperfection.
When you give yourself a break, and really develop this as a habit, you often give yourself the space to make some great changes that put you on the path towards becoming fit, healthy and fully alive.
This does not mean you don't push yourself, and be open to being pushed. What it does mean is that you give yourself the space and time to develop the momentum that you need to get going.
For example, one piece of very consistent feedback that we get from the (free) PEERtrainer Cheat System is that people love that it gives them "permission" to follow a fairly advanced eating program at their own personal speed.
Of course there is a place for programs that have you go all in. But one of the things that we are really focusing on with our "PEERtrainer University" concept, is to make sure that everyone in our community and audience is progressing in some way.
If you are part of the group of people who feel stuck, not on track or maybe you are new to PEERtrainer and still have a lot of "conventional" habits, really think about giving yourself a break, and focus on one new thing that you know will help you. These "one things" really have a neat habit of stacking up, and turning into something good.
But the interesting thing about imperfection, is that if it allows you to keep on a path where you are developing your positive habit muscle, you'll be on the path towards really big transformation.
The kind of transformation where you surprise yourself. Another key point to make is that everyone has a different path to this place of big transformation. As long as you have an open mind and fully embrace the idea that new results will require new actions, you'll be headed to a great place.
We know that people LOVE new recipes, no matter what track they are on. If you are comfortable in the kitchen, this new weight loss soup recipe is something you must try. Follow the instructions, get out your immersion blender and fire away. You'll love it.
If you are more of a "meal assembler" we have a ton of Breakfast Shake Recipes that allow people to get a jumpstart on their day, and feel very full and energized. Some people are able to start their day with a massive salad- others like the short cut that the shakes provide. All the recipes that we put together feature pea/rice protein (no whey or soy!) and also feature greens or fruit, which if you eat at breakfast time, it really helps reduce the odds of having a "meltdown" later in the day.
Another tip about imperfection is that it can be planned. Most of us have more energy in the morning and at the start of the day. As you are starting your journey, you don't need to be totally ON all day. Commit to making sure your breakfast kicks butt. Have a big salad or a shake. Plan a great lunch.
And if something crazy happens, which it does, let it happen.
One tip that will help everyone, is that when "stuff" happens and you are out of your comfort zone, give yourself as much room for error as possible. This is where the cleanse principles come in, and if you have not watched the video "How To Do A Cleanse The Right Way" click on that link and watch. It will teach you the foods to avoid, and which to focus on.
And when we say cleanse, this is simply common sense on warp speed. Hopefully this focus on embracing imperfection will really give you the space to build confidence and momentum. Over time we will be posting and emailing all sorts of great and fairly advanced content. But we want you to be ready for it, and able to have the strength to act!!
-Jackie and the PEERtrainer Team
PS: Here are some articles and resources that will help teach you some of the more advanced ideas of "PEERtrainer University"
