Category: Healthy Weight

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

There are people in the world who don’t have to work at staying thin and trim, and there are people in the world who do. For those in the latter category, the battle of the bulge can feel like a nemesis impacting them on many levels, physically and emotionally. Everywhere we turn we see advertisements, infomercials, and even reality television shows telling us that we can lose weight, and all we have to do is stop eating so much and exercise more. In fact, health practitioners relay this information to their patients every day, and send them on their way with a “prescription” for what sounds like a simple solution. But it’s not.

There are many weight loss programs out there, all offering different methods and techniques to help people lose weight. I know, I joined Weight Watchers when I was 19. I followed the program to the letter, weighing and measuring every single bite of food I consumed. I exercised every day, I never cheated, and each time I got on the scale, I was devastated to see I had only lost a half pound, or worse – gained weight. It wasn’t Weight Watchers, it was me. I had weight loss resistance.

Weight loss resistance occurs when a woman has a physiologic/metabolic imbalance that makes losing weight and keeping it off extremely challenging, even when she puts forth her best efforts. It may be a preexisting condition or a new development, but until it’s addressed, no amount of working out at the gym will fix it.

This condition can be very frustrating for women. I talk to women every day in my practice who just don’t understand why they can’t lose weight, and I tell them what I know: we can fix that, and not only will the pounds come off, but they will stay off with the right daily efforts.

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Is weight loss resistance genetic?

Research shows that people metabolize fat differently. That’s why some people can eat a lot of food and never gain an ounce, and others barely eat and gain a pound or more. Genetics can play a role, and studies are in progress to help us understand more about that. But if genes do play a role, then that means we all benefit from different types of food and exercise when it comes to weight loss, to support our personal genetic makeup. For more information on genetics and weight, please read our articles, “Set Point Weight – Fact Or Fiction?” and “Reprogram Your Genes and Cells For Healthy Weight.”

We have all heard of so many different diet and exercise plans to help us lose weight, I’m sure more are being invented right now! But there are healthy ways to reduce — including lower-fat diets, Mediterranean style diets, higher protein diets, low-dairy diets, and many other choices — to optimize metabolism. The same holds true for exercise. Some people benefit from endurance-style exercise, others from strength training, and others still from things like yoga and Pilates. The good news is, regardless of your genetic makeup, there are many dietary and lifestyle choices that can increase your ability to lose weight and keep it off.

Although society tends to group everyone into the same category when it comes to health and fitness, we are all individual, and different things work for different people. It is not just our genetic makeup, but also our emotional makeup, and our lifestyle and environmental factors that play roles too. It takes time to figure out what is at the core of weight loss issues, and that is what we do in functional medicine – we get to the bottom of it so it can be corrected.

Core systemic imbalances and weight loss resistance

There are six core systemic imbalances that contribute to weight loss resistance in women. We may see a combination of them, but one usually becomes prominent as we investigate what is keeping a woman from losing weight. They are:

•  Hormonal imbalance (including thyroid dysfunction)
•  Adrenal imbalance (chronic stress)
•  Neurotransmitter imbalance
•  Digestive imbalance
•  Systemic inflammation
•  Impaired detoxification

For more information, read our numerous articles on above topics.

When we determine the primary cause of weight loss resistance, we offer the following measures to not only jump start, but to sustain weight loss and then maintenance regimes.

• Know your unique physiology. Work with a functional medicine practitioner to identify any metabolic imbalances, and create a nutrition and exercise plan unique to your system.

• Use herbs and supplements. When weight loss resistance is caused by hormonal imbalance, stress imbalance, and neurotransmitter imbalance, supportive herbs and supplements may help rebalance your metabolism and assist with weight loss. The active compounds and micronutrients found in herbs and supplements can go to work at the cellular level, helping you from the inside out. Women to Women offers many high-quality, pharmaceutical grade supplements to enhance your health.

• Practice healthy eating. Eating three well-balanced meals and two snacks each day at regular intervals will help regulate your metabolism. Fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, as well as lean protein such as organic meats, fish, nuts and legumes, offer the best nutritional support. Since our lives are busy, having a snack shake made of whey protein and almond milk is a healthy alternative. Our Whey Protein helps support metabolism and satisfy cravings!

• Sometimes we need more than food to get all of the vitamins and nutrients we need, especially when trying to lose weight. Chromium, zinc, vitamin C, D3, and the B vitamins are essential for a healthy metabolism. A high quality, pharmaceutical-grade multivitamin-mineral complex will support and enhance weight-loss efforts. Women to Women offers many high-quality, pharmaceutical grade supplements to enhance your health.

• Exercise. Even if you have tried to exercise and not had too much success, finding the right type of exercise is key. It should not only move your body, but it should be enjoyable. Regular exercise is an integral part to good health and it will re-set your metabolism and help you overcome weight loss resistance.

• Rest, restore, and sleep. Sleep is vital to not only restore metabolism, but help all of the systems in our body function properly. Sleep allows our body to repair itself, regenerate, and helps regulate our hunger mechanism – a very important part of weight loss! There are studies which actually show that people, who sleep less, eat more. We suggest trying to sleep for eight hours each night between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., can make all the difference.

• Seek support. Whether you believe “misery loves company” or “it takes a village” or even “great minds think alike” – finding other people who are on a similar journey can go a long way in helping you feel good, stay encouraged, and achieve success.

Solving the weight loss puzzle

Weight loss resistance can cause a lot of emotional turmoil. The struggle is real, and you may feel disheartened, discouraged, angry, sad, or even guilty. But these feelings will not help solve the mystery as to why you cannot lose weight. It’s easy to say just let those feelings go, but you will find when you turn them around into hope, belief, enthusiasm, and renew your efforts, you can find the underlying cause, address it, and the weight will come off. Remember, it’s not your fault! We can work together to fix it.

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

In all my years as a health provider for women, I think I can count on one hand the number of women for whom emotions played absolutely no part in their relationship with food. Our emotions and how we eat (and when and what) are so intertwined that I think it is virtually impossible for a woman to get healthy — and, eventually, to lose weight — without first addressing her emotional attachment to food.

Each day I hear all kinds of stories about women’s emotional relationship to food. For many of my patients, these memories, particularly the early ones, are fond ones: the ice cream truck on a hot summer day, traditional holiday meals celebrated with family. These stories underscore how food can be used to make us feel comforted, connected and loved. In many families food is the only currency of love, a legacy many women unwittingly pass on to their own daughters and sons.

Or just as often, the opposite may occur. Mealtimes may have been excruciating exercises in power or parental control. How many children sit down to a meal only to hear, “I have a bone to pick with you?” How many are forced to sit at the table until they eat everything on their plate? Who wouldn’t eventually lose their appetite after being fed a regular diet of criticism and shame every evening?

As women move into their adolescence, stories often morph into tales of deprivation and triumph over food, the perceived enemy. One of my patients describes how she and her friends ate one meal a day all through their senior year in high school, squeezing each other’s hands in support, so they could fit into tiny little prom dresses in June. Another remembers coming home and lambasting herself if she ate more than half a yogurt container for lunch. Often adolescence for girls is the entry into what may become a lifetime of self-loathing, all for wanting and needing to do something that is a vital necessity — eat!

Our society has few rituals in place to make teen-aged girls feel comfortable with their emerging curves and hormonal surges. As a result, a girl’s burgeoning body, her promise of fertility and womanhood, can feel threatening—more so to herself and her parents than anyone else. And if a woman never finds a way to feel comfortable with her grown-up shape, either through romantic love or emotional work, this discomfort parlays into an ongoing struggle with food and self-esteem.

Eating disorders aren’t the exclusive domain of young women. In their book, Runaway Eating, Cynthia Bulik and Nadine Taylor help clarify why huge numbers of women in their 40’s and early 50’s now find themselves coping with midlife stress through unhealthful eating patterns, including binge eating, yo-yo dieting, calorie restriction and compulsive exercise. While a woman at this age may not consider herself anorexic because she eats regularly, her obsession with maintaining control (and not just of her food intake) can be just as destructive. Emotional attachment to ritualized denial — of food, of pleasure, of money, of rest, of sex — is anorexia in another guise. It is an effort to erase a part of yourself or your life that weakens your sense of control.

And women aren’t the only ones doing the erasing. Just look at what has happened to dress sizes in the past 40 years — for those of you who still sew, you know your pattern is really a “12” even though designers are sewing size “6” labels into your clothes these days. And what’s with size “0,” “00” and “000” anyway? Do women need to fully disappear to be truly attractive?

At least 80% of the patients I see have some form of emotional issues with food — and what I’ve learned over the years is that most of them grew up in dysfunctional families. If you see yourself among the ranks of these women, it may reassure you that you don’t have to suffer alone — you are part of a wide continuum, at either end of which lie extreme over-eaters and under-eaters — and just by reading this article you are taking another step toward healing.

So now that you know that age has nothing to do with an emotional attachment to food, let me assure you that it has nothing to do with your level of education or socioeconomic bracket, either. What does vary among emotional eaters is how an individual has learned to respond to stress. Some women become hyper-responsible or obsessive-compulsive, and use food as a form of control over themselves or others. Others are sensate types and cope by taking it all in, learning to soothe and stuff their feelings with food. In every case, though, what we’re talking about is preoccupying yourself with food to prevent yourself from feeling unwanted feelings — including but not limited to the big ones: pain, despair, and shame.

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

We go through periods of time in our lives when the demands are greater and the stress load is heavier. Regardless of the reasons – illness, relationship difficulties, work struggles, caring for an aging parent or ailing child – there can be a physical impact. We may turn to food for comfort, or we may not nourish ourselves adequately. During times of stress there are actual physiological changes that happen in our bodies, one of which is weight gain. It may not happen overnight, but if we do not pay attention to our body’s needs, over time we may notice we are putting on the pounds.

Our adrenal glands govern our stress response, by secreting hormones relative to our stress levels. They actually help control many hormonal cycles and functions in our body. When the adrenal glands are overworked, the body prepares for disaster, by storing fat and calories. We crave foods, we lose precious energy, and we gain weight. So how can we keep the heavier stress load from equaling heavier bodies?

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How stress becomes physical

For millions of years, humans were forced to protect themselves from environmental factors. From the earliest days of dinosaurs and cavemen, nature has proven its ability to put fear in human beings. Life and death circumstances have evolved around the ability to understand danger, and seek protection and survival. If you were being chased by a predator, your adrenal glands initiated a “fight or flight” response, releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the body. These hormones provided extra physical energy and strength from stored carbohydrates and fats.

While most of our stressors are not the same a our earliest ancestors, the body’s natural course of evolution has maintained this original fight-or-flight stress response. But whether we are being physically threatened or not, with any increased stress our body looks to its stored fuel, and then replenishes it when used. Also, with increased levels of cortisol, our body also does not respond as well to leptin, the hormone that makes us feel full, so we eat more.

Modern-day stress may be more psychological than physiological, but it is also more constant. Many of us face chronic stress as a way of life, which means we have consistently elevated levels of cortisol. Now the body thinks it continually needs extra fuel, and typically stores that as fat around the abdomen, or as it’s commonly referred to, the old “spare tire.”

Belly fat: a common sign of adrenal fatigue

Adrenal imbalance causes a number of issues, including an expanded waistline. The science behind it is quite interesting. Normally when we feel begin to feel hungry, our blood sugar drops and the brain sends a message to the adrenal glands to release cortisol. Cortisol activates glucose, fats, and amino acids to keep our body fueled with energy until we eat. Cortisol maintains blood sugar levels, and insulin helps our cells absorb glucose. When we have longterm stress, both insulin and cortisol remain elevated in the blood, and the extra glucose is stored as fat–mostly in the abdomen.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Scientists have discovered that fat cells actually have special receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, and there are more of these receptors in our abdominal fat cells than anywhere else in our bodies! In addition, scientists have shown that belly fat is actually an active tissue, acting as an endocrine organ that responds to the stress response by actually welcoming more fat to be deposited! This is an ongoing cycle until we take steps to correct this adrenal imbalance. How do we do that?

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

We all know that our hair color, eye color, freckles and personality traits and more are inherited from our parents. Could this be true about our weight? Scientists long believed that set point – which is our body to fat ratio within a 10-15 pound weight range – was inherited. It’s also important to remember that our bodies like stability – so our metabolisms may speed up or slow down as we move to the outer limits of our set point weight.

Over the past twenty years, new studies are showing that set point isn’t entirely unchanging and predestined. In 2010, German scientists published an article stating “Searching for the genetic background of excess weight gain in a world of abundance is misleading since the possible biological control is widely overshadowed by the effect of the environment.” And here’s the good news – environment includes our eating habits and lifestyle choices.

Nutrigenomics is a new and emerging field of research that investigates the effects nutrients has on our genes in both disease and health scenarios. Finally! There’s research which is showing how our food intake affects us! Your food choice not only talks to your jeans…but your GENES. The information our genes receive from our food can be a powerful influence on them to respond in ways that promote good health and potentially prevent disease.

Our genes receive messages from our nutritional choices and also our pattern of emotions. Creating a food plan full of nutrient rich foods from all food groups is a good first step. Limiting processed foods, sugar and gluten which are known inflammatory creating substances and eating regularly to keep blood sugar stable all send good messages.

Dr. Candace Pert, author of The Molecules of Emotion, talks about the sources of negative emotions to reduce the flow of negative messages being sent to our genes and cells. Trauma from our past can be a source of daily sadness and anger. With awareness, these messages can be changed. I’ve seen women have remarkable changes when they are.

Influencing your set point doesn’t happen all at once. Insuring that your nutritional needs are met, your emotional health is recognized, your stress levels are addressed as well as maintaining healthy stress levels will all help create the balance needed.

Read more in-depth about this topic in our article, “Reprogram Your Genes And Cells For Healthy Weight.”

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by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Belly fat, that stubborn ring around your middle, seemingly creeps up out of nowhere and seems resistant to traditional diet and exercise. Some women will cut calories and may lose inches in other parts of their bodies – but that oh-so-stubborn belly fat remains. Other women report taking on targeted and challenging exercise routines and are able to sculpt shoulders, arms and legs beautifully – yet report no change in their midsection – which can be very frustrating. There is, however, a way to get rid of belly fat forever – with a tried and true approach.

Let’s start by understanding the causes of belly fat. Like most issues, it’s important to remember that there might be more than one issue contributing to your newfound apple shape.

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The most common culprits are:

Adrenal Imbalance – when our adrenals are constantly being engaged due to chronic stress – cortisol and adrenaline are continually flooding our bodies – keeping us in a continued state of preparedness for ‘flight or fight’. When this happens, our bodies hold onto extra calories and our appetite can increase to help us refuel. These calories end up being stored as belly fat. Some women don’t even increase their calories and still end up with belly fat. Click here to take our Adrenal Health Assessment.

Insulin resistance – continued spikes and dips in blood sugar, along with high intake of sugars and carbohydrates, creates a scenario in which your cells no longer respond to insulin. Insulin resistance contributes to increased blood sugar and quick conversion of sugar to fat. The best place to store this fat? Your belly.

Imbalanced sex hormones – many women during their perimenopausal years will experience hormonal shifts as estrogen production slows. Our bodies are pretty amazing and complex – during times of hormone imbalances, our body favors belly fat because its programmed to preserve fertility as long as possible. Belly fat can actually produce estrogen! Its no surprise then that when estrogen production from the ovaries slows, the body compensates. Sex hormone imbalances are also negatively affected when cortisol and insulin are out of balance.

It may seem as though your bodies’ protective measures might just be working against you. I’ve successfully worked with thousands of women to reduce belly fat – here’s the approach I recommend:

• Practice good stress management. This is different for everyone – it could mean asking for extra help, meditation, journaling, planning time every day for self care, asking for help, and even learning to say “no.” For some women, it could also mean connecting with friends every day, being outside for a few minutes everyday, or just breathing – deep breaths – several times a day. For other women, turning away from the constant flow of electronic information for a period of time every day is helpful. For others, talking with a medical or mental health professional might be helpful. Think about what would help keep your stress in check.

• Address your insulin resistance – its not too soon to start. I find that women who make dietary changes notice great changes in energy, clarity and a change in their belly fat faster. The first step is eat regularly – breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack and dinner. Keep your carbohydrate count to 16 grams at meals and 7 per snack. One third cup of rice or ½ sweet potato are great choices to accompany your meal. One-half of an apple with nut butter is a good, balanced snack. It is important to remember that carbs are good for you and shouldn’t be eliminated from your diet. The goal here is to lower carbohydrate intake for more stable blood sugar.

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN, NP

It is almost impossible to be on the internet now without pop-up advertisements and click-here links that appear out of nowhere. They claim miracle weight-loss, or get-fit fast techniques that sound effortless, and I often wonder, is that possible?  I have had years of medical practice and nutritional training, but still I wonder, have they found the secret?  Can I really boost my metabolism overnight and lose 20 pounds in two weeks? Unfortunately the answer is no, at least for now. The only way to truly balance metabolism, lose weight, and get fit is by changing our lifestyle on a daily basis, and understanding how to achieve great results in a natural and healthy way. This is something humans have been working on for quite some time.

600 million years of evolution is a long time to build bodies able to endure famines and feasts, survive plagues and disease, and live longer, healthier lives. Our bodies are predisposed to certain things, including our shape, size, and weight. But in spite of evolution, we do have some control over how much we weigh. By understanding our metabolism we can make some adjustments that can change things for the better, slim our waistlines and improve our overall health.

In a nutshell, metabolism is a chemical process that occurs in all living things to maintain life. It is divided into two categories. Anabolism, which is a series of chemical reactions to build up molecules by using energy, and catabolism, which is the breakdown of molecules to obtain energy.

Anabolism is like a builder that uses certain hormones to create a finished product – such as more muscle mass, or stronger bones. Some well-known anabolic hormones include insulin, estrogen, testosterone, and human growth hormone.

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Catabolism is like a processor that uses certain biochemical processes to provide energy, so our body can actually move around. Some of these processes include breaking down proteins into amino acids to make glucose (blood sugar), nucleic acids which transmit our genetic information, and carbohydrates, which help fuel our body.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy used by these two categories when a person is at rest. It measures how much energy is used to keep the body functioning — circulation, brain, breathing, body temperature, and other processes, and accounts for more than half of the calories burned each day.

How does all of this affect our weight? The scientific formula is catabolism (the amount of energy we use), minus anabolism (the amount of energy we make), equals our body weight. If we produce more energy than we use, we will store that extra energy in the form of fat.

Fat cells by nature, are inactive and do not use much energy. If they are not used, their storage contributes to a slower metabolism and excess body weight. To improve our metabolism, we not only need to move more, we need to ensure proper and adequate nutrition. When we eat, our body uses energy to digest and absorb nutrients, so the process is actually a cycle. Energy is needed to function, eating and movement use energy, requiring the need for more energy to keep functioning. In this process, raw materials are broken down, new molecules are made, heat and metabolic waste are generated, energy is used, toxins and unusable materials are excreted, and extra fat is stored for later use.

This explains the need for healthy foods and adequate exercise to process energy, remove wastes, and keep fat storage to a minimum. But remember we are all different, and some women do indeed have weight loss resistance, which means they eat well, exercise regularly and still are not able to lose weight. If this is you – read our article on weight loss resistance.

How metabolism rates are determined varies from person to person. We aren’t sure why that is, but Dr. Mark Hyman in his book, Ultra-metabolism, explains that metabolism depends largely on mitochondria, or little powerhouses inside our cells that help generate energy. Dr. Hyman describes how the rate at which these mitochondria transform food and oxygen into energy is dependent on several things – including genetics, hormones, age, and body composition.

Everybody is different, but everyone can improve his or her metabolism, regardless of age, weight, or fitness level. There is no magic cure, or quick and easy method. To increase metabolism we need good, old-fashioned effort and a positive attitude. I have often said that the success of our efforts is based in our own belief that we can achieve something, and the choices we make to get there. There is a unique recipe for each of us to regulate our metabolism, and with a realistic approach and natural support, we can do it.

What are the nutrients for a healthy metabolism?

Proteins – Nuts, soy, fish, legumes, lean meats and eggs.

Complex carbohydrates – Unrefined, natural products including whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, and no refined sugars or processed foods.

Healthy fats – Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids including fish, eggs, and organic dairy. Omega-3 supplements are also a good way to receive this important nutrient.

Other vitamins, minerals, and enzymes – Important ones to help support metabolic function include B vitamins, green tea, magnesium citrate, D-ribose, chromium picolinate, alpha-lipoic acid, acetyl-L-carnitine, NADH (a coenzyme found in all living cells), capsicum (paprika, chili and cayenne peppers), cinnamon, and turmeric.

What kind of a lifestyle supports a healthy metabolism

Nutritious eating – Follow a plant-based, nutrient-dense, low-glycemic (appropriate blood sugar) diet, along with taking a high-quality multivitamin and other supplements, such as the ones formulated for Women to Women, as needed.

Time your meals – Eating breakfast is a surefire way to jumpstart metabolism. It helps regulate blood sugar both after we wake and throughout the day. Smaller meals that include protein, eaten more frequently (every two to three hours), helps keep the energy output working in our favor.

Regular exercise – When we exercise, we use our stored energy and build muscle mass, which means more efficient metabolism. There are many forms of exercise, it’s important to find on you enjoy so you will do it. I recommend four or five times each week, utilizing both aerobic exercise and strength training.

Adequate sleep – Getting enough sleep is so important to our metabolism. Lack of sleep is scientifically linked to an increased output of the hunger hormone ghrelin, insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, and weight gain.

Keep stress levels to a minimum – How we feel mentally and how we handle our emotions also contributes to our BMR. Stress hormones, like cortisol, can affect our metabolism greatly, in fact it can put the brakes on the process completely, and when we are stressed we may eat more, sleep less, and ignore our need for exercise. Over time, this will impede our metabolism too.

Most importantly, I encourage you to follow the natural rhythms of your body, and adjust your lifestyle to enhance functioning. Each day is different, we have fluctuating energy levels, appetites, and emotional states. While there may not be one magic bullet to control our metabolism, when we balance our choices with our bodies and our minds, we can optimize our metabolic rate and improve our functioning starting at the cellular level.

by Donna Poulin, Practice Manager at Women to Women

For many years I’ve been witness to Marcelle Pick helping women through various changes in their lives. Weight gain – and weight loss resistance – affects women so greatly. The image they see in the mirror, the way additional weight affects energy and zest for life, the self doubt and internal negative talk it creates – all of these affect women in such a profound way and often can detract from their joy and joyfulness in life. When women explore solutions they are flooded with options – which can then seem overwhelming – after all, which choice is the right one?

Over the years many, many diets have moved in an out of fashion – Weight Watchers, The Zone, The Atkins Diet, The Fat Flush Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, The South Beach Diet.. and on and on. Sometimes women find a diet that works for them in the short term, but many will talk about finding a plan that will work permanently. After all, who wants to eat grapefruit three times a day forever?

I recently talked with Marcelle about her first book, The Core Balance Diet – and she shared some great insights and profound perspectives on the causes of stubborn weight gain and the obstacles to weight loss.

Donna Poulin: One of the differences I see in The Core Balance Diet is that you encourage women to get to know their bodies through the use of health assessments – can you tell us why this information is important to helping women lose weight?

Marcelle Pick: The Core Balance Diet was written to help women identify the imbalance or imbalances which are creating the obstacle to weight loss. I have found that many women have simply accepted certain symptoms as being the norm in life – symptoms which may be uncomfortable or misunderstood. By taking the time to answer these specific assessments, the reader starts to understand what is really going on for her. Once an imbalance is identified, the reader can jump right in and start learning more about diet and lifestyle changes and about what may be causing the imbalance. Once an imbalance is addressed, the reader can expect great things to happen – including shedding unwanted pounds!

DP: You’ve talked with some many women about weight loss – what is the one message you’d like to pass onto your readers before they even open your book?

MP: That’s an easy one! A weight loss program cannot and should not be designed as a ‘one size fits all’ program – we’re all biochemically different! Every woman has had different life experiences that make her unique. Issues around weight are much more complicated than some popular diet fads indicate – especially if we want weight loss to last. The way a woman eats should be a way of life which supports her individual needs – not a diet plan that last for 30 days.

DP: Would you tell us a little about how The Core Balance Diet will help women lose weight?

MP: I designed The Core Balance Diet to help women look at the unique core differences –and to help them identify their metabolic basis for emotional imbalances. This individualized approach helps identify the imbalances that are most likely interrupting the body’s ability to maintain a healthy weight. I’ve included a detailed food plan for each imbalance, including simple and easy recipes. We know that our food choices speak to our jeans AND our genes. Different foods send different information to our genes, but so can our environment and our thoughts. I’ve also included reading and exercises on how our internal environment – our thoughts – as well as how our physical environment can impact us.

So The Core Balance Diet takes an individualized approach, first by looking at your emotional and physical well-being to define the core imbalances most likely interrupting your body’s ability to maintain a healthy weight, and then by offering a functional approach to heal the imbalances and encouraging the best foods for your metabolic make-up.

DP: For years and years women have heard that you have to eat less and exercise more –would you comment on how The Core Balance Diet is different?

MP: I first noticed this rule didn’t work when I was 19 — I enrolled in Weight Watchers, and everyone around me was weighing and measuring everything, but I also noticed everyone was cheating all the time! I was weighing and measuring everything, too, and not cheating at all — I mean, I was picture-perfect. But I still only lost a quarter-pound here, or gained a quarter-pound there. I thought, what’s wrong here? I’m doing everything right! Ultimately, I found my problem was that I was gluten-sensitive, and that had a lot to do with why I wasn’t losing any weight.

My experience has shown me that all calories aren’t equal – you need foods that will talk to your body – one hundred calories of sugar sends different information to your cells than 100 calories of spinach and chicken! And…if you’re sensitive to gluten and you eat 100 calories of bread, you’ll start a domino effect of negative messages throughout your body. There can be many roadblocks for a woman losing weight, and by identifying these obstacles we provide the opportunity for raised awareness on what foods are healthful and helpful to weight loss.

DP: There’s been so much controversy in the past about including fats in a the diet – for years women have been told to limit their fat intake.

MP: Fat is critically important to keep our bodies functioning. It helps maintain our brain tissue, our nerves and our cell membranes – and it’s the precursor to our sex hormones! Without fat, our bodies can’t function – let alone lose weight!

DP: Many women correlate fat intake with high cholesterol and heart health.

MP: The Core Balance Diet is not high in saturated fats – it emphasizes high quality proteins, healthy fats and oils and phytonutrient rich foods. Together all of these affect cell signaling and actually decrease the changes of inflammatory related conditions like insulin resistance, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and even heart disease. There’s so much research now showing how heart healthy good fats are!

DP: Carbohydrates have been both in and out of favor in the past years – some diets scream low carbohydrates are best, others, like Atkins, are in favor of almost no carbohydrates. In looking through your menu plans, you have included carbohydrates – can you tell us about that?

MP: We need carbohydrates for energy. Our brains can only use carbs for fuel, so without carbohydrates we have a problem. I recommend limiting carbohydrates to 16 per meal and 7 per snack – and combining carbohydrates with protein to keep blood sugars stable.

The Core Balance Diet is really about the quality of foods you choose, with emphasis on healthy fats, lean proteins, unrefined carbohydrates and micronutrient rich fruits and vegetables.

DP: Everyone has heard that fruits and vegetables will make us healthier – you talk about this in your book and encourage readers to try new vegetables and incorporate them into their eating plan every day. Why is that?

MP: Here again we have the concept of food as information. Thousands upon thousands of phytonutrients in colorful fruits and vegetables have been identified to date. And they have been shown to work with the body’s cell-signaling pathways to influence gene expression in countless beneficial ways — most of which we have yet to discover. We do know these genes are then responsible for turning on detoxifying enzymes, which help program cell death for cells in our bodies that have “gone wrong” (helpful in prevention of cancer), and they can have anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative effects (also helpful in prevention of cancer).

We’ve also seen how the fiber in fruits and veggies helps to prevent weight gain. And this is partly due to the way fiber can lower the glycemic index of our meals. Just by adding a vegetable we can slow down the way glucose is used and stored in the body. So I always say plant-based foods speak to our genes and our jeans!

DP: One of the phrases I found most intriguing in The Core Balance Diet is “Your issues are in your tissues.” Wow! This really made me think about the emotional issues that can act as barriers to weight loss. Would you share more information about this?

MP: Absolutely! Here’s what Caroline Myss says in Anatomy of the Spirit – “Our biography becomes our biology.” Or, to paraphrase, “Our issues are in our tissues!” It’s something I’ve seen all along in practice, and even though there are studies now to back this up, many practitioners simply weren’t trained or lack the time to make these connections.

Back in 1998 a famous study called the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study evaluated the effect of traumatic childhood events on health risk behavior and disease. The researchers found that compared to those who had none, those with negative childhood exposure had a 1.4– to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and obesity, along with many other medical problems. So we know our life stories affect our bodies.

In a study published in 2009, the authors concluded that overeating may serve to repair negative moods in the short-term. Well, yeah, of course it does! Food is love for many of us. And I think most women have had first-hand experience with this – I wrote an article on emotional eating, for those who want to explore the issue more.

There’s also an editorial I read recently, by a Dutch scientist who concluded that behavioral factors have more to do with weight loss than what we eat, and cognition and emotions have a huge impact on that behavior.

So science is finally catching on to this idea. But let me give you a real life example of how emotions can affect weight. I have a patient , who is probably 100 pounds overweight. She’s stunningly attractive and wants desperately to lose this weight. So we talked for a while, and one of the things that came out in our conversation was that when she was growing up her mother was always saying things like, “You shouldn’t eat that,” or “You shouldn’t wear that,” or “That’s going to make you fat.” So her response was to always get seconds — especially when her mother was around! This behavior was so deeply embedded that she didn’t realize that every time she ate, she was essentially reacting against her mother. Once she became aware of this, she could see hope for change. So we simply can’t ignore these emotions around eating.

DP: Your perspective on exercise was so refreshing for me to read! Many women must have read the same article I did recently – about exercising one hour a day for the rest of my life just to maintain weight! Talk about adding stress….. Please tell us more about your perspective on exercise.

MP: There is practically nothing bad we can say about exercise, except perhaps for one precaution: please don’t allow your exercise routine, or lack of one, to become another stressor in your life. Exercise is so beneficial to us because it is a stress reliever, not a stress producer.

Let’s start with just that one benefit: we know from research that exercise enhances mood. And if it did only that, it would be wonderful. But its effects are additive and cumulative, and integral to reaching and maintaining a healthy weight. It can prevent insulin resistance and diabetes by boosting our cell’s sensitivity to insulin, a very good thing for any woman wanting to heal metabolic imbalance. Studies have also shown how exercise can reduce abdominal fat — even without dieting! — and when we put the two together, the benefits compound one another to assure long-term success.

But we don’t have to knock ourselves out with exercise. The trick is to make it fun, make it something you look forward to. Find a way to move your body that you love, and don’t be afraid to experiment!

If you don’t have a lot of time, “bursting” is a great way to challenge your body without spending hours at the gym. The idea behind bursting is that you want to quickly bring yourself to an extreme and back again several times during your work out. During a burst, your breathing may be so heavy that it’s hard to talk. Stay at this level for 20-30 seconds at first and work up to 1 minute. I like this concept because you can reap the benefits of an intense work out in only 20 minutes and it doesn’t matter what kind of exercise your doing!

DP: What words would you like to leave our readers today with?

MP: The bottom line is that women are so tired of being told, “If you would just cut back on one more meal…,” or “If you would just work out more….” This all translates into “You’re just not doing good enough!” I’ve found that most women really are doing well — they’re eating regularly, they’re exercising regularly, but their extra weight is just not budging. We want to reassure women that it’s not that they’re not doing a “good enough” job. You’re doing a great job! But something is up here — something is out of balance. Your body is smart enough to come to a place of balance — once we give it the support it needs. This book is for all those women who have been trying to do well but still feel stuck.

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Hormones of appetite and satiety — how does the brain know when we’re hungry or full?

• What are the hormones that affect your appetite?
• How do the body’s other hormones influence hunger and satiety?

Have you ever caught yourself mindlessly eating with little awareness of hunger, only to realize that “handful” of crackers turned into the entire box? Alternatively, perhaps you have ever been so caught up in your busy day that you forgot to eat altogether, only to suddenly discover you were absolutely ravenous? If so, then you have experienced the sometimes puzzling effects of specialized signaling molecules in the body, formally referred to as “the hormones of appetite and satiety.”

There is a significant correlation between these recently identified hormones and how the gut communicates with the brain to regulate weight. This relationship is currently the subject of intensive new research (mostly on mice) with researchers and field experts digging for clues that will help people quickly lose excessive weight, while keeping it off for good.

More, these studies are finally helping everyone involved recognize that weight loss is not simply a question of mind over matter!

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Hormones that signal “I’m hungry” — or “I’m full”

This is a mixed cast of characters, some pressing the “Yes, I’m hungry” button while others pull the “No, I’m not” lever Curiously enough, some do both. Several of these are well-known hormones while others are only newly discovered. However, together they are carrying much of what manages our eating behaviors. Here is a quick overview of this complex and fascinating network.

• Ghrelin, the most predominant “hunger hormone” identified to date, is a peptide released by endocrine cells mostly within the stomach’s lining. It counteracts leptin to increase metabolic efficiency and stimulate appetite. It normally indicates hunger: “If your stomach’s growlin’, you’re making ghrelin.” Though, it can also be released after a high-protein meal.

• Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is an extremely potent stimulator of feeding behavior. It is also the most abundant neuropeptide in the brain. In addition to its function in feeding behavior, it also takes part in circadian rhythms, sexual functioning, and anxiety responses. Clearly, NPY is a key player!

Much research is being done on this hormone as many are very invested in finding out what the magic answer is for obesity.

• Leptin. From leptos, the Greek word for “thin,” leptin is synthesized within fat cells, and works as a “satiety factor” on the hypothalamus to dampen eating behavior while increasing energy expenditure. Leptin appears to act, at least in part, by inhibiting NPY synthesis and release in the hypothalamus. New hopes of a magic weight-loss pill based on leptin have yet to reach fruition.

• Adiponectin, a mixture of anti-inflammatory peptides secreted by fat cells, helps regulate energy balance and the metabolism of sugars and fats, as well as increasing insulin sensitivity. Paradoxically, overweight people often have less circulating adiponectin than slim individuals. What triggers its secretion from fat cells is still unclear. More than likely this is a very complex system that will take some time to understand.

• Peptide YY (PYY) has been shown to slow digestion, suppress appetite, and significantly reduce food consumption.

• Cholecystokinin (CCK) is released in the duodenum in response to high-fat or high-protein meals. It signals the brain to produce a sense of fullness or satiety. Fatty meals are an especially effective trigger in the release of CCK.

Hunger’s messages: what our other hormones have to say

While it is tempting to think of the above hormones as “niche” players with somewhat specific effects on our desire to eat, the reality is that we don’t fully understand their effects. Many of our more well-known hormones still play into the equation. When it comes to natural weight loss, the hormones that regulate metabolism play an enormous role, with the three major hormones in the body: insulin, cortisol, and thyroid hormones, having the most to say.

• Insulin. Any discussion about hormones, metabolism, and healthy weight would be incomplete without including this major player in the hormone scenario. Insulin determines whether blood sugar gets used right away for immediate energy, or is alternatively stored as fat. Furthermore, because fat is not simply a passive energy-storage site (as previously thought), but functions as an endocrine organ that produces important hormones itself, what we eat really does matter when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off. Insulin levels are directly impacted by our diets, particularly the ratio of carbohydrates to fiber, fat, and protein. Any disruption in the insulin-regulating mechanism, such as insulin resistance, has an immediate influence on several of the lesser metabolic hormones. For more information, read our many articles about  insulin resistance.

• Thyroid hormones may also play a lead role in everyone’s unique physiology. Women often question if a recent increase in weight could be due to a thyroid imbalance. This is a question I hear on a daily basis. While the thyroid does act very much like a gas pedal in regulating your metabolism, we most often find its relationship to weight gain is more indirect. Sluggish thyroid function is a consequence of an imbalance between other hormones.

• Stress hormones. Adrenal imbalance caused by excessive anxiety, stress, and cortisol production is typically at the top of the list when it comes to the correlation of unwanted weight and hormonal imbalance. Sustained high cortisol levels can lead to intense cravings and binge eating. High cortisol production can throw off any or all of the other hormones in the body, major or minor, setting off a chain reaction that leaves your body in chronic crisis mode. The simple significance of this is that no diet will succeed if you are under tremendous stress, no matter what you do. A simple saliva test can reveal whether your daily cortisol levels are in line with where they need to be. For more information, read our many articles about Adrenal Health.

• Melatonin, the hormone that regulates the circadian rhythm, also factors into your hunger time-clock. Research shows that sleep deprivation throws off melatonin production, which in turn influences leptin and ghrelin production. In one study, subjects who were chronically sleep deprived had 15% more ghrelin than those who were well-rested. There is also some evidence that lack of sleep affects your levels of human growth hormone (hGH), because “pulses” of hGH are released at night.

• Sex hormones. Let’s not forget estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, also known as the minor hormones. Adequate levels of estrogen seem to help in hunger regulation, simulating the soothing “full” or satiety effect of serotonin. As anyone familiar with premenstrual binges can attest, an imbalance in the ratio between estrogen and progesterone can trigger intense food cravings. Add in the negative effects of stress hormones, and one begins to understand why women accumulate abdominal fat during perimenopause. For more information, see our extensive list of articles in our section about perimenopause and menopause. If a woman is testosterone-deficient, which can occur with poor nutrition or during perimenopause, she will have difficulty building muscle mass no matter how much she works out. Testosterone production relies on adequate levels of cholesterol, the building block of all sex hormones. This is why we so often will not suggest the low fat diet.

Hormonal balance on every level

Modern research is showing that several varying hormones transmit or dampen hunger signals, which directly and indirectly influence our best efforts to lose weight. However, we still have a long way to go before we fully understand how the hormones of appetite and satiety actually work in the human body.

What we now know is there are very real hormonal factors involved. it’s not just your genetics, willpower, or eating habits. What is takes to balance the weight equation that leaves so many women struggling, is a balancing act of each of these elements. As we uncover new pieces to the inner workings of our metabolism, we can see clearly how crucial hormonal balance can be to naturally shedding weight and keeping it off for good. Over the years, we have helped many women successfully balance their hormones, safely and naturally, and in the process lose unwanted weight. We really have learned over the years how to help with this complicated and frustrating issue.

What about willpower?

To a woman struggling to lose weight (and to keep it off) the notion that willpower alone should suffice is a lonely one. When it comes to keeping weight down, it is critical for an individual and her health care provider to keep in mind that relying on dietary discretion varies tremendously between individuals, and even at different times for individuals, depending on many variables.

What is important to understand is that our behavior around eating is not always something we can or do consciously regulate. Much of it is truly physiological, and physiology strongly impacts psychology.

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

The set point — reprogramming your genes and cells

Everyone goes through life with a certain amount of “baggage” — an inheritance that’s both physical and emotional in nature. When it comes to our physical inheritance (our genes), many women feel that there’s not much they can do to change matters. But “DNA” doesn’t spell “destiny” — and we do have the ability to influence how our genes respond to our environment.

The conversation between your genes and your environment is particularly encouraging when it comes to weight loss. Women who struggle with their weight often feel as though they are pre-programmed to be heavy. So let’s learn how the metabolic “set point” works — and how we can change it.

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What is the “set point”?

The job of a healthy metabolism is to keep a woman’s body at a set point, which is a body-to-fat ratio within a 10- to 15-pound weight range that optimizes her chances of survival. Set points are individualized and stubborn — your body likes stability — and your metabolism defends your set point by slowing down or speeding up when your weight approaches the outer limits of your set point’s range.

When the idea of a set point was first introduced, scientists believed it was immutable and determined by genetics. If your parents were “wired” to be skinny people, then you would be, too — and likewise, if you came from heavy-set people, it would be your eventual destiny to become overweight no matter how hard you fought it.

But in the past few decades it has become clear that the set point isn’t predestined and unchanging. In fact, your set point is also governed by your environment, even from the time you are growing in utero.

Research shows that a disturbed intrauterine environment (for example, due to the mother’s stress levels, a high-carb diet, nutrient deprivation, and drugs) can negatively influence the metabolism of the developing fetus, raising the potential for serious adult conditions like insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, and more.

In other words, obesity does run in families, but it has as much or more to do with the mother’s health and weight during pregnancy than her genetics.

Obviously, you can’t do anything about what your mother did when she was pregnant with you, just like you can’t go back and exchange your genetic makeup. But what you can do — even if you have struggled with a high set point since before you were even born — is take steps that help your genes reset your metabolism. Such steps include lowering your stress burden, changing your diet, losing extra weight, and protecting your health long-term.

Has your lifestyle upset your set point?

In recent decades there has been an explosion in artificial foods and preservatives. The average American diet is also extremely high in sugar, refined grains, and bad fats. Our growing and harvesting methods strip our food of its nutrients, and pollutants, pesticides, and dangerous chemicals are all around us. We drive instead of walk, sit at desks instead of working outdoors, and the average food serving size has doubled. In short, we have lost a good quotient of our nutrition while dramatically increasing our toxic load and reducing our activity levels.

The modern American diet and lifestyle have sent the average set point soaring. We all hear it and see it on a daily basis: obesity is an epidemic. And not just in this country — over 300 million people worldwide were deemed “grossly overweight” in the year 2000, leading the World Health Organization to coin a new term: globesity. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

New research into the body-wide phenomenon of metabolic syndrome, or syndrome X, is proving that weight is a vastly more complex issue than measuring calories. Conventional ideas about weight loss are being supplanted by another school of thought — one that understands weight loss as a “universal” process and treats the body’s major functions, including neurochemistry, immune function, digestion, detoxification, musculoskeletal function, and hormonal balance, all at once.

Communicating with your genes: emotions, exercise, and food

In functional medicine, changes in health — good or bad — often reflect communication between your environment and the tissues, cells, and genes of your body. “Environment” in this sense means the physical world you live in; the food, air, and water that you take in as nourishment; and your emotional surroundings, past as well as present. Certain forms of communication can be healthy for one person but profoundly unhealthy for another, depending on our genetic blueprint. All this potential variation explains why some people can eat gluten or dairy and have no ill effects, for example, but others cannot, or why an acute illness or other stressor can precipitate all kinds of health problems where before there were none.

Yet while our genes may be tuned toward frequencies that promote ill health, including toxic weight gain, these communications can also be dialed down, or even turned off. The question my patients always ask me is, How?

• Emotional buttons — switching genes on or off

We’ve always known intuitively that laughter is the best medicine, but before now we haven’t really grasped why. Some of the most interesting research being done today is showing how gene expression can be altered by emotions. Studies of laughter therapy in type 2 diabetics showed that as many as 23 different genes were altered as a byproduct of laughter. Not only that, but the activity of several blood enzymes and their precursors changed as well, in ways that were beneficial toward preventing a range of metabolic imbalances.

So one of the ways that we can send positive signals to our genes, cells, and proteins is by cultivating positive emotions. At the same time, addressing sources of negative emotions — particularly trauma from our past that is a continual source of sadness, guilt, shame, or anger — can reduce the flow of negative messages to our genes and cells. (For further guidance, read Dr. Candace Pert’s Molecules of Emotions.)

• Exercising regularly — and having fun

Exercise, too, has been shown to affect gene expression. When you start using your muscles more, genes within skeletal muscle cells respond by programming the production of different amounts of proteins and new muscle cells, along with changing metabolic processes. These changes are beneficial, for the most part, although it’s also possible to over-exercise — and when we do, that’s actually stressful for the body, and triggers cell damage.

I would also add that doing less intense exercise that you enjoy is probably more beneficial than too much high-intensity exercise that just isn’t fun, not only because you’re more likely to continue exercising regularly if you like what you’re doing, but because the boost you get from having fun adds to the benefit on all levels.

• Food as information

Today there’s an entire field of research called nutrigenomics, or “nutritional genomics,” investigating the effects nutrients have upon genes in both disease and health. The information our genes receive from our food can be a powerful way to “convince” them to respond in ways that are healthy — and it’s not so much about how much we eat (although obviously, overeating isn’t going to help anyone) than about what we eat. Food that is rich in phytonutrients and low in added sugars and chemicals speaks differently to our genes and cells than processed foods. A healthy diet of whole, organic foods reminds our genes and cells of how a healthy body should respond and supports smooth functioning of the body’s systems.

A recipe for “re-setting” your set point

It’s a revelation to many women that they can influence their genes and aren’t doomed to being overweight because of their heredity. For many women, this means changing long-standing ways of thinking or acting, and that can be difficult — but it’s far from impossible, and the benefits last a lifetime.

If you’re ready to have an enrolling conversation with your genes, there are several actions you can take to help fine-tune your set point:

• Look for the core imbalances that may lie at the heart of your original weight gain. It’s important to identify these health issues and imbalances, because until they’re addressed, you will have a tough time resetting your metabolic dial.
• Examine your emotional inheritance, particularly if you’re an emotional eater. Very few women in our culture go through life without ever experiencing a powerful, and often unhealthy, relationship with food. Understanding the feelings that trigger unhealthy eating habits can take you a long way toward changing those habits.
• Look for enjoyable ways to fit exercise into your routine — even if it’s for only 20 minutes or so. During that 20 minutes, try “bursting” four to six times — ramping up the intensity for about a minute — to boost your metabolism without over-exercising. Your body is built to move, so begin gently if you need to, and work up from there.
• Optimize your nutrition. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing effort — simple changes to your diet can reduce your toxic load and increase your nutrient intake. Taking a quality multivitamin–mineral and essential fatty acids will help fill common gaps. Emphasizing specific nutrients appropriate for your metabolic type will provide additional benefits in the long-term.
• Prepare yourself for change. Many women struggle with their weight because the day-to-day priorities of work and caring for others interfere with the changes they want or need to make. Often women get discouraged when their initial efforts fail. Luckily, we can make a fresh start with each new day. Our article on making life changes can help you learn to prepare for changes to improve your health.
• Laugh! Studies have shown again and again that a positive attitude and good sense of humor help many health conditions — and many of the imbalances that lead to weight gain have a strong stress component.

Start a healthy dialogue with your cells

It’s so important that women realize that we can communicate with our genes and get them to change their behavior — we talk to them all the time through our nutritional choices and the patterns of our emotions, whether we realize it or not. Where our metabolic set point and weight are concerned, we can start by having a conversation with our body — paying attention to our emotions, our nutrition, and our exercise.