Mastering Healthy Eating and Diet Strategies for Lifelong Wellness, Weight Loss, and Maintenance
Episode 89: Mastering Healthy Eating and Diet Strategies for Lifelong Wellness, Weight Loss, and Maintenance
Join Dr. Prianca Naik on the Empowering Working Moms Podcast! In this episode, she talks about how you can cultivate a way of life that is sustainable and how to lose or maintain your weight without feeling restricted. Dr. Prianca invites you to learn about three tips to help you navigate healthy eating habits that are realistic and obtainable. Tune in for more on this important topic.
In this episode, you will learn:
The five mistakes most people make when "dieting."
To navigate nutrition in the sustainable way.
How healthy eating can be a way of life that is flexible and maintainable.
To end burnout and exhaustion and get your peace of mind back, check out her free masterclass on 4 steps to overcome burnout, get rid of overwhelm, and get your peace of mind back.
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[FULL TRANSCRIPTION]:
You're listening to the empowering working moms podcast, episode number 89. Well, hello there, welcome to the empowering working moms podcast. I am so glad to have you here listening with me today,
I want to talk about something that is like a pretty hot topic, I think amongst working moms, which is nutrition and healthy eating habits if you want to lose weight or maintain your weight, and it just gets harder as we get older.
So a lot of people think that by like dieting, and following strict diets, that's the best way to lose weight. But if that were true, then everyone who's on a diet would be losing weight. And we just know that's not the case. Sometimes you can watch what you eat, and you feel like the scale isn't moving.
So a lot of mistakes that people make with dieting is that they have like an all or nothing attitude, they maybe follow something really strict, and then they throw their hands up in the air about the diet. They treat it as like super black and white or good or bad. Certain foods or being really rigid, which I think can be really overwhelming and exasperate the issue.
And then oftentimes, a lot of people, I think don't take into account liquids, or even alcohol is high in calories, including a glass of wine with dinner, let's say.
And so these are some of the mistakes that people make when they're trying to lose weight or maintain their weight. And really, the solution to this is learning to cultivate and embody a way of life that is sustainable and doable. The majority of the time, you don't have to be perfect by any means. But just something that you can practice about 75% of the time.
And with that you can most certainly maintain your weight. And I say this as somebody, who I was an overweight child, and I was probably overweight by about 30 pounds in middle school, and I yo yo dieted as a teenager, and my weight really fluctuated, probably until I hit medical school.
And then I really started learning more about nutrition and my body and how to eat properly and was able to live that way more than just following diets and restricting for a short period of time. And I would say I've maintained relatively the same weight for about maybe like 20 years now.
So I want to share with you everything that I've learned. And with my medical background and my own personal experience, I'm going to teach you today about how to really maintain your weight, or even lose weight without totally feeling restricted, and in a more manageable, sustainable way.
So I'm going to talk about three of my favorite ways of eating. And I'll be honest with you that I play around with all three of these. And I don't necessarily do one all the time. I more or less follow one or three of these methods several days a week. And then often on the weekends on Saturdays or Sundays or if I'm going out to eat, I indulge more.
So the first way of life that you can do to lose weight or to maintain your weight. Or also just if you go on vacation, or you have a few days where you're eating and drinking poorly. And you want to do a reset, one of the best things to do is an intermittent fast. So this is really just really an idea of getting your body into fasting.
And so the best way to do this is to fast for 16 hours and then eat during an eight hour window. So you can do this for let's say five days. And then for a couple days, you don't necessarily have to follow this. So you can also start slow and really just do this for 12 hours to start. So let's say you stop eating at 8pm.
And then you go to bed at 10. You wake up at 6am. For the first two hours, you can fast. And I will tell you I actually don't do this 100%, I cheat and I drink coffee. And then once I drink coffee, I feel settled. This isn't like a perfect fast by any means. And then I will eat for the hours allocated like 16 hours I'll fast and then I'll eat. And there are times when I might have to break the fast earlier depending on how I'm feeling and that's totally fine.
And I think that's really what I want to bring to your attention today is having flexibility, lacking the rigidity that makes a lot of these diets. It really is a way of life but making it so that you can give yourself grace, you don't have to be all or nothing. And you really just practice doing these things and have consistency. And it's okay if you mess up or it's okay, if you have a less than perfect day, you just start over at any time that you want.
And one of the benefits of intermittent fasting is really just allowing you to probably consume less calories just because it's over a less amount of time. And you're going to improve insulin sensitivity. So for those of you who you're borderline diabetic, or you've got your hemoglobin A1C, which is a measure in the bloodstream, which tells us that people have diabetes. If it's maybe higher than you want it to be, and you feel like you're having a little bit of insulin resistance, this is really helpful in protecting against type two diabetes, really improves that insulin sensitivity.
And it helps to support cell repair processes. Because during these fasting periods, cell maintenance of health is their best time to really repair. And you get an increase in the brain hormone, BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor, which really may aid in the growth of new nerve cells and is believed to protect against Alzheimer's. So that's pretty cool.
And in general, fasting has been shown to really increase lifespan and longevity. So you can do a couple different ways. You can fast for 16 hours and only eat during an eight hour window. You can eat normally for five days a week, and then really limit calorie intake very severely on two days, which I don't like as much.
And so I recommend the first way, which is the 16 hour fast, including when you're sleeping, and you can always gradually build up to that. And you want to make sure that you drink a lot of water. And if for any reason at all, you feel weak or dizzy or you're not feeling well, you may need to adjust your fasting window, not make it so long, you want to talk to your health care provider.
And this episode is definitely not specifically medical care, though I am a medical doctor, I'm not your doctor, but I am just giving information and tips that you can follow. And of course, the key in all of this is consistency and patience, and giving yourself grace if you're not doing it perfectly, really you just try this see it if you like it, do it. And then you can adjust it as you need.
So for me, I don't do intermittent fasting every single day. I especially will do it if I have an indulgent period of time. Like this past weekend was my son's birthday party, I had family in town, we were going out to eat a lot. So this week, I will attempt to do the intermittent fast several days. Or if I come back from vacation, I will do the intermittent fast for several days. But by no means do I do it every single day or religiously.
I stagger the different kinds of ways I practice my eating. And it's great because it keeps things fresh. But it also really helps me maintain a good body weight. But I will say as well. Exercise is really wonderful and important. And it helps boost your endorphins. And I can definitely do a different episode on exercise stuff.
But I used to actually hate exercise and for the past five years, I've consistently exercised first it was like two to three days a week, then three to four days a week. And now it's usually five days a week. But that is helpful, more than even in weight loss just in cardio protective health in blood flow to all of your organs, blood flow to your brain, decreasing dementia, increasing longevity, and of course, maintaining a healthy body weight.
Now the second way of life, which I guess I really like to call these way of life more than diets. The second option is the Mediterranean diet because it's really not super restrictive and it's very practical and easy to follow. It's mainly fruits and vegetables, which you're gonna get a lot of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins that you need, whole grains like whole grain bread or couscous, which also gives you fiber and nutrients.
And then healthy fats like olive oil or nuts and seeds, and avocado for example, legumes like beans, lentils, chickpeas, and fish and seafood. And in terms of meat, poultry is really preferred over red meat you can have a little bit of red meat, a little bit of sweets, but really limited, and eggs and cheese and yogurt as well in those.
So it's really extensive and that's why you can do it without really feeling like you're on quote unquote diet. And the benefits of this are really you've got the heart health because it's really great for reducing risk of heart disease, managing weight. A
gain, also with diabetic prevention and control and all of the anti inflammatory and antioxidants in this food may really help reduce inflammation or even prevent risk of cancer because you've got these lovely
antioxidants helping your body.
And so this is extremely easy to follow. And really, if you want to do it, I would say do it the majority of the week and learn to practice that and see how it goes for you because it's very easy to do in like social settings. And it's so simple to follow that it's a great lifestyle to have.
And now my third option is probably the most well known option, which is the low carb diet. And that's really great for diabetic prevention, it decreases inflammation, it's really good for your skin. Because carbs are really inflammatory, they can increase acne, or even dandruff like seborrhea dermatitis. And so low carb is a great way to go. It's even helpful in preventing heart disease.
So I think the most important thing with knowing low carb stuff is it's not just obvious things like sugars and desserts, and chocolate, and let's say sugary juices. But it's also really most things that are white, like rice, or pasta, or bread. And now these are not necessarily things that you have to stop altogether. But really being mindful of how you're consuming your carbohydrates.
And some of the carbs I really like, are like, if you like bagels, for example, an English muffin, like half an English muffin is just lower in calorie, low carbs. It's the really dense carbs, like a bagel, there's so much denseness in there, that's gonna have more carbs than a lighter, like more air in there, which is like an English muffin, for example, right? So you can make those kinds of choices where you're like, oh, well, I'm not gonna have a bagel, but I'm gonna have an English muffin.
Or if you're going to have pasta, you really have to know that a serving size of pasta, you want to have about half a cup. And that's not what is served when you go out to eat. That's not how much you're going to take. And you really want to try and keep it to half a cup if you're eating, things like that.
So that's one easy way to really lose weight is the low carb, high protein, high healthy fats diet slash way of life, but it's also not very fun. So I think that the low carb way of life, you can definitely do multiple days, and you could stagger it with the other two. That way, it's just more doable.
So you can kind of play around with what you like in terms of that. And you just want to replace high carb items with lower carb items you can try let's say like cauliflower rice, instead of white rice, you can do a little bit of meal prep with veggies. And really make sure not to put sugar in your drinks or drink high sugary sodas and monitor how you're feeling. And everybody feels differently.
But really, I think once you get over the first hump of reducing carbohydrates and eating high protein, more veggies, a little bit of cheese, let's say, you're going to feel full, and you're going to feel better. Because carbs are really pro inflammatory, we often will have like a sugar crash after having sugar.
And I'm not saying you can't indulge in carbohydrates or sugar, just keep it to like 20% of the time. And then let's say 80% of the time you follow the low carb diet. And I know the Atkins diet, which was super popular in the 90s is a no carb diet. And that is pretty miserable.
But that actually is one of the easiest, fastest ways to lose weight because you put your body into ketosis. And even though you're eating protein, and let's say fats, your body still goes into a starvation mode. So that's if you're really looking to lose a ton of weight. But in my opinion, it's not sustainable over the long run.
So when you're picking these lifestyles and making these choices in your eating, keep in mind that really the most important thing of all is to be consistent. Play around with them, mix and match them. You don't have to do one thing every single day.
You can see what works for you. You give yourself grace and be kind to yourself. If you quote unquote mess up your diet, you can start that day to do better or the next day. And you just keep at it. And eventually if you practice all of these ways of eating and ways of life, they really eventually just become you and it's not so much that you're going on the diet and off the diet and on the diet and off a diet, etc.
And if you're in a sedentary job where you're working from home, really make sure you move your body, you get out, you take a walk at the very least or you do a workout because when you're just sitting around there aren't very many calories burned. Although we do burn calories with various activities, even using our brains, but you just want to move your body as well.
So if you like this, let me know, leave a podcast review. And if you are like many of my clients who are burned out, they've been exhausted, and through working with me they've learned to enjoy their lives and truly find peace of mind, heal themselves from the inside out so that we have a healthier generation of kids because we've got a healthy generation of parents. Book a call with me PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I will talk to you next week.