Author: womentowomen

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Over the years I’m sure I’ve lost over 100 pounds — the same 10 pounds, 10 times! And so many of my patients tell me the same thing, I wonder how many American women (and their daughters) are on a diet on any given day. We spend billions of dollars a year on diets and weight loss products, yet nearly two-thirds of us are overweight — a trend that’s steadily inching upwards along with our waistlines!

Never mind that all these weight loss efforts don’t work, we are putting ourselves through hell to get nowhere. I’ve seen women willing to sacrifice just about anything to lose weight – even their health and well-being. But when I tell women I have a solution for them that doesn’t involve suffering or a magical pill, many say, “Oh, come on, Marcelle, can I really lose weight the natural way?”

The answer, I assure you, is “Yes!” I wholeheartedly believe you can lose weight, and that you can do it naturally without starving yourself, without eating food that doesn’t resemble food, without gimmicks, drugs or fad diets. You can do it and create balance, health, and well-being in your life while you’re at it.

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Overcoming weight loss resistance

These are the systemic imbalances I see most often undermine weight loss efforts and create weight loss resistance:

• Hormonal
• Adrenal
• Thyroid
• Neurotransmitter

I’ve worked hard on this issue in my practice, and in over 25 years of clinical experience, I’ve developed a highly effective way to help women unravel the stubborn knot of issues surrounding unwanted excess weight. There are five essential areas to address:

1. Systemic imbalances
2. Raw materials (such as enough pure water and real, natural food that contains vitamins and minerals your body can use)
3. Exercise
4. Emotions
5. Restoration

Weight loss in one word:  balance

Think of your body like your home. When everything is running smoothly in my house, I can create delicious meals in a well-organized kitchen, I can entertain and enjoy my guests, I can feel the sunlight beaming through the windows, I feel at peace yet poised to resolve a crisis if one should arise, I feel spontaneous and generous.

Even my family seems to get along better when the house is in order. This is also true of our bodies. When all the major systems are in balance, we not only feel good, but our adrenal glands are able to protect us, our hormones relay their messages smoothly, our digestive system can adequately nourish us, and we can efficiently get rid of or “detoxify” the things we don’t need. All of our systems depend on one another and if one is out of balance, the others can suffer, making weight loss a miserable uphill battle.

Discovering if you have a systemic imbalance in your body may be the missing piece to your weight loss puzzle. Whether it’s hormonal imbalance, adrenal dysfunction, neurotransmitter, digestive, inflammatory, or detoxification system imbalance, correcting it is key to natural and lasting weight loss — and to your overall health. Because once your body is restored to its natural balance, excess weight will come off.

Getting the right raw materials — nutrients your body can put to good use

Most of us were raised to think that if we only ate less and exercised more, we could easily lose weight. I found out the hard way that the calories in/calories out concept just doesn’t work for everyone. When I was just 19, I joined Weight Watchers to lose weight and followed all the rules — counting calories religiously and exercising vigorously — but only lost a half pound! It wasn’t until years later, after learning that I was gluten-sensitive that I was able to solve my personal weight loss puzzle.

No doubt we’ll continue to hear that it all comes down to calories and will-power. But the reality is, if you eat 1,200 calories of junk versus 1,200 calories of balanced nutrition, the messages your body receives are drastically different — no matter how much you exercise. Make that a lifelong pattern and over time — no matter what the Twinkie diet guru says — it’s going to make a huge difference to your wellness and your waistline.

Avocado & Pear Dip

Adapted from The Core Balance Diet

• 2 fresh ripe avocados, peeled and mashed
• 1 fresh ripe pear, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 fresh green onions, white and green parts finely chopped

Mix all ingredients until well-combined, season to taste, and serve.

What’s more, you can have the discipline of a saint, but if you are sensitive to a certain food and continue to eat it — whether knowingly or unknowingly — you are perpetuating a whole cascade of negative messaging throughout your body that contributes further to weight gain and illness.

But all this is just the start of why relying on restricting calories to lose weight can get you into trouble down the road. Food is a form of information, so the kinds of calories you eat really do matter. Make them worthwhile and eat as well as you can 85% of the time. This leaves room to treat yourself every once in a while. Here’s how to be sure you get the right raw materials:

• Strive to eat whole, natural foods. Load up on vegetables and fruit, emphasize plant-based proteins like nuts and legumes, use whole grains in moderation rather than refined flours and sugars, and select high-quality meat and fish — the less processed the better.
• Help your metabolism operate at full capacity with a high-quality multivitamin/mineral complex and a combination of nutrients to specifically support your metabolism and burn fat. This micronutrient and phytonutrient support will help ensure that your cellular pathways are continually supplied to function well each day.
• Explore herbal formulas to help you get to the bottom of your weight loss resistance. If you have tried everything to lose weight, you may have a systemic imbalance blocking you from your best natural weight. Look into targeted phytotherapeutic herbs to bring your body back into balance.
• Drink plenty of filtered spring water, mineral water, or freshly brewed or iced herbal tea or green tea each day, to help flush any built-up “clutter” from your system.

Exercise in any way that feels good to you

Just as supplying your body with the right raw materials helps weight loss efforts and benefits overall health and longevity, so does exercise – but there’s no need to knock yourself dead to get results. My patients are so sick and tired of hearing they should join a gym or make time every day for aerobic exercise.

For more information, see our articles on healthy weight, metabolism, and hunger hormones.

I just have two guidelines for exercise: try to fit some in four times a week and for goodness sake, do something you love to do! There are so many ways to exercise — some women I know fold exercise into their daily routines by biking or walking to work or playing with their children, while others prefer to set a specific time aside from their busy lives to exercise. Whether you go dancing with your partner, climb trails with your kids, train at the gym, attend a yoga class, or simply take a walk with your dog, exercise is a wonderful component to natural weight loss and essential for keeping it off.

For those who are already in the habit, consider bursting — taking your heart rate way up with increased physical exertion — a few times throughout your workout to get maximum benefits.

Sound nutrition combined with regular physical activity automatically keeps our body weight at a healthy set point: a predetermined body fat ratio within a 10–15-pound range. Your metabolism is designed to vigorously defend your set point by speeding up or slowing down if its thresholds are threatened.

Pay homage to your past and present emotional health

We often subconsciously equate food with love, and turn to the warmth of a hot meal or a lift from something sweet. I’ve seen hundreds of women whose weight loss issues stem back to childhood relationships with food and the family members that served it. These layers run deep, and may very well change the neurochemistry of the brain if unhealthy connections between food and love are reinforced over the years. This issue is so profound that I’ve written several articles about emotional eating, with suggestions to help you move past these blocks.

Another important piece to the natural weight loss puzzle is having adequate support. I’ve heard so many success stories from women who start their new weight loss program with a friend. They share recipe ideas, talk about what works and what doesn’t, and find encouragement when they need it. And it helps to know someone is there for you, someone who not only knows how to listen, but also who has the experience and training to help you with your personal weight loss challenges.

Restoration — refill your cup daily!

The fast-paced lifestyles women lead these days offer us very little down time. This can be a set-up for weight gain, even for those of us who love being on the go. We all need between six and eight hours of sleep every night to heal from the stress of the day. The reason this matters for natural weight loss has much to do with your adrenal glands. Please take the time to read our many articles about your adrenal health.

Start your transformation now

You don’t have to wait until you lose weight to alter the way you look and feel. If you can, treat yourself to a couple new pieces of clothing — they don’t have to be big-ticket items — just things that make you feel wonderful the moment you put them on.

Give away any clothing that doesn’t make you feel good. Consider a trip to the hair salon or a restorative massage or retreat.

The better you feel, the more likely you are to stick with your natural weight loss plan. Even such small changes can provide the momentum you need to make bigger ones!

Your body needs to feel safe — emotionally and physically — in order to shed the extra padding it’s using to “protect” itself. Imbalanced adrenal glands (the glands involved in our fight or flight response, hormonal balance, blood sugar, and more) are a physical effect of our high-stress lives. I’m the first to admit it’s difficult to slow down, to sleep, and restore ourselves the way we are meant to, and this means stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol run high, putting our adrenal glands in constant crisis mode. When stress hormones are high, the body feels anything but safe, and holds onto to fat in preparation for crisis.

Restoration is a very personal thing. What refills your cup may very well drain that of your friend or sister. Make a list of the things that help you feel more rested, relaxed, and at peace in your life, and try to practice at least one thing on your list every day. Naps count!

Come home to your body

Over the years I’ve learned that trying to apply the same old equation to every situation usually ends with women feeling badly about themselves. I sincerely believe that if women understand how to support the unique needs of their bodies, there should be no hindrance to naturally maintaining a healthy weight throughout their lives.

I hope you can get off the dieting merry-go-round and embrace our natural solution to weight loss. Above all, I encourage you to accept yourself for who you are right now — not the woman you once were or the one you hope to be. No matter what the scale says, let yourself be beautiful today!

It’s hot, and you’re thirsty, and if you are like most Americans the first drink you reach for will be a soda pop — a carbonated soft drink. If you’re worried about your sugar or caloric intake, your choice will likely be a diet soda. Companies have spent billions of dollars convincing all of us that diet soda is the healthier, lighter choice — that all we have to lose is the calories, ergo the weight. And since so many of us are struggling with weight gain, who can blame us if diet soda seems like a dream come true?

But in my experience, it’s actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing, fooling women into thinking they are doing something good for their bodies when they are actually sabotaging their own best efforts.

Diet soda may not have the sugar or calories of regular soda, but it’s chock-full of other health-draining chemicals, like caffeine, artificial sweeteners, sodium and phosphoric acid. This is even more concerning when parents give their growing — and chemically vulnerable — children diet soda in a noble effort to avoid sugar.

And while I admit that diet soda may have its uses in the short term — particularly if you are dealing with a sugar addiction — I encourage you to resist it as your default beverage, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Different studies have been flying around on this subject, but a majority show that diet soda may actually set you up to gain even more weight.

If you really want to do something good for your body and your BMI, exchange that can of diet soda for a cool glass of filtered water. If this sounds like deprivation to you, I can sympathize. Let’s discuss diet soda and how you can begin to give it less of a starring role in your nutrition.

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America’s love of soda

Americans buy and consume a tremendous amount of soda. According to Beverage Digest, overall sales of soda (sugar and diet) were 10.2 billion cases in 2005; that rounds out to be about 828 eight-ounce servings a year (or 2-½ servings per day) for every man woman and child. And that number is actually down from 849 last year, mostly due to the rise in energy drinks — which come with their own concerns. As a population, soda is our mainstay: caloric, non-caloric and “reduced-calorie”. Stand in the soda aisle of the supermarket and just try to count all the varieties — it’s staggering.

A regular 12-ounce soda contains the equivalent of nine teaspoons of sugar, usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Imagine drinking a 12-ounce glass of iced tea with nine teaspoons of sugar stirred into it, or eating nine teaspoons of sugar, one after another? That’s essentially what people do when they drink a sugared soda. It is liquid candy, ruthlessly advertised and manufactured to give our jaded taste buds an even sweeter sensation.

Is it any wonder that we are gaining unprecedented amounts of weight and even our children are developing type 2 diabetes? We have the dubious distinction of being the most overweight of all economically developed nations. With statistics like these, who wouldn’t believe that choosing a diet soda is the healthier choice? But consider this: we are also the number-one consumer of artificial sweeteners in the world.

No one can deny that a diet soda has fewer calories than a regular soda. If you get a disproportionate amount of your daily caloric intake from soda and then you switch to diet soda, you may lose weight. But I emphasize the word may, because it appears that artificial sweeteners can actually set us up to gain more weight.

The myth of artificial sweeteners and weight loss

There are many different views in this matter, but a host of scientists agree that artificial sweeteners may interact with our body’s sense of sugar satisfaction.

Some experts are now exploring the possibility that artificial sweeteners confuse our taste buds and all those brain measures of satiety upon which we base what we eat. Specifically, Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have recently completed compilations of data that provided surprising results.

Fowler and her team studied more than 1500 people between the ages of 25 and 64, looking at whether each consumed regular or diet soft drinks. It was no surprise to find a correlation between the daily consumption of multiple cans of all soft drinks and obesity — which they did. But, as Fowler noted, “What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks; their risk of obesity was even higher” [than that of those drinking regular soft drinks]. In fact, Fowler found that for each can of diet soft drink consumed per day, the risk of obesity went up by 41%.

Other studies have found different variations, but a distinct pattern is emerging. Certain data indicate that the body learns to predict caloric intake by the taste and texture of certain foods. When artificial sweeteners are introduced into the mix, our body sends the appropriate sweet signals to the brain but never delivers the sugar punch.

The diet soda trade-off game

No expert is presuming that the diet sodas themselves are making people gain weight. But there does seem to be some connection, and what is being further explored is the idea that by offering our tastes buds something that seems sweet, and seems to signal other parts of our bodies that glucose sugars are on the way, we set ourselves up for cravings — to which we eventually and often unknowingly, give in. In other words, consuming artificial sweeteners that seem real just might be setting us up to eat more later on.

This supposition has been borne out in a study conducted on rats at Purdue University. Professors Terry Davidson and Susan Swithers found that rats that were fed artificial sweeteners consistently ate more than the group fed high-calorie sweeteners.

Of course, there’s also the possibility of our complicity in this trade-off, something Fowler and other researchers readily acknowledge. If we cut 150 calories here by opting for the diet soda instead of the sugared one, we may give ourselves permission for a little splurge along the way. (Think about how many times you’ve witnessed someone putting Sweet’n’Low in their coffee while tucking into an extravagant dessert.)

What’s more, the 150 calories and nine teaspoons of sugar you forego in a diet soda are replaced with a host of other additives enlisted to make the beverage taste good and still provide a boost.

The extras you get — and really don’t want

With diet drinks, not only do you miss out on any nutrients provided by the real sugars your body might find useful if consumed in reasonable quantities, you also get a laundry list of suspicious ingredients that work against your body’s effort to maintain healthy balance.

Foremost among these is caffeine. Many of the diet drinks are cola-based or otherwise have caffeine added. It’s part of the mix created by manufacturers to make soft drinks — particularly diet soft drinks — seem more substantial. Yes, it gives you a sugar-like “boost”, or seems to, but that caffeine buzz really isn’t giving your body anything it needs. And the complications of caffeine consumption and addiction are legion, with fatigue, chronic anxiety, insomnia, and worsening symptoms of hormonal imbalance topping the list.

Additionally, caffeine is a diuretic, so while you may be thinking that a diet soda quenches your thirst and helps keep you hydrated, the opposite is true. Diet soda often contains sodium, which exacerbates thirst, while the caffeine causes you to lose fluid.

All carbonated sodas also contain calcium-leaching phosphoric acid, and so much acid in your system can tilt your pH balance to an unhealthy level. Healthy detoxification takes place in a slightly alkaline environment. Too much acidity will sabotage the detox process.

If you think I’m being an alarmist, try this experiment: Fill a glass with soda, diet or regular, and drop a nail into the glass. Watch it over the course of an hour or two. You’ll find that the soda eats away at the nail in a surprisingly short amount of time. Now think of what it can do to living stomach tissue!

In Eastern medicine, overconsumption of soda — particularly diet soda — is considered to be highly corrosive to the GI tract and the root of many digestive disorders. This is particularly troubling to me when it comes to children, because their bodies are still maturing.

When is diet soda okay?

At my practice, I sanction the short-term consumption of diet soda when a patient is used to drinking several sugared sodas a day and has a real sugar addiction. The only other scenarios in which I find soda drinking to be the lesser of two evils is when you are traveling in areas where the drinking water is unsafe or when you are sick to your stomach. The old wives tale rings true for some: Coke and ginger ale do help soothe nausea.

In the case of sugar addiction, weaning off of sugar with the help of diet soda and other artificial sweeteners can really help — but you may still have to deal with an addiction to caffeine. This is a short-term solution; my ultimate goal is to switch all my patients over to water and decaffeinated herbal teas as their go-to beverages of choice.

Another useful substitute, particularly for children, is to dilute 1–2 ounces of fruit juice with carbonated mineral water, slowly decreasing the amount of fruit juice. Weaning yourself and your family from soda is really weaning them from the taste of sweet. No one is discounting how difficult this can be, but substituting diet soda won’t do the trick. It actually encourages the taste for sweet! Sugar itself is a fact of life — it runs all living things. But just as I recommend eating foods that closely resemble their original form, I also encourage you to drink naturally sweetened beverages — and always in moderation.

Xylitol — a good alternative

My medical experience shows without a doubt that naturally occurring sugars are better choices than refined sugar and artificial sweeteners because they are metabolized. I am very enthusiastic about the polyalcohol sugar xylitol, also called wood sugar or birch sugar. It has long been used in Europe and Asia as a popular sweetener, and is popular with diabetics. Many sugarless gums are sweetened with xylitol because it helps prevent tooth decay and, perhaps, bone loss (There is a study in Finland looking at xylitol as a preventative for osteoporosis). Xylitol has about half the calories of sugar (3 calories per teaspoon) but it tastes sweeter, so you’ll use less. However, it doesn’t tweak the insulin receptors and contains some nutritive qualities — much like maple syrup.

I also use stevia, but some of my patients have found they don’t like the taste. The point is, there are other healthy alternatives out there. Opt for a natural sweetener and you may find you have fewer cravings!

On the other hand, if you are like so many women and you simply can’t live without diet soda, have you thought of asking yourself why?

Breaking the diet soda habit

If you hardly ever drink soda or sweeten your beverages, I think it is fine — even preferable — to use real sugar or drink the occasional Coke. This can even be therapeutic if you have an upset stomach. If you must allow your children to have the occasional soda, I think “the real thing” is best here, too.

But, if you find you have a habit of reaching for a diet drink, you could be driven by the caffeine, or it could be a behavioral habit, the sort of thing where grabbing that soda is what you do when you stop to gas-up the car or take a break from work. But the physiological addiction to caffeine is very real, and habits can feed one another.

I encourage you to see your choice of beverages as an opportunity to tune in to your body. Chances are, if you have any degree of dependency on sugared or diet drinks, your body is sending you mixed signals and you react with mixed responses. So, the next time you reach for a soda, take a moment and think first: What can I drink to best serve my body’s needs?

It may be time to make a transition to the best of all possible drinks: water. With the hectic schedule so many of us keep, it’s possible that when you think you want a diet soda or sugary drink (or for that matter, an alcoholic beverage), you are simply thirsty.

Sometimes we forget how refreshing and satisfying a glass of cool water can be, particularly if your system is accustomed to drinks with all sorts of other ingredients. Water is also the key to weight loss. It not only hydrates all of the body’s systems, but it cleanses the body of toxins. (In fact, it’s probably flushing out some of the things left over from processing ingested artificial sweeteners!)

Water may not be all your body’s asking for when you reach for that diet drink. Are you hungry? Hungry is okay — we all need to eat. Even if you are trying to lose weight or otherwise monitoring your calorie intake, when you are hungry a healthy body will tell you so, and you should not be afraid to listen. Many of my patients are surprised to find that when they eat more of the right foods, they lose weight.

The bad, the better, the best — and balance

Here are a few strategies toward more healthful choices:

1. One of the most fundamental strategies you can take to help your body deal with the demands placed on it by diet soda is to take a daily multivitamin, enriched with calcium, magnesium and essential fatty acids. Recognize that if you are trying to lose weight and eat a balanced diet, a multivitamin will serve you tremendously in your efforts. In modern life it is practically impossible to eat sufficient food to get the nutrients you need without overloading on calories — unless you happen to be a long-distance runner by profession or avocation. Most important, any weight loss you do achieve will cause you to release toxins stored in body fat, so you need to be sure to get the balancing vitamins and stay well-hydrated to wash those toxins away.
2. Look for products sweetened with what are called sugar alcohols, particularly xylitol.
3. Don’t skip meals and substitute a diet soda. It just doesn’t make any sense. You run the risk of eating more later on, and you really haven’t given your body any of the nutrients it needs.
4. Consider delving further into when and why you turn to diet or caffeinated drinks. What else is going on in your life? Are there factors driving your dietary choices that have nothing to do with what you eat? Are you tired or stressed out? Do you habitually pair drinking soda with some other activity? Are you eating or drinking sodas because you’re bored? For purely social reasons? One sure way to find answers to these questions is to try going without diet drinks and caffeine for a couple weeks, while tracking how you feel.
5. Drink at least eight 8-oz glasses of filtered water per day — sparkling or “still”, but at least half should be still. Try drinking half your body weight in pounds, but in ounces of water (if you aren’t extremely overweight). A 140-pound woman would drink 70 ounces of filtered water per day for weight loss. After a few days, you may find that with more water on board your craving for diet soda softens and slips away.

Consider what diet really means

The word “diet” means what constitutes the usual food and drink of a person or animal. For me, the most important part of that sentence is “usual” — not “diet”.  To sustain a healthy weight and a healthy body, you need to support your body’s natural balance. Chemicals and caffeine don’t do this, no matter what the soda manufacturers tell you.

If you find that you like the occasional sugared or diet soda, don’t be too hard on yourself. Try following the 80/20 rule: if you’re healthy and making smart choices most of the time, the occasional indulgence is perfectly fine. We all do the best we can for ourselves and families; the key is to make the “best” the “usual” — and avoid sodas as part of your daily routine. So take a few steps away from the habit of diet soda and see how you feel. Have a glass of cool clear water, then see if you really want that soda. Your vibrant health may be all the reward you need.