If so, you can loose an extra 3 to 5lbs in the next few weeks by FLIPPING ON 8 LITTLE KNOWN FAT BURNING SWITCHES without even talking about the foods you eat!
Did you know that there are millions of people who are eating healthy but cannot lose weight?
Did you know that when you sleep and rest you can actually lose weight – literally?
Did you know that you can make your hunger pangs go away in seconds?
Now imagine if you could flip on 8 powerful fat burning switches without even talking about food…Well, you don’t have to imagine it. You’re going to find out about each one right now!
Let’s get started!
But first, did you know that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it to them?
LOL!
OK, for real, let’s get started.
Did you know that where you are today, in this moment, is exactly where you are supposed to be? Yes, even with the extra weight. I want to empower you to know this with all your heart. The lowest form of energy on the planet is guilt and shame. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Let these next few minutes excite you to know you can take control and be happy along your journey.
You are going to find out about 8 different ways your body will assist you in losing weight without talking about the actual food choices you make. Yes, your food choices are super important, but any one of these 8 fat burning switches may be even more important to you. Some of these simply release your own body to allow it to normalize your weight. Some actually raise your metabolism, which, as you know, is a major turn on to weight control. Any one of these switches can be your magical key to loosing those unwanted pounds! Combine them all, and WOW! Just try them! Add in smart food choices, and you will be in total control! We’ll talk about smart food choices another day. For now, let’s focus on these 8 amazing weight control switches you already have at your beck & call.
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #1: SNOOZING
Did you know that short sleep duration is associated with obesity? YES IT IS! BIG TIME! Wake up to this now! Getting less than 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night sets you on a path toward diabetes and leads to obesity. It’s proven and it’s absolutely incontrovertible. Let’s look hard at these surprising facts. And you may have thought that sleeping a lot was a sign of laziness! No, it’s not!
Critical to know: Two hormones, LEPTIN and GHRELIN, control your hunger and sense of fullness. When your leptin hormone is circulating and is high, you don’t have an appetite and you don’t feel like eating. When ghrelin levels increase, you become ravenous.
Now you can see how the balance of these two hormones is critical for anyone to control their weight. Get these two hormones out of kilter, and you won’t be able to control your hunger! Guess what causes disruption in this critical hormonal balance? LACK OF SLEEP! This is conclusively proven! Check out these shocking sleep & weight loss studies!
In his amazing book, Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, PhD sites and explains this hormonal balance system in carefully controlled landmark experiments by Dr. Eve Van Cauter at the University of Chicago. In one experiment, healthy and lean participants got their own room, bed, clean sheets, a TV, internet access, etc. – kind of like staying in a hotel for a week but without the free coffee and tea because no caffeine was consumed. In one arm of the experiment, everyone was given an 8 hour sleep opportunity each night for 5 nights. In the other arm of the study, they were only allowed 4 to 5 hours of sleep. Because Dr. Van Cauter recognized that more than a third of the population in industrialized societies sleep less than 5 to 6 hours a night during the week, she decided on this sleep time frame to see if this typical short sleep was enough to disrupt levels of either leptin or ghrelin or both. Each day participants’ sense of hunger and food intake were monitored, as well as their circulating levels of leptin and ghrelin. Look at these shocking results!
Individuals sleeping 4 to 5 hours a night were far more ravenous even though they were given the same amount of food and they were similarly active as when they were getting 8 or more hours of sleep, which kept levels of hunger of these same individuals under calm control! In fact, the strong rise of hunger pangs and increased reported appetite occurred rapidly, by only the second day of short sleeping!
This could be the reason why: The short sleeping decreased the blood levels of the satiety-signaling hormone, leptin and it increased levels of the hunger-instigating hormone ghrelin. So short sleeping put participants into a physiological double jeopardy because they were punished twice for the same offense – short sleeping!
Has that ever happened to you? I have lived this one out many times. Having to set that alarm early in the am, not allowing myself to sleep until I’m done, definitely increases my hunger during the following day. One night recently I had to go with only about 4.5 hours of sleep prior to catching a flight. I was hungry ALL day. Check it out for yourself. Start taking notice.
Dr. Van Cauter performed many fascinating experiments that further proved the importance of sleep on our weight. In one of these, sleep-deprived participants practically dove into a snack bar and consumed 330 more calories right after a lunch buffet of about 2,000 calories! A new discovery relevant to this is that sleep loss increases levels of circulating endocannabinoids, which are chemicals very similar to the drug cannabis. Like marijuana use, these chemicals stimulate your appetite and increase your desire to snack – otherwise known as having the munchies!
So it’s really triple jeopardy! Short sleep causes your hunger hormone, ghrelin, to increase, causes your fullness hormone, leptin to decrease, and causes your munchies hormones, endocannabinoids to increase! Wow what a challenge to weight control!
But there’s more. So much more.
More experiments proved that weight gain caused by short sleep also changed what you want to eat.Cravings for sweets, heavy-hitting cabs, and salty snacks increased by 30 to 40% when sleep was reduced by several hours each night.
In another experiment, a group of overweight men and women stayed in a medical center for two weeks. One group was given just 5.5 hours time in bed, while the other group were offered 8.5 hours time in bed. They were on a strict low calorie diet. Both groups lost weight, but the type of weight loss was very different between the two groups. In the group with short sleep (5.5 hours of sleep opportunity) over 70% of the weight loss came from lean body mass – muscle, not fat. In the group getting 8.5 hours of time in bed, well over 50% of their weight loss came from fat while preserving muscle. Wow, what a surprising result!
So get this. Nightly short sleep (4-5 hours or less):
- Turns up your ghrelin hormone levels, making you ravenous
- Turns down your leptin levels, making your appetite increase
- Increases your levels of circulating endocannabinoids, making you snacky
- Increases your cravings for sweets and carbs
- Causes weight loss to come from lean body mass more than from your fat
Did you ever think SLEEP could be so impactful on your weight management? Do you need to consider a new sleep schedule for yourself? What if allowing yourself to get 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night allowed you to easily drop those extra pounds of fat (not muscle)? Isn’t it worth a try?
In addition, don’t you feel better with a good night’s sleep? You know you will have more energy and feel more like getting things done and maybe even exercising… which could raise your metabolism! How’s your metabolism now?
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #2: METABOLISM
Have you ever met a really slender person who seems to eat anything and everything and never gain a pound? It doesn’t even seem right does it? I know a guy who is in his 50’s who can still eat a ton of food every day and never gain an ounce. His metabolism is sky high. Do you know how you can turn up your metabolism?
Metabolism is the magical metabolic processes that take place as your body converts what you consume into energy. This complex process combines calories and oxygen to create and release energy to fuel your all of your bodily functions.
David Brownstein, M.D., recently remarked in his November 2022 newsletter “A person with a lower metabolic rate will have difficulty losing weight. On the other hand, a person with a high metabolic rate can eat more and still maintain a lower weight because exercise stimulates metabolic pathways to increase their function.” Yep, we know this Dr. Brownstein! But HOW do we increase our own metabolic rate?
Did you know that the more muscle mass you have, the faster metabolism you are likely to have, burning more calories even while you sit or rest or sleep?
Fact: It takes more calories / energy to build and maintain muscle rather than fat.
Now, it is true that as you age, your metabolism slows down, likely because you lose muscle as you get older. In fact, as an adult you will lose approximately five pounds of muscle per year, UNLESS you are doing regular strength exercise. Right – UNLESS. Loss of muscle mass is largely responsible for lowering your metabolic rate by five percent per decade! But you can reverse this! Build your muscles!
There are so many options for you to consider to achieve this. I’ll give you a few ideas.
I recently started Pilates and have been SO amazed at the results. Pilates is a system of exercises that promote core strength, stability and flexibility. I have experienced that wonderful workout feeling the day after in slightly sore muscles all over my body in places that I have never felt that before. I highly recommend trying Pilates. My muscles are definitely responding.
There’s yoga, zumba, cycling (indoor and outdoor), aerobics, crossfit, kickboxing, swimming, tennis, and even briskly walking and so many more. Some build muscle more than others. Just remember, strength training and resistance help build muscle. Some walkers add ankle weights to create more resistance.
Which muscle building activity are you going to start?
There is another way to increase your metabolic rate and I personally LOVE LOVE LOVE this one. It’s all about the timing of when you eat. It’s not about changing what you eat. It’s about WHEN you eat.
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #3: WHEN
Oh, yes. The timing of your consumption can have as much impact on your weight as choosing what to eat. Take all the food you are consuming in the course of a day, and consume it in, for one example, a 6 hour window. That’s it. Intermittent Fasting. Do you think you can’t handle going without food in your tummy all morning? You may be right today, but over time, you can train yourself to accomplish this. ( except if you are PG, and/or if you are nursing, and/or if your doctor recommends against it for you for some reason).
YOU CAN LITERALLY ENTER YOUR FAT BURNING STATE EVERY DAY!
By changing WHEN you are eating can be magical in entering your FAT BURING state! You can even do this by eating the foods you love!
Here is some of the WORST advice ever given to humans: “Eat lots of small meals frequently throughout the day to fuel your metabolism.” Have you heard that before? Could this be part of the reason so many people have trouble losing and maintaining their weight? Isn’t that eating like a newborn? Have you been gaining weight like a newborn? Yikes!
But isn’t “breakfast the most important meal of the day?” NO! You don’t have to start your day with a meal. I think Kellogg’s made that up! It’s been a marketing ploy that has nothing at all relevant to your health!
Another BAD weight loss piece of advice is to focus on Calories In Calories Out, or eat less and move more. Decades of trying this has proven it DOES NOT WORK! Remember the “Biggest Loser’ Competition” show? Their “Calories In / Calories Out” system temporarily worked for most of them, but NOT LONG TERM, as you probably know! Many of them gained their weight back over time. Prolonged calorie restriction had adverse effects because their metabolic rate slowed down to protect them! When your body perceives chronic calorie restriction, your body holds on to fat! Not good! Certainly not helpful in loosing weight!
SO HOW DO YOU TURN ON YOUR FAT BURNING STATE?
Right now, you are in one of two states: fed or fasted. Period. So if you follow the “eat lots of small meals” recommendation or if you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with snacks in between, you are in a fed state all day. But guess what – at night, when you sleep, you are already entering a fasting state! In the morning you break the fast with BREAK FAST, right? What if you simply extended that fasting time? You could be intermittent fasting as soon as tomorrow! It’s as simple as that!
Does it have to be a 6 hour window every day to be considered intermittent fasting? NO! Although skipping breakfast, and eating lunch and dinner between noon and 6pm may be the easiest intermittent fasting schedule for many people, you can limit your eating window any way you want. The smaller the window, the faster the results will be. If you normally eat your first meal around 8am, consider waiting until 9 or 10am to slowly work into a smaller window. Or tomorrow, jump right in and don’t eat until noon. You can work into an intermittent fasting schedule however you want to. I will tell you this, – for me, it is REALLY great not having to worry about consuming anything in the morning. I love waiting until noon or later to begin my food consumption. It’s just me and my plain green tea every morning. Or it can be just you and your coffee in the morning! And by ending my last meal before 6pm, I feel better and sleep better! You may too! You may even like the 4 hour eating window, allowing your fasting period to be 20 hours! Listen to your “gut” as they say. Your inner guidance will help you decide on your intermittent beginning schedule.
What is ok to consume while fasting? You can go with simply water, but coffee and teas are ok, just without any sweeteners of any kind. Some fasting experts allow healthy fats to be added to your coffee and teas, like coconut oil, butter, ghee, heavy whipping cream, half and half and whole milk. I prefer no additions to my tea and coffee. Options for 
flavoring water, if you must, include citrus fruit slices added, raw apple cider vinegar, or Himalayan salt. Ground cinnamon can be added to any of the these for flavor too.
BONUS REASONS to consider intermittent fasting
These reasons are just as important, or actually could be more important, as your weight loss. I want you to get even more excited about intermittent fasting because of all these additional benefits resulting from it!
- Your body can become a fat burning machine! First, when your body becomes adapted to fasting, and that can be soon, you become a fat burning machine! And I predict you’ll be experiencing more energy and clearer thinking while doing this! You see, your body can tap into your fat stores and that can power you all day! Because you have lots of stored energy right there under your skin, your body does not get the signal that you are energy deficient. So your metabolism does not slow. This is critical.
- You can burn fat while you sleep! Here’s a fact. “In early starvation, resting energy expenditure increases.” This means intermittent fasting can increase the energy your body burns while at rest! Although fasting intermittently is not starvation, it does turn on this system! It’s all great news! Turning on your FAT BURING state while resting is exciting! Right?!!Here’s a study that explains this if you are interested in learning more of the details: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10837292/
- Timing your meals makes a big difference! Did you know that the famous, and highly touted healthy Mediterranean diet has a huge timing factor, that closely relates to intermittent fasting? Most people are totally unaware of this. The largest meal is eaten at lunch, followed by a siesta in the afternoon, and a very small dinner in the evening.
- Chronic inflammation is reduced! While acute inflammation is good, like when a bee stings you and your body responds by inflaming or swelling the area around your harmed tissue, and then it dissipates as your body heals and the inflammation goes away, CHRONIC inflammation is ongoing and very damaging. This chronic inflammation is your body’s response to chronic harmful stimuli of over-nutrition and excess body fat. And this is associated with SO many diseases: rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, atherosclerosis, fatty liver, asthma, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even the aging process itself. Intermittent fasting reduces this chronic inflammation!
- You’ll be turning on your amazing internal recycling system, autophagy. When your body trashes a potential cancer cell, isn’t it important to get rid of it? This garbage disposal and recycling system, autophagy, is critical to our good health, as it produces new building blocks and energy for cellular renovation and homeostasis. Guess what the biggest stimulator of autophagy is? FASTING! Yes! And another potential benefit for you of turning on your autophagy system is avoiding sagging and drooping skin as you lose weight. As you lose weight through fasting, and as autophagy is turned on, our bodies can better get rid of those excess proteins hanging around in various places, like those creating saggy skin. Nice, right? That’s in addition of course to better recycling those nasty cancer cells and more.
Are you going to give intermittent fasting a try? Personally, I do love it, for all the reasons above plus I truly feel energized and experience clearer thinking when I am fasting. I honestly look forward to every morning, starting the day with just my pure organic green tea, or occasionally a cup of organic black coffee with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Do you want assistance in starting intermittent fasting? I’ll give it to you and it’s incredibly easy. But it’s incredibly easy to not get this right too. Keep reading because by employing this next switch, you can actually dispel that feeling of hunger and this is key to accomplishing intermittent fasting.
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #4: WATER
Did you know that it is very common to mistake our thirst signal for hunger? So you feel that hunger pang and you search the pantry for something to eat. But, guess
what, you totally incorrectly sensed a hunger pang. That was THIRST! This is a BIG factor in weight gain. In fact, Dr. Batmanghelidj states that this thirst and hunger sensation confusion is indeed one of the main contributing factors in the development of obesity in the young and old. You see, both thirst and hunger sensations stem from low energy levels in the brain and both are brought about by histamine. It is easy to confuse the two signals and to think that you are hungry when your body is really crying out for water! We cannot rely on dry mouth sensations because this is the very last dehydration stage to occur! Obese people often consume food to satisfy the initial calls of histamine for water! You can so easily turn this around!
So, how much water should you be drinking? Most experts agree, you should be drinking half your body weight in ounces every day. If you weigh, for example, 150 pounds, your daily water consumption should be about 75 ounces. When you start drinking water every time you think you feel hunger, you’ll be amazed that the hunger disappears, and your energy level increases and your fuzzy thinking clears up and over time, you’ll soon see the extra pounds start melting away.
I know you’re thinking – what about other liquids – like sodas, teas, flavored water, etc. – right? First, please recognize that sodas and teas and coffee are all dehydrating, making matters worse. Yes, you can enjoy these occasionally if you must, but you still need to consume half your body weight in ounces of pure water daily, no substitutes. As for the flavored waters, please watch out for the chemicals. If you just don’t like water, I suggest controlling the flavor yourself, by adding a slice of organic lemon, or other organic citrus and straining it out prior to drinking.
WARNING: There are two times you do NOT want to drink water.
- In the hour or two prior to your bedtime. No one likes to get woken up by the urge to empty your bladder!
- Not during or around your meals. The last thing you want to do is to dilute your precious digestive juices. Gulping that tea, or water or whatever before, during and right after a meal is destructive to your digestion. Just sip a little during meals. And wait at least about an hour after eating before you drink very much.
My prediction: You’ll drink a glass of water the next time you feel hunger. Then in seconds your hunger will have disappeared! Nice! The hunger pangs are gone! You really were not hungry, were you?
I know so many people who simply started drinking water every time they thought they were hungry. Amazingly their hunger dissipated, at least for quite a while. And yes, they dropped pounds, some lots of pounds!
Can you fill up your water bottles tonight with half your body weight in ounces, to be ready for tomorrow? Drinking a large glass of water first thing in the morning is a fabulous way to wake up yourself and especially your organs! Add in a squeeze of a fresh organic lemon and your body will start out the day very happy indeed!
WHAT KIND OF WATER? Tap water? Bottled water? Filtered water? Distilled water? Spring water? Please help, right? This is a very frequent question today. We all know that tap water is full of nasties including heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, chlorination by-products, pesticides, arsenic, radon, industrial pollution, environmental pollutants, including 140 known chemicals that are not even regulated by the EPA. Fluoride, added to most water supplies, we know can have a negative impact on thyroid health, IQ in children, neurological, gastrointestinal and liver health. OK, I could go on and on. Honestly, experts who I respect, have different opinions on what kind of water is best. Some advocate for spring water in glass bottles, delivered to homes and businesses. Other experts recommend Reverse Osmosis systems, which I have personally used. The Berkey gravity fed water purification system is a highly recommended one and many of my family members use Berkeys (with the extra fluoride filter) and I have one on hand for emergencies. The system most recently and most convincingly recommended to me by my health professional is distilled water. None of the other filtrations purification systems get ride of ALL the nasties, like distilling water does. I am currently distilling my water. It is 100% clean. I sometimes add sea salt to my water bottles for the minerals.
CONFESSION: I recently complained to my sister that I felt a little yucky – which is pretty unusual for me. I was low on energy. I had brain fog. I felt a little achy a little depressed – kind of like I might be coming down with something. She just asked me if I was drinking enough water. Well, I THOUGHT I was. After all, I preach water consumption all the time, but I had not been measuring my own lately. Plus incidentally, I had put on a couple of unwanted pounds. So I measured it the next day and saw that I consumed about half of what I should have. I was shocked! Since then I have been measuring out my water (half my weight in ounces) and consuming all of it every day. In 24 hours I started feeling myself again, full of energy, clear thinking, and happy. I had been subliminally dehydrated. I think 95% of the world is probably subliminally dehydrated. So PLEASE measure your water intake: half your weight in ounces is the daily objective. Plus, by the way, those couple of extra pounds disappeared in a few weeks. 🙂
So far, are you considering plans –
- to get a full night’s sleep?
- to work in your choice of an exercise to increase your muscle mass to increase your metabolism?
- to time your food consumption to begin intermittent fasting?
- to drink half your body weight in ounces of water?
Even if you only act on ONE of these right now, you will be moving in the right direction! And we are only HALF WAY there! You have 4 more fat burning switches to turn on and get going!
Let’s talk about sitting at your table to eat your next meal. Let’s NOT talk about what is on your plate. Let’s talk about your plate and how you are going to eat your food.
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #5: PLATE SIZE
I know this one is just plain logical.
Dr. David Kessler discusses portion size in his book, The End of Overeating, Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Portion size matters, he states. People and animals will definitely eat more when more is put in front of them. What damage has the “supersize” option done for us all?
Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., author of Eat Your Way To Happiness, points out that when you eat too much of anything, even healthy, real foods, you will gain weight! Too much just does not work!
Even Dr. Oz says to “Eat smaller to live larger.”
So HOW do we consciously and unconsciously make our portions smaller?
Years ago, the wife of a good friend of mine who had a big weight loss goal, shared with me that she changed the plates that she was serving their meals on. Their new plates were substantially smaller and it was so effective in helping them both consume smaller portions! What a good idea!
After that conversation, I changed the plates my hubby and I eat on daily to smaller ones. It does make it easier to consume less at each meal! The only time I serve on our larger plates is for special occasions, like Thanksgiving, and sometimes when I cook Sunday breakfast. I like to have room for the toast!
Do you eat out often? One way to control portion sizes in restaurants is to know that you are going to take home half of your meal or at least a good portion of it. Ask for the to go boxes when you place your order. Personally, I love doing this so that we have a meal for the next day ready to heat up! No, we don’t always do this, but we do very often!
So while we are talking about your plate size and your serving sizes, did you know that there is something you can do with every bite of your meal that will make you feel fuller, give you better digestion, and at the same time make your food tastier? Just chewing your food much more than you normally do is going to be amazing! Let’s talk about it now.
WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT FOOD
SWITCH #6: CHEWING
Are you gulping down your meals or taking your time and really chewing each bite thoroughly? I’m so guilty of not doing this one. Did you know that we are supposed to chew each bite THIRTY times – according to the experts? Have you ever tried this? You’ll be shocked at what happens.
- You’ll taste and savor each bite so much more. A dry tongue cannot tell how good food tastes! I promise when you chew more you’ll enjoy your food more!
- Your digestive juices will be flowing better. You may not need those Tums! The powerful enzymes in your saliva will begin breaking down your food like it is designed to do!
- You’ll feel full before you finish your meal. Gulping our meals down makes it so easy to over eat because we don’t feel full right away.
- You’ll be less stressed overall! It’s calming and peaceful to truly take our time consuming a meal, chewing more with each bite!
Dr. Josh Axe tells us that during the time it takes you to chew your food a couple of dozen times (or more) before swallowing, your stomach is producing hydrochloric acid in preparation for breaking down the food once it enters your stomach. You’re also activating your pancreas to start producing its enzymes to break down food. So it will be like you tripled the nutritional value to your body of every bite you chew! More nutrition means more bodily satisfaction!
When you eat your next meal, can you try chewing each bite 30 times – or 20 times even? I’m so glad I am writing this article for you today because I seriously need to remind myself of this. Too often, I grab something to eat for lunch (or actually breakfast at noon since I’m intermittent fasting) and I’ll just stand in the kitchen, consuming it, without even slowing down to sit down! I tell you, when I do sit down and chew chew chew, I digest so much better and I feel so much more satisfied. I needed this reminder myself! Let’s all make our mouths work for us!
Did you know WHAT you cook your meals in can make you gain weight and make it more difficult to lose weight? This is for real and very serious. Have you ever heard of “obesogens?” It sounds like “obese – o – gens.” These are fat generating chemical culprits you want to avoid at all costs.
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SWITCH #7: AVOIDING OBESOGENS
Did you know that there are chemicals around you that can cause you to gain weight and may even make it more difficult to lose weight? Yes there are!
OBESOGENS are these endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can cause you to produce more fat than you normally would. In fact, some disrupt your metabolism and cause you to produce new and/or larger fat cells. Others can even block fat cells from releasing stored fat to use for energy. So your fat cells are locked in storage! Bad news!
Obesogen exposure can start in prenatal development and cause obesity later in life. This is so serious.
Where are these mean chemicals? These beasts are unfortunately ubiquitous. They are everywhere and you need to know where to avoid them as much as possible.
Pesticides. Many pesticides are obesogens. And, by the way, other pesticides are known to be carcinogenic. These are two big reasons to go organic as much as possible.
Plastics. You know to avoid the BPA in plastics, but even the (Bisphenol-A) BPA free products use other chemicals that can be just as bad. I keep reading about this so I’ve concluded that products that say BPA free are using that more of a marketing ploy rather than being honest with us about the safety of the product. So avoid storing or purchasing food in plastic as much as you can. Use glass or stainless steel containers. NEVER ever heat up food or liquids in plastics, because that makes the obesogen chemicals leak into your food.
Phthalates.These obesogen chemicals are added to plastics to increase their flexibility and they are also in cosmetics, hair products, feminine products, fast food wrappers, sunscreens, children’s toys, and food storage containers. In fact, phthalates are even found in cheeseburgers, chicken burritos, and other meat products! UGH! This is another reason to chose organic, free range, and no pesticide or antibiotic fed animal products.
Cookware. For cooking, NEVER use nonstick coatings because they are full of obesogen chemicals, leaking into your food with the heat. Instead, use cast iron, stainless steel, or enameled cookware. Please throw out your nonstick coated pans.
Personal care products.I’m so sorry to tell you that many of your skin care, make-up, deodorants, shampoos, etc. contain obesogen chemicals. Check the contents of your products on the EWG Database: Skindeep Cosmetics. Chose fragrance free products (unless you see that they are safe) and look for organic ingredients. The fewer the ingredients, the better.
Water. Definitely filter your water. There are so many chemicals in tap water! Personally, at the recommendation of my holistic professional, I purchased a distiller and I drink pure clean distilled water. You can find out your overall water purity with a digital water tester to find out the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids). My tap water rates between 80 and over 100 TDS. My distilled water rates 0 to 1. I like that.
Furniture, Carpet, etc. Say NO to Flame-resistant and water-repellent and waterproof. The chemicals (PFAS) that make these properties possible are usually a lot of obesogens.
So obesogens, these silent and mean hormone chemicals, cause weight gain and can increase the number of your fat cells and/or the storage of fat within your cells. They are bad news. In addition, obesogens can alter your appetite, metabolic rate, and even your energy balance. Please avoid them as much as possible.
Are you a little angry that these chemicals are even allowed to be used at all? I personally have to work on my own breath work to calm down sometimes. I tell myself that getting angry is wasted energy, unless it leads me to do something that makes a difference. Supporting EWG is something I do chose to do, which gives me a little peace around all this.
There’s one more big switch for you to know about and act on perhaps today or later this week. What can you do to give yourself more confidence in your food choices when you are out and about and to keep you from making last minute, spur of the moment bad food choices? It’s about being prepared.
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SWITCH #8:BEING PREPARED
You’re on the road headed to a meeting or to meet up with a friend. You are starving. You stop for gas, and go inside. You grab a candy bar, or a donut, or a pack of cookies. There are not too many good options there, right? But you are so hungry.
There’s not much worse than being really hungry and not having the time or options to make good choices. The end result is being “hangry” – right? We’ve all been there.
Did you know you can completely avoid this? I learned this decades ago and it has served me and my family and friends so well. Just pack up and take your food with you. Car trips, airplane trips, going to work, hiking trips, – all of them. You can use a kid’s lunch container, or whatever container you like but make sure you can put a coolie in it to keep contents from spoiling in the heat during summers.
Here are some ideas for you to put in your snack pack – all organic please:
- Boiled eggs
- Home made sandwiches
- Container of soup
- Nuts, cashews, almonds, etc.
- Fruits
- Healthy cheeses (goat, etc.) & gluten free crackers
- Leftovers
- Healthy energy bars
- Smoothies
OOPS, OK, I did break my promise and I apologize. I talked to you about actual foods here and had not planned to in this article. After I wrote out the list, I thought, “well I could delete that.” But because I get this question so often, “what healthy things can I put in my snack bag?” I made the decision to include this short list for you.
What else can you think of to add to your on the go prep pack that would be healthy for you?
Before you leave your house next time, can you throw together your prep pack? If I run an errand in the am I don’t take a prep pack with me. But if I’m going to be away from the house around noon or later, I ALWAYS ALWAYS take my prep pack with me. Try it! You’ll be glad you did!
Now that you’ve read about the 8 empowering fat burning switches that you can turn on, which ones are you excited the most about turning on?
- Getting a full night’s sleep?
- Working in your choice of an exercise to increase your muscle mass to increase your metabolism?
- Timing your food consumption to begin intermittent fasting?
- Drinking half your body weight in ounces of water?
- Reducing your plate and portion sizes?
- Chewing your food 20-30 times before swallowing?
- Identifying and avoiding obesogens as much as possible?
- Being prepared every time you leave the house?
What To Do Next:
So, listen, I really want you to win in your weight game. Please feel really good about where you are right now – in every way. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. As you chose to turn on any or all of these “switches,” expect that your confidence is going to be enhanced, your attitude is going to show up more positive, and your energy and focus are going to improve and your weight will move in the right direction.
People are going to start to notice and even comment on how you light up the room, and you’ll be surprised at what this does for your confidence. It’s like there is an internal glow inside you beginning to pour out. The journey you are on goes beyond dropping the pounds. Imagine what it’s going to feel like to know you are in control and those tight jeans fit perfect now! Don’t be surprised if your spouse starts to “eyeball” you with a grin when you’re in the kitchen. 🙂 It’s inevitable.
Did you know that your journey is an inspiration to many around you, many of whom you have no idea are even noticing? So please know that everything you do for yourself to improve, is inspirational to many others. We all knowingly and unknowingly influence so many other people around us.
It has been my honor and pleasure to share these fat burning switches with you.
However, as useful as these 8 fat burning switches are, here’s what most people find they run up against next. Many people share that they could benefit from some gentle reminders and they want to feel a part of a like-minded community where they get support.
Would you find that useful too?
Matter of fact, how would you like to inspire others with what you’ve learned? Did you know that when we teach something we internally learn it deeper ourselves? (Yes, that’s largely why I love to share about all this!)
Well, my friend, there are also 10 more health promoting switches you are going to get excited about turning on because these switches will turn on your energy, turn on your clarity of thinking and your focus, they will turn on your ease of movement, and even your bowel movements, plus your digestion, your ability to sleep well, and a lot more.
Imagine on your busiest day you feel energized all day long! Think about what it’s going to be like to have fewer brain fog and brain “farts” as my kids call it. That’s slang for “I can’t remember!” How are you going to feel when your joints are moving easily and without pain! What will it be like when you do not have that indigestion and bloating sensation after meals! Imagine waking up every day after your wonderful restful night of sleep, energized and ready to take on the day!
So please join my community now by subscribing to my email newsletters to get all this important and free information, and you can always share any of this with those you care about.
References
Matthew Walker, Ph.D., Why We Sleep (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017)
F. Batmanghelidj, M.D., You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty (New York: Wellness Central Hachette Book Group, 2003)
David A. Kessler, M.D., The End of Overeating. Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite (New York: Rodale 2009)
Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., Eat Your Way to Happiness (Ontario, Canada: Harlequin Enterprises, 2009
Mehmet Oz, M.D., Food Can Fix It (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017)
Josh Axe, M.D., Eat Dirt (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016)
