Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.
Stu: This week, I’m excited to welcome Anoop Asok and Ann-Maria Tom to the podcast. Together they are known as the Weight Loss Whisperers who focus on metabolic mastery and hormonal health to provide their clients with real results. In this episode, we discuss where so many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight, the importance of calories versus quality of food, and the strategy to actually keep the weight off for good. Over to Anoop and Ann-Maria.
Audio Version
Some questions asked during this episode:
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Where do many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight?
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How can we ensure we keep the weight off?
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How important are calories vs the quality of food we eat?
Get more of Anoop Asok and Ann-Maria Tom:
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Robert Lustig: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Weight Loss & Disease
Dr David Prologo – Discover Why Most Diets Fail in the Long Term
Dr Nicki Steinberger – How to Break Your Sugar Addiction Forever
The views expressed on this podcast are the personal views of the host and guest speakers and not the views of Bega Cheese Limited or 180 Nutrition Pty Ltd. In addition, the views expressed should not be taken or relied upon as medical advice. Listeners should speak to their doctor to obtain medical advice.
Disclaimer: The transcript below has not been proofread and some words may be mis-transcribed.
Full Transcript
Stu
(00:03)
Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and welcome to another episode of the Health Sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it actually takes to achieve a long-lasting health. Now, I’m sure that’s something that we all strive to have, I certainly do.
(00:23)
Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products too. That’s right, we are into whole food nutrition and have a range of superfoods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you are curious, want to find out more, just jump over to our website that is 180Nutrition.com.au and take a look. Okay, back to the show.
(00:44)
This week I’m excited to welcome Anoop Asok and Ann-Maria Tom to the podcast. Together they are known as the weight loss whisperers who focus on metabolic mastery and hormonal health to provide their clients with real results. In this episode, we discuss where so many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight, the importance of calories versus quality of food, and the strategy to actually keep the weight off for good. Over to Anoop and Ann-Maria.
(01:15)
Hey, guys. This is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Ann-Maria and Anoop, also known as the weight loss whisperers to the podcast. Guys, how are you both today?
Ann-Maria
(01:27)
We’re doing fantastic. We are in the middle of winter here in Canada. It’s cold, but it’s good.
Stu
(01:37)
Exactly right.
Ann-Maria
(01:38)
[inaudible 00:01:38] here today.
Stu
(01:40)
Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you sharing some of your time. First up, for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work, I’d love it if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, please.
Ann-Maria
(01:50)
For sure, my name is Ann and this is Anoop and we are husband and wife. We are fitness coaches and we basically teach people how to lose weight while eating whatever they want, that’s what we do. The reason why we got here and all that dates back to three, four years before when COVID started, everyone was sick.
(02:16)
We are also registered nurses in the ER. We were working in the emergency room at that point in time. We saw a lot of younger population coming through the emergency doors with variety of health issues, especially when we were in the middle of that COVID season. One of the reasons why we started our coaching back then.
(02:36)
One of the other reasons is also just our journeys, personal journeys, which we’ll talk about here in a second, but we literally teach people how to lose weight by [inaudible 00:02:48]
Stu
(02:51)
Well, it can be so confusing because there are a number of different strategies. If you were to jump on the internet right now, you’d see that some people say it’s just all about the calories, that’s all it is. Whereas other people say, “No, no, it’s more about the quality of the food that you eat.” Whereas other people say it’s about the timing and maybe a mixture of those two as well.
(03:12)
Maybe there’s a personal aspect to it where we need to look at our own physiology in terms of our genetics and our digestive system, et cetera things like that. I guess the question then in my eyes is that where do many of us go wrong? What are the glaring mistakes that we make when we want to lose weight?
Ann-Maria
(03:33)
That’s a great question. I think the reason why most of us or most of us are not able to lose weight and where we fall apart is the part that we go all in when it comes to the diet part. We cut a lot of food, then we go into this binge-eating and then we do a ton of exercise. There is not enough balance, I would say, in what we are trying to do, and that’s where most people fall short.
(04:03)
As much as it is true that we need to be in a caloric deficit for us to lose weight, you have to make sure also that your body is ready for it. I don’t know how many of you listening this know this, but yes, caloric deficit is required for you to lose weight, but most of the weight loss happens in our brain because the brain is what regulates the weight loss.
(04:26)
Our brain is literally our thermostat, meaning it wants to keep us in homeostasis, meaning our brain always prioritizes survival over weight loss. One of the biggest mistakes people are making these days is eating very few calories, cutting too much food all at once. Whenever our brain senses too much weight loss happening, again, it goes back to when I said it tries to bring us back to that homeostasis, the vital mechanism.
(04:58)
How does it do it? By really increasing, upping our hunger cues, making those donuts in the break room feel much more enticing and yummy than it normally is. Physiologically, our metabolic rate also slows down so that we can conserve more energy and send that right back to building up the [inaudible 00:05:21]. Technically, when you are trying to ease eat less food, your brain wants to cheat more.
(05:28)
The hunger is what is going to really give you in those situations. Sometime we don’t even realize when that we are in such a drastic caloric deficit, we end up eating more at the end of the day. When you are below reaching that set points, metabolically speaking, you end up eating more to maintain that same level of hunger you had before.
(05:55)
This is why it’s really impossible for you to maintain that weight that you lost with intense calorie restriction. One of the reasons, biggest reason why yo-yo dieting is the best diet out there for weight gain not for weight loss. Yes, to answer your question, eating less food and [inaudible 00:06:15]
Stu
(06:14)
A lot of what you said makes sense because specifically I think that when we just consume maybe way less than we are used to doing and our body says, “Hold on a minute, you’re going into starvation mode, down regulate the metabolism. Let’s not move around as much.” You feel a little bit more tired because you don’t want to expend that energy because you haven’t got it coming in.
(06:36)
Then, hence as days and weeks and months go by and you feel lethargic because you’re not doing as much, your metabolism slowed down. Then, you go back to eating as you were before. You’ve got a slower metabolism and your body says, “Great, let’s start storing calories because it looks like the famine season is over.” It’s really interesting. As your thoughts then are just take it slow, take it slow and steady.
(07:03)
Oftentimes, we’ve had people in our community say, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong because I only lost a pound in weight this week.” Then I think when you extrapolate that out and you said, “Well, hold on a minute, that’s 52 pounds a year, that’s a win.” That’s not a failure. Would you agree that perhaps slow and steady wins the race rather than just going all out and just starving?
Ann-Maria
(07:30)
Absolutely, because you might be able to lose some weight with starving for a little bit, but get [inaudible 00:07:36] to happen you’re not going to sustain that kind of starving mode for the rest of your life, no one can. You are going to fall back to the habits that actually got you 100 pounds heavier or 50 pounds heavier, whatever that is.
(07:51)
Why don’t we work on those habits that actually is going to help you lose weight as a byproduct, and that is going to take time. All the fat that we have gained, that did not happen overnight, so what makes us believe that fat loss is going to happen overnight. Of course, going slow and steady is the way to go if you’re looking for sustainable weight loss, meaning keeping it off for the long-term.
Stu
(08:15)
Tell us then a little bit about these habits. I know that, and I’m sure you’ll dive into the quality of food as well, because oftentimes highly processed, ultra refined and ultra palatable foods hijack a lot of our hunger systems and just make us, they’re designed to make us want to eat more and more and more and more.
(08:40)
What habits then do you utilize with your customers that allow them to break free of any of the ingrained, unhealthy habits that may have led them to where they want to be or where they are at the moment, which is in need of perhaps some new habits?
Ann-Maria
(08:55)
I would like to break this down into three easy steps so that easy to implement. When you think about losing weight rather than going, “Okay, let me just eat salads and chicken and broccoli all day every day for the next 12 weeks.” Break that down into short-term achievable goals. The fast step of making anything easier, especially this makes sense with food is make your food or healthy food taste delicious.
(09:29)
No one wants to eat just raw spinach or just broccoli stalks all day every day. We are going to fall apart at some point. Instead of eating just sliced broccoli stalks or something, what we do is we roast it in a little bit of butter or whatever that you like to do, add some seasoning and flavor, make it a little bit more flavorful and eat it without.
(09:52)
Instead of eating like sauteed green beans that are very soggy, why don’t you eat crispy greens instead. Add some cheese or some spinach or whatnot, sorry, some garlic or whatnot on your spinach so that your spinach is not all bland. Make it a little bit more enticing so that it is giving you some kind of excitement for you to continue eating that. This one change we implemented by sauteing our broccoli with butter and things like that even our toddler eats them.
(10:24)
We don’t even have to tell to eat it, he just eats it because it tastes good. Most of us do not really eat the required amount of vegetables that we’re supposed to eat every single day, the dietary recommendations, we are not meeting them. The report says only one percentage of teens and people in their 20s are actually meeting their daily vegetable requirements, which is just think about it one person, what is it?
(10:50)
That’s my first tip, like make your food healthy food, whatever you’re eating, tastes good. The second hack I have for you is stop making these hyper palatable foods unavailable. It is not helping you in any way, even though studies have shown the link of hyperpalatable foods with the way your hunger hormones and everything else work studies have also illustrated that this phenomenon, when we make the food off-limits, we are becoming more inclined to desire them even more.
(11:26)
Rather than just viewing the heroic foods as off limits or bad, it will be helpful if we can shift our mindset to view all the foods as just neutral and then giving yourself permission to enjoy them when you physically still hungry. Restricting your foods like your favorite foods will lead to more cravings down the road anyways. Meaning you’re going to end up eating more anyways and that give you a sense of deprivation.
Stu
(11:56)
What about strategies? Because I know that hyperpalatable foods that have been specifically engineered to hit this bliss point, which just and some of the taglines, once you pop, you can’t stop and it’s true. It’s very, very hard to try and open up a bag of salty flavorsome chips and crisps and dips and things like that and stop it maybe a handful, which is typically the recommended serving size on the bag that nobody ever adheres to. How can you try and eat these foods in moderation that have been designed to ensure that you can’t?
Anoop
(12:34)
What we have done with our clients is what we call green pie method. Basically, the green aspect that’s like the green protein initiated eating. When you are starting, if you want to really have that kind of food, hyperpalatable food or something like that, start with greens if possible. That’s basically your greens are fiber rich, so it’s a longer time to digest. It just goes through intestine or your digestive system really slow.
(13:10)
Start with that and then start with the protein source next. Say like if you like some chips maybe munch on a little bit of nuts first and then have that chips so that way you’re starting with the fiber, then a little bit of protein, protein or fat, and then your hyperpalatable food. That way, the whole digestive process changes a lot that it takes time to digest and absorption and sugar spike goes down considerably. Eating, seeing food, or actually more food than before, you don’t get a fat deposition compared to eating that chips alone.
Stu
(13:48)
That’s wise word. I’ve got three daughters and when they were younger, they used to go to birthday parties. Over here birthday parties for children, probably the same in Canada, it’s just game on for all of the most ridiculous kiddie foods on the planet, chips, sweets, crisps, and lollies and everything under the sun.
(14:11)
My strategy was that I would make the fattiest omelet that I possibly could before they went out to that party, and there’d be eggs and butter and coconut oil and cream in there. We’d just whipped that up and I’d get some protein in there, put some meat in there. I’d give them this big beautiful satiating omelet before they went out.
(14:32)
Lo and behold, they only ate a fraction of what they would’ve liked to because they were simply just not hungry. I really liked that strategy. I think it worked really well.
Ann-Maria
(14:43)
It’s also crazy because when your tummy is already full already feeling satiated, then the chances of you getting attracted to and eating a lot of chips and pizza and all that is going to be considerably less. Meaning the consumption is going to be considerably less, meaning you don’t have to overdo the exercise later on to lose calories.
Stu
(15:05)
That is good. Just then back on the track, you were talking about healthy habits and you’d outline a couple. I wonder were there any more healthy habit fixes that you could expand on?
Ann-Maria
(15:16)
Yeah, the last and the third one that we already mentioned is what was the I came the green pie method. That’s one of the biggest hacks that we ask our clients to use. This can even work when you are attending parties and events. Quick little hack is that we, and we do this personally as well because we are Indians and we do attend extra big Indian parties and events where there’s long, high fatty curries and things like that.
(15:44)
What we do is we do take a supplement like fiber supplement. We don’t [inaudible 00:15:50] supplements, I’m not advocating for supplements here. If you replace that with greens and everything, that’s great, but most of the time when we are busy, we’re on the go. We mix a scoop or something of fiber supplement, we drink it, and then we attend the event.
(16:03)
Meaning that fiber is going to stay as a buffer. On top of that is going to be delayed, meaning you’re not going to feel as bloated as you would if you are not taking that fiber or whatever that is that literally preparing your body for the impact later on that happen later on. This is one of the biggest hacks we ask most of our clients to use because events and everything is going to happen no matter what, and that should not stop your results.
Anoop
(16:33)
Fiber, you tend not to eat a really heavy or fatty food, so you tend to eat lesser amount of unhealthy food when you’re in the parties or something like that, and that will help as well.
Stu
(16:45)
That’s good. Fiber definitely is king when it comes to filling up the stomach. I think changing the way you feel about food in terms of a hunger perspective. How important then to you are calories when compared to the quality of the food that we eat? I say this because I could compare maybe a can of diet soda, zero calories and say half an avocado maybe, I don’t know, 250 calories, something along those lines.
(17:18)
One of those things will contain artificial sweeteners and acids and colors and dyes and things like that. While it won’t give you any calorie load, I’m sure that it’s not doing a microbiome any good. It’s probably not great for your teeth and even from a society perspective it’s probably not great. Whereas the avocado, monounsaturated fats, fiber in there, potassium and it’s very filling as well added to something like a salad. Which side of the spectrum are you on that calorie versus quality thought train?
Anoop
(18:01)
I mean, obviously calories matter for weight loss. Basically, what we say is that if you’re eating more than your total daily energy expenditure, that’s the amount of calories your body needs for day-to-day activities and for your organ function and everything. If you’re eating more than that, technically you should be gaining weight. If you are eating less than that, that means you should be losing weight.
(18:31)
Obviously, more to that than just that calorie number. That’s the quality of the calories where quality the calories is coming from. When we say quality of calories, we usually use two terms high quality foods and lower quality foods. When we say high quality foods, what that means is it’s really low processed foods, whole grain foods, and whole foods in general.
(19:01)
Low quality foods means highly processed, highly refined, added sugars, added fat, and trans fat and everything. We prefer in general, higher quality foods are really good for when we come to weight loss because just think about the way when it’s less processed, your body basically needs, uses more calories to break down that food and digest.
(19:33)
You’re actually spending more calories to digest that food compared to that same, the low quality food. The calorie burn is more to digest that high calorie food and compared to low calorie food. Also on our first image, we use 10% of our energy expenditure for just that digestion process alone. The more higher quality food you use on your diet, the more calories burns you have.
Stu
(20:03)
I guess, from a nutrient perspective, if you’re providing the body with a whole array of nutrients that it requires to function at its best versus something that really is empty calories like highly processed junk food that doesn’t really contain any beneficial nutrients. I wonder whether that has a signaling mechanism in the body to say, the body says, “Well, hold on, I’ve got a lot of great stuff that I can use here versus you haven’t given me anything I need really, you’re just feeding my appetite, but you’re not feeding the body.” I wonder whether that comes into it too.
Ann-Maria
(20:44)
Yeah, sure because when you think about these empty calorie foods, you are feeding your body, but your cells are technically not getting any.
Stu
(20:54)
Yeah, exactly.
Ann-Maria
(20:55)
It really messes up all your hormones and metabolism and your hunger cues and all that that most people consuming a lot of processed and fatty foods, they don’t really know when to start and when to stop. I don’t know if you guys have heard about this, “I don’t really feel hungry, but I still eat.”
(21:16)
That’s really scary, that really ties down to you disrupting that hunger satiating signaling with the brain that getting disrupted with, sure, it might or might not affect the way you lose weight and store fat or anything, but at the end of the day, it’s really messing up everything. Your entire signaling that should be working the right way so that you should be, when you’re looking at a food, when you’re smelling a food, you should be feeling, “Okay, I feel hungry, I want to eat it.”
(21:46)
Once you’re being full, that should send signals to your brain, “It’s time up, we are done. Let’s stop insulin production from the pancreas and all that. Let’s stop all of that.” That’s not happening. What’s going to happen? Your cells are becoming more resistant to insulin and glucose ending up to diabetes and other metabolic disorders. It has a deeper role than just thinking about calories where it has a big impact in my opinion.
Stu (22:16)
Then, to throw a curveball into the mix and that curveball would be menopause. We have many customers who are struggling, I think from the perspective of, “I’m doing everything right, but nothing is working for me. I feel cranky and tired and wired. I’ve got weight where I’ve never had weight before.
(22:39)
I’ve tried fasting, I’ve tried keto, I’ve tried all of the different dietary interventions that are available.” How do you tackle that and is that more of perhaps a tailored supplemental approach to balance hormones as well as a structured diet?
Ann-Maria
(22:59)
Yeah, that’s a great question and you can do both. It depends on what your hormonal profile is looking at, because not every woman is going to experience the same symptoms. Some might experience it lesser compared to others. Intensity is going to be really difference here when we are talking about the symptoms itself.
(23:20)
The management will really depend on what you are feeling as a person and how hard is it for you to lose that weight. Especially when you’re entering into that menopause, our female sex hormones are all going, “Oop.” It has been up or doing this through perimenopause and menopause, everything just slows down.
(23:38)
Meaning women are going to experience symptoms. One of the biggest symptoms, and we’re going to tie this to the weight loss part of it also is the fat redistribution that happens during the time of menopause due to hormone estrogen and Protestant going influx. What happens is all that fat that has been stored in your peripheral regions go to the central area, around the abdomen, around the hips.
(24:03)
Hence most women, they say, “Oh my god, I am having this belly fat all of a sudden, which I did not have five years ago. I haven’t [inaudible 00:24:11] anything about my diet or exercise and it’s happening and I’m not sure why. This is so frustrating.” That’s one piece of it, the fat redistribution happening. What can you do to your current exercise regimen and your nutritional aspect of things to really balance that out, to really balance that hormones out?
(24:33)
Not everyone will be able to unfortunately balance it with just nutrition and exercise. Some of them will have to take supplements and there’s nothing wrong with that. One thing I would say is that if you are someone who has been exercising six days a week, seven days a week, 2, 5, 10 case steps for all these years, unfortunately that strategy is not going to work during the time of menopause because it will raise your cortisol up there.
(24:56)
What this is going to do? It’s going to steal all that hormones that is supposed to produce more estrogen and progesterone so that hormonal steal happens. Cortisol steals that hormones. That’s the biggest thing that we see in menopausal women, so cut down your exercise. Do not be scared that you are going to gain weight if you cut down the exercise.
(25:17)
You might feel a little bit of change, especially the first two weeks of cutting that exercise down because hey, it’s a shock for your body, going from 10K steps to 3K going from days a week to four days is going to be a little bit of an adjustment, but once you pass that adjustment phase, you will start seeing that weight coming off. This also ties down to the diet part of things.
(25:41)
If you are someone who has been doing keto and low carb and high protein and everything in the past, try to learn how to eat your food in balance. You need enough amount of carbs so that you get energy. Already you’re having lower energy because of your hormones, so please do not induce more exhaustion by eating less amount of carbs.
(26:06)
Another piece of it is your protein because we work with a lot of perimenopausal, menopausal women, and most of them do not only them not eating enough protein, but they aren’t consuming protein. I think the right amount of protein is also going to be crucial for you guys and also your fat, because fat is where your hormones actually produce from.
(26:27)
Cholesterol is where all the hormones are produced from in the first place, so that also goes down. You also have to eat your fat in balance. Everything has to be in balance, especially when you enter that menopausal territory. Otherwise, it’s going to be so hard to keep that weight loss [inaudible 00:26:47]
Stu
(26:47)
That’s good advice. From a protein perspective, what are your recommendations? We always think of it as, I think it’s one gram of protein for every pound of body weight kind of equation. Do you have a different recommendation in terms of protein for let’s say for females perhaps?
Ann-Maria
(27:08)
Go for it.
Anoop
(27:09)
Actually, it depends on we weight training or at what pace you are. At first we concentrate on metabolic repair, we make sure you’re working properly, and then during the pace, depending on how much of protein you were having before, we slowly increase it. Usually, the RPC is approximately around 20 grams per meal. That’s manageable size and that we also said three meals a day, 20 grams per meal, that should be a good number.
(27:46)
Again, depending on if you’re a weight lifting person, then you need more. We go by a case by case basis. One gram of protein per kilo is a pretty good number.
Stu
(28:01)
Thinking then about exercise, lots and lots of confusion in terms of the best exercise for fat loss or to increase the metabolism for an extended period of time, some people like to pound the streets and endurance exercise, ultra endurance, some people like to lift weights exclusively. Then, there’s more of an emergence of this F45 style functional high intensity interval training or a mix of everything. Where do you sit on perhaps the most effective bang for buck from an exercise perspective if let’s say you’ve got one hour to spare three times a week?
Ann-Maria
(28:46)
Yeah, absolutely. I would say do what is going to make more sense with your lifestyle and where you are at in your fitness journey. There is no one size fits all when it comes to exercise or diet. Now, especially for exercise, the type of exercise will you do is going to be depending on what your goal is. It’s going to be completely different from your friend or your mom or your dad, completely different gender.
(29:13)
It’s going to, so many factors comes into play when we think about deciding workout plans, what’s going to be the best for you. I would say if you want to, especially for women, if you want to decrease your fat percentage age and build that muscle, I would say a combination of both cardio and weight lifting. It’s the best bet because cardio is an aerobic exercise. It uses oxygen, it’s going to be helpful to burn more calories while you are working out.
(29:41)
That with the strength training, of course, strength training helped build more muscle, meaning metabolically active tissue, meaning you’re speeding up your metabolism. As females do not really have much of a muscle mass compared to men, because we do not really have a lot of testosterone going around in us, right?
(29:57)
It’s very, very minute amount, so we need to make sure that we have the optimal amount of muscle mass so that we are burning fat, optimizing our hormones, and also toning up at the same time. 150 to 250 minutes per week of cardio is what we recommend for our clients personally. Slowly add in the strength training aspect to that as well, two to three days a week of strength training.
(30:25)
I would say if you’re trying to lose weight, maybe like 15 to 20 minutes of cardio, and then you can maybe do another 20 minutes of weight lifting that should be good for three to four days, you don’t have to overdo it.
Stu
(30:38)
That sounds good. Would you categorize walking as acceptable zone two cardio, for instance?
Ann-Maria
(30:49)
Absolutely, walking is an amazing exercise. For some people they don’t like to do exercise. If you’re some person that you don’t really like the standing at one place and exercising, whatever fancy exercising is if you don’t really enjoy, you’re not going to do it for the long-term. I don’t know how many clients we had that came and said, “Ann, I don’t really like exercising, but if this is absolutely required for me to lose weight, I will do it.”
(31:17)
My question to this would be, “Would you then continue doing it once the coaching ends? If the answer is no, I would say, heck no, don’t do it. Let’s stick with what you enjoy. If that’s walking, let’s do it, but the key here is being consistent no matter what type of exercise you are doing.” At the end of the day, all we are trying to do is burn calories. As long as that goal is reached, the vehicle that we are using to reach that goal doesn’t really matter. It just has to be sustainable.
Stu
(31:46)
Yeah, that’s right. No, that does make perfect sense. Then, thoughts on fasting, fasting for weight loss. Like many dietary interventions, it’s going in and out of favor in terms of it was thought to be the pinnacle for longevity and insulin sensitivity and just a great strategy for overall health. Now, there’s chatter more about, “Well, fasting may not be great for females because it’s really disruptive from a hormonal perspective.”
(32:23)
The body doesn’t want to be in a state of starvation for too long and cortisol goes up and we really want to reduce oxidative stress and all of that kind of stuff. Where do you sit on fasting? Some people get up and say, “You know what, I’m just not hungry in the morning.” I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. I mean personally, I wake up and I’m ravenous in the morning and I make a huge breakfast, which works well for me.
(32:47)
Other people just say, “I’m not hungry and I don’t need to eat until midday.” Which would then mean typically they would be perhaps already on a 16:8 fasting protocol anyway. Where do you sit on fasting?
Anoop
(33:04)
Regarding fasting, most of the time people are skipping a meal or more when they’re on the fasting phase, and we do not recommend that. First of all, if you metabolism is working properly, if it works as a well-oiled machine that it should be, you should be like you said, by the time you wake up, you should be really, really hungry. You probably wouldn’t think about anything rather than eating a food right away, that’s how a normal body should function.
(33:35)
Because of the way we eat, because of our work and our habits, we tend to skip breakfast or by knowingly or unknowingly we are doing, most of them are doing fasting unknowingly. Think about this, what happens when you’re fasting or skipping a meal? Ideally, your body is expecting food at that time and if you’re not giving food to your body, your stomach has digestive juices, basically those are enzymes or those are acids.
(34:09)
It’s supposed to digest that food, but now you’re not giving that food to the stomach. All that digestive uses are there just concentrated acid, it’s going to eat away your stomach lining. A couple of days, it’s going to be okay, if you keep doing that, it’s going to lead to gastritis. We see a lot of this issue by our background, our nurses, we see a lot of this happening. If you still keep on doing it and then it goes to peptic ulcer, that’s kind of a…
Ann-Maria
(34:39)
Blister formation.
Anoop
(34:41)
Yeah, blister formation, it’s like gastritis times 10. That’s what happens when you skip your meals. From a weight loss perspective, you might see results, but fasting or any kind of diet, what I ask my clients is that you should ask yourself, can you do that for rest of your life or how do you do that? For most of them would say they might do it for maybe a month or a couple of months or maybe a year or very rarely, two years or more.
(35:15)
First of all, there’s so much health-wise happening when you’re skipping a meal and also hormonal imbalance and everything that’s huge for females, especially when they’re nearing their menopausal or postmenopausal time. If you can do that for the rest of your life, there’s going to be a point where you’re going to stop doing it and start back having more food or start back eating the food you like.
(35:39)
What happens then? Most of them when they jump onto this fasting phase, they don’t think about what happens when you stop that fasting. When they stop fasting basically, they’re going to eat the food as normally they usually eat. All the weight, whatever they lost during that fasting is basically going to come back. If that’s going to happen, it’s not sustainable and why would you start doing something like that?
Ann-Maria
(36:06)
One thing that we have seen with a woman also is that they done this fasting for such a long time and it has automatically become a lifestyle. As you said before, I don’t feel hungry anymore after waking up and they’re not realizing that they’re under consuming calories now because they might have gotten into the fasting to put themselves into caloric deficit.
(36:30)
Knowingly, unknowingly that happened, now it got to the point where they calories and they’re only eating on less than thousand calories. Thinking, “Oh my god, I’m not feeling any hunger cues anymore. I just eat food just because it’s the lunch time and I have to eat it.” That’s the feeling that we talked about it’s all disrupted. Why do you want to do that when you know it’s easy to do things like this, it’s easy to look for quick fixes, it’s rather difficult to change the habits.
(37:02)
I would say start doing the difficult things. Stop looking for the quick fixes because then it is only going to prolong the pain. It’s only going to make the pain worse. I want you to think about breaking a bone as an example. You broke your bone, the faster you put a cast on, you are going to feel better. The more you sit with it’s going to get swollen and swollen, and so it’s going to get even more painful. Weight loss and doing things like that and fasting, it does the exact same thing to your body.
Stu
(37:36)
Yeah, just address the issue. A lot of this will play on people’s emotional heartstrings and put a lot of toil on them, and oftentimes at the end of the day, they’ve done everything that they think that they should be doing in terms of maybe counting and tracking calories, working out, trying to fit more exercise into their day, but at the end of the day, they’re ready to just relax, sit down with a glass of wine.
(38:06)
Your thoughts on alcohol? I know that, again, varying degrees of advice on, “It’s okay, one glass is okay all the way through to, well, actually it’s a toxin and it’s disrupting all of the different areas of your body, including sleep, including hormones, including gut health. It’s a big no-no.” Can it play a part of a healthy meal plan plan moving forwards?
Anoop
(38:38)
Alcohol, like you said, there’s all this negative aspect to alcohol is also empty calories. If you are careful about how much you consume, it can fit into a good diet plan. What we usually say is that the main thing, what happens is when people are drinking, they usually go start drinking and don’t think about food, they drink and then either have unhealthy snacks along with it or eat really unhealthy stuff after drinking.
(39:09)
There’s two problems with it. One thing, first of all, since you’re not eating, you tend to eat, drink more alcohol rather than if you are to eat healthy food and then drink. That way, at least there’s that your stomach would be a bit more fuller, so you may not feel like drinking maybe four shots instead of two if you add food, so there’s that aspect of it.
(39:34)
Another thing is that, like I said, alcohol is toxic anyways, there’s no denying that. At least if you were to have food before you drink, that way it’s kind of diluted in your stomach. If food, there’s good stuff in your stomach already, and if you were to have a fiber, that slows the absorption of alcohol. The amount of toxins get absorbed to your body reduces, and even if it get absorbed, it’s going to get absorbed in a longer duration of time rather than getting high peak.
(40:10)
All that does affect your fat absorption as well. The more calories you get absorbed right away, there’s going to be higher spike, and whenever you get high spike, a portion of that will get deposit as fat, that’s how body usually works. To avoid that, you can have food drink after food and try and choose to reduce the amount of unhealthy foods you’re having.
(40:41)
If your stomach is already food, you tend not to have much or too much too many unhealthy fried snacks, so that’s a win win for everyone.
Stu
(40:51)
It’s good. I know it can be a crux for so many people and they say, “Well, but it helps me relax.” I think perhaps mentally it does, but physically I think there’s a few different things happening there and they’re probably not all healthy. We are getting close to time. I have a question regarding your guys’ personal lives in terms of the non-negotiable habits that perhaps you adhere to every day.
(41:20)
Oftentimes, just on autopilot that make you feel great, that ensure that you crush every day. It might be things like we get up in the morning and we like to get sunlight in our eyes, or maybe we do some breath work or whatever that may be. What do the weight loss whisperers do to stay in shape both physically and mentally as well?
Anoop
(41:45)
For weight loss, the number one thing we would advise would be don’t skip your meals. I have three meals a day. If you are a person who has three meals or if you’re a person, who have four meals, have that four meals, don’t skip your meals. Like I said earlier, your bodies get ready to have that food and if you don’t give that food, basically you’re grumpy.
(42:07)
You tend to eat more heavier meal next time when you eat, so you can avoid all those if you don’t skip your meal. There’s added benefit of not having this gastritis or peptic ulcer problems. It’s all about habit formation, once you make this as a habit, maybe they say it takes at least 20 days to form a healthy habit.
(42:28)
After that, if this forms you habit, like you said earlier, when you wake up, you’re hungry already. You are not in a situation where you want to miss that meal. That’s what we aim, make the habit formation and consistency is the key.
Ann-Maria
(42:48)
Don’t think about intensity like crushing every single day doing, “One hour of workout and then I go for 10K steps, and then I eat all clean.” Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. You’re going to fall. Have realistic expectations. Do not depend on intensity, rather pay attention to consistency. You don’t have to work out one hour if you don’t have the time, but at least get 10 minutes of walking that you’re doing something and slowly that over a period of time, that consistency is going to build.
(43:23)
Once you have a great foundation with consistency, then you can work on your intensity and get to the more delicate aspects of goal, having good muscle and whatnot. Whatever your goal is, work on your consistency fast and then the other things will follow. The last thing would be just have grit. I would just have grit. Grit means not hitting that snooze button when you feel so nice and comfy, nice and warm under your comforter every single day, rather just go for a walk, not make excuses.
(43:57)
Grit also looks like it’s easy to munch on Oreo cookies sitting on the countertop, especially if you have kids saying no to that. Even if you don’t want to say no, that’s okay, but limit your intake and make some effort or take some effort to preparing some meals and make it intentional. Having grit is going to what is going to give you that sustainable long-term success that you’re looking for, and it is going to take perseverance. It is going to take passion.
(44:29)
You need to be in love with your goal. Your why has to be so strong and deep enough so that you will have the grit at the end of the day to crush that on a daily basis to get to that end point.
Stu
(44:41)
Again and again, no, I love it. Absolutely fantastic advice. Tell me what’s next for the weight loss Whisperers? What have you got on the calendar for this year? What does 2024 bring?
Ann-Maria
(45:00)
2024 is really an exciting year for us. This year, we really dove into the podcast world. We do have lots of shows booked. We are really excited to talk about weight loss, to talk about sustainable weight loss because I know there’s information about eat less and exercise more and lose weight, but I don’t enough information about, “Okay, how can we actually make a lifestyle out of this?”
(45:23)
So that you don’t have to do this over and over again and be in that hamster wheel, so that’s that. Then, we are taking on more clients than ever before because our kids in daycare now.
Stu
(45:37)
Fantastic, I’ve been there. Boy, oh boy, congratulations is a weight off your mind. Then, for all of our listeners that want to find out more about you, follow your journey, listen to your podcasts, dive into the resources that you have, where can we send them?
Ann-Maria
(45:54)
For sure. Stuart, I really want to do something very special for your audience today because what I’m going to share with you with your audience today is not something that you can find anywhere else on the internet because this is our private stuff and we only give this out to our paying clients. However, since all of you guys stayed up until very end of the show, I really want to give this out absolutely for free.
(46:19)
This is what I call the Midlife Metamorphosis kit. This is going to be everything that we talked in this podcast today. It will do a seven day workout plan with workouts that you can do under 30 minutes, three to four days a week. It’s going to be perfect for busy moms or men who really do not have that time to live in the gym.
(46:38)
Not only that, we are going to give you a list of the entire grocery list that is going to tell you exactly what food to buy while you’re in the grocery store. Also, you can navigate through your hormonal and everything with ease by losing weight and look amazing at the same time. Not just that, I know we talked a lot about protein and all those things like really building habits and all that.
(47:00)
We have included a recipe book that will have over 50 plus high protein recipes. If you guys want all of this for absolutely free of start, just go to our Instagram page, it is Ann-Maria Tom, and send me the keyword cook. It’s going to be nice and easy to remember, cook. Once again, Midlife Metamorphosis kit, send me a cook on my Instagram Ann-Maria Tom. I’ll personally send this out to you.
(47:29)
One other thing I also want to say is a huge thank you for inviting us onto your show. Please, guys if you’re listening to the show, rate this show, give a five star review rating and spread this word out there so that Stuart can produce more podcasts and bring on more guests like this, so that you guys can benefit from his show as well.
Stu
(47:51)
Fantastic. Well, look, it’s been an absolute pleasure and you are clearly hugely knowledgeable in this space with so much value to share for our audience, your audience, anybody that’s listening at this time. Definitely, for our listeners and everybody listening to this, jump onto the Instagram channel, dig in deep.
(48:11)
It sounds like there’s everything that you need, the perfect roadmap to get you where you want to be. Thank you so much, guys. Really, really appreciated the conversation today. Hopefully, I’ll be talking to you at some stage in the future.
Ann-Maria
(48:25)
Sounds good, thank you.
Stu
(48:26)
Thank you.
