“What Do You Think About….”

About 50% of the emails I receive include questions that begin with, “Elizabeth, what do you think about….” or include, “Does [insert item below] work?”

What follows is any combination of the following dieting trends, buzz words and fads:

Intermittent fasting

Carb cycling

Ketogenic diets

Resistant starch

Working out on an empty stomach

Couch to 5K

Protein shakes

21 day fix

Alternate day fasting

Low carb

Cheat days

I completely understand why so many people want answers to those questions. You want to do what is right. You want to do what works the best.

Here’s what I think many people are overlooking – there is no such thing as the best approach for everyone. There is only the best approach for you.

The best approach for you is completely unique to you based on:

  • How it makes you feel
  • If it delivers the results you’re after
  • If it is sustainable for you

For some people, intermittent fasting makes them feel amazing. It increases their energy, decreases their appetite, accelerates their fat loss & they feel like they could do it effortlessly forever. Bravo. If you’re that person, fantastic, it works for you. Keep it up. Your body has clearly informed you that it works for you.

For other people, intermittent fasting leaves them ravenously hungry, exhausted and they overcompensate with food later in the day. Plus, it doesn’t seem to help their fat loss progress. Guess what? If you’re that person, intermittent fasting isn’t right for you.

The same is true for just about everything included in the above list.

What I think about any of these strategies doesn’t matter. Here’s what matters:

  • Can you do it & enjoy your life indefinitely or is it a miserable dieting strategy?
  • Does it make you feel great?
  • Is your energy high & your hunger and cravings low?
  • Are you getting the results you want?

There is no solution that is right for everyone. That’s why it’s critically important that you pay more attention to your own body than to other peoples’ opinions, including mine.

There are four questions I’m constantly asking my clients when they want to know what I think about their choices:

  1. Does it represent an improvement for you?
  2. How does it make you feel?
  3. Do you love it?
  4. Are you getting results?

What matters is that you care more about what works for your body than what everyone else says works for them.

You need to identify the strategy that makes YOU feel YOUR best & delivers the results you want.

You won’t find it while strategy hopping, changing your direction every 16 seconds based on what everyone else is saying or doing.

Here’s what is far more effective:

  1. Identify one single improvement you can make
  2. Practice it daily
  3. Pay attention to how it makes you feel
  4. Adjust accordingly
  5. Only add more when your results stop or the strategy feels effortless

Your body has all your answers & that’s where I suggest you start looking for them!

181: Sleep, Hormones and Fat Loss

181: Sleep, Hormones and Fat Loss

We aren’t getting enough sleep. We wear our fatigue (and talk about it) like it is a badge of honor. It’s not. You’re not tough. You’re not hardcore. You’re damaging your long-term health and dramatically impeding your fat loss.

If you haven’t guessed, we’re talking about sleep, hormones and fat loss on today’s episode.

The average American is only getting 5-7 hours of sleep each night. That doesn’t make a warrior, it makes a hormonally imbalanced, hungry person prone to fat storage, muscle loss and disease.

I hope that late-night TV is worth it!

Seriously though – this is really important stuff. Sleep deprivation, even moderate sleep deprivation over just a few short days impacts your hormones, impairs your metabolism, increases your appetite and changes the way the food you eat is metabolized.

In today’s episode I’ll be talking about 3 of the significant fat loss related changes initiated by mild sleep deprivation.

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Sleep,  Hormones and Fat Loss

Today we’re diving into the nitty gritty of how sleep deprivation impacts your hormones and fat loss.

  1. Lack of sleep changes how the food you eat is metabolized
    Mild sleep deprivation exaggerates the post-prandial blood sugar response. This means that when sleep deprived, you’ll see a more significant blood sugar increase than you would after eating the same meal when well rested. Lack of sleep also impairs pancreatic function, leading to insulin resistance. These effects are seen after just a few days of mild sleep deprivation.
  2. Lack of sleep increases your appetite & decreases your feelings of satiety
    Lack of sleep disturbs the ratio of ghrelin to leptin, the hormones which manage hunger and satiety. This means that when you are even mildly sleep deprived, you experience more hunger and less satiety. Human studies show increases in appetite up to 40% after mild, short-term sleep deprivation.
  3. Lack of sleep impairs your cellular fat burning machinery
    Human growth hormone is one of our night-shift hormones. It is primarily produced & secreted while we sleep and is responsible for growth, recovery and cellular repair. When we aren’t getting enough sleep, we aren’t allowing growth hormone to do it’s job, resulting in lower muscle mass, higher fat mass and reduced fat burning abilities.

Resources

Sleep Deprivation & Insulin Resistance

Sleep Deprivation &  Your Hormones

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180: Every Choice Is A Chance

180: Every Choice Is A Chance

Guys: Every choice is a chance. You aren’t stuck. You can’t be stuck. Stop telling yourself that you’re stuck or that you aren’t motivated. Every single moment is a new chance, a new opportunity and a blank slate.

In today’s motivational minisode, I’m providing you with an attitude adjustment and a powerful perspective shift.

Stop focusing on everything you’ve done “wrong” and on all the chances you’ve missed. Who cares? It’s done. This next choice right in front of you is your next chance.

Let’s snap ourselves out of the powerless funk and start getting results by taking control of each choice as it arises.

If you want to watch the full video training I reference in the podcast, you can watch it here.

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179: 3 Fat Loss Hormones – Meet The Players

179: 3 Fat Loss Hormones – Meet The Players

If you’ve listened to much of the Primal Potential podcast, you understand that fat loss is very much about hormones. There are 3 hormones in particular that we can consider “the fat loss hormones”. If we understand how they work and what specific choices we can make to make sure these fat loss hormones are working our favor, we’re well on our way to our best health & the achievement of our goals.

We’ll be talking a lot more about hormones in the next few weeks but for today I want to begin with an overview of these 3 powerhouse fat loss hormones: cortisol, leptin & insulin.

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Fat Loss Hormones

Leptin – leptin is a hormone produced by your fat cells that acts as a messenger between your body fat and your brain. When working properly, leptin works with your brain to regulate your appetite. As your body fat increases, leptin production increases and tells your body to increase metabolism and decrease appetite. As body fat decreases, leptin secretion decreases so the brain triggers an increase in appetite and decrease in metabolism. Unfortunately, leptin can quickly become disregulated with both crash dieting and weight gain, causing leptin resistance and impairing the brain’s ability to receive signals from leptin.

Cortisol – cortisol is a stress hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to physical, emotional or mental stress. Cortisol’s job is to prepare your body for the fight-or-flight emergency response. One of the ways it prepares your body is by making sure there is plenty of sugar (glucose) in your blood stream so you’re able to escape from the threat. Unfortunately, in this day & age, the threat is often a traffic jam, losing your keys or a fight with your spouse and no escape is necessary. Sure, you might see that as a good thing, but it means you’re left with unneeded sugar in your blood stream that has to be stored. Many people get frustrated with lack of fat loss results despite eating clean & managing blood sugar. They tend to overlook the stress effect. Cortisol will break down muscle glycogen or muscle tissue to provide sugar for the blood, regardless of your diet. Because of this, stress management is a critical part of fat loss.

Insulin – I’ll join the ranks of those who refer to insulin as the master fat loss hormone. It’s critically important. You can listen to an episode all about insulin here. The point of today’s episode is to show you that caring for your carb strategy isn’t enough if you want to achieve your health & fat loss potential. You can mess with insulin if you aren’t caring for cortisol, which is where most people pay little to no attention. Insulin is secreted by the pancreas in response to elevated blood sugar. Insulin’s job is to usher the blood sugar out of the blood to either provide immediate fuel for cells or to be stored for later use. The presence of insulin puts the body in storage mode. Because cortisol can increase blood sugar independent of diet, managing insulin is about both diet & lifestyle.

Definitely listen to the full episode for a conversation about what we can do, from a diet & lifestyle perspective, to help these hormones work in our favor! There’s a lot we can do!

Resources

The Golden Rules of Carbs & Fat Loss

Understanding Fat Loss

The Insulin Impact

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How To Get Motivated, Stay Motivated & Crush Your Goals

I know lots of people are struggling with motivation, focus, consistency and mindset. Those are the most common challenges people reach out for help with. Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to get motivated, how to stay motivated or how to stop making excuses and giving up. I totally get it, because for the longest time, even though I desperately wanted to lose weight, I wasn’t doing the work.

I created lots of plans and understood all the strategies, but I wasn’t doing the work. At least, I wasn’t doing the work consistently enough to get results.

I’d say things like,

I feel stuck.

I’m not motivated.

I can’t get my act together.

I’m out of control.

I’m in a downward spiral.

I fell off the wagon.

I’m such an all or nothing person.

I hear the same things every single day from you guys and I wanted to put this presentation together so you can easily access it whenever you need to get yourself in gear and do the work!

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The Motivation Manifesto

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