Dr. Alison discusses what to eat to lose weight and introduces a structured eating plan! Join the FREE 5 pound weight loss challenge here: https://bit.ly/3rfzXqg
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Hello, this is Dr. Alison and today we are talking about what do I eat to lose weight? Because this is the biggest question that most of my patients have, right? Is how do I lose weight? And what do I want to eat if I don’t want to cook or plan or grocery shop. And really we do have to plan. There is no way around this. And we had to figure out exactly what your body means for you to be healthy, to lose weight, to get nutrition. Okay. So I always like to plan my meal plans, my food plans around your hormones, your body type, your blood type, your lifestyle, because those will always impact what you’re able to do. But when we throw in work and stress and people who hate to go to the grocery store, most people just can’t lose the weight because they can’t follow their meal plan.
And they’re really, really stuck in their ways. They are too overwhelmed with contradictory information. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be on a consultation with a patient. I outlined their whole meal plan and they’re like, well, my neighbor said, I can’t eat this, or I shouldn’t do that. Or I read this book and it said, I need to eat six pieces of white bread every single day. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, no, it’s so confusing when you’re trying to navigate this on your own. And you’re listening to the people around you, friends and family who are doing one thing, celebrities who are promoting their own program in a different way. You’re reading books that say completely, another thing is very, very difficult. And in functional medicine, I don’t recommend strict diets or a specific way of eating, unless it’s going to really work for you based off of what you need or food sensitivities.
We do follow structured, eating plans macro things. I give you the habits and the tools that you can use for the rest of your life. So before we jump into this whole thing, I do want to invite you to my free five pound challenge. It is running in January of 2020. One is going to be five days of information to help you learn some habits and some tools to help you lose weight. And the goal would be five pounds and are going to just give you the information and the support and the accountability. So you can have all of this information moving forward for the rest of your life. Okay. So I really think that my biggest thing with weight loss is that I want you to stop guessing at how to lose weight, stop starving yourself, stop trying diets, stop listening to your neighbors and really focus in on what you need.
Get your blood work done, get your hormones tested, look at your blood sugar levels, all of those things. So I’m really excited because I recently added in a new structured eating plan into my practice because I’ve had so many people say, Ellison, I just can’t do it. I don’t know what to do. I can’t get to the grocery store or I’m traveling so much. I just can’t follow. What we need to do is too hard. So what we are doing is we’re introducing a program that delivers food right to your door. So you get five meals essentially, and then you make your dinner. So that way, if you’re at home with your family or you’re out traveling, you are going to eat something that is ha and healthy. Okay. And that way it’s just so amazing because if you forget to go to the grocery store and you don’t have your snacks or you’re traveling and you forgot to pack, or you’re rushing out the door with the kids that you’re going to have food ready for you.
And you’re going to lose weight really quickly, and you’re going to lose so much more than that. You’re going to lose all of those bad habits that you used to have and skipping meals and relying on coffee. And you’re going to learn these amazing habits of health. And as a bonus, you don’t have to be a patient in my functional medicine practice. Anybody can do this and get free weekly coaching and calls. And I have a welcome package for all of our new customers, essentially. So you can do this if you’re a patient, but you don’t have to be. If you’re just looking for weight loss, I did this program a couple of years ago and it was fantastic. I lost 20 pounds in about six weeks. My husband lost over 30 pounds. We were actually joking yesterday. He said, you don’t remember how mad you were at me, because every time I stepped on the scale, I had lost another three or four pounds and you lost one.
And it was just so much easier for men. And that’s the way it is. It’s it’s the curse of hormones. And that’s why I say, we always try to work with hormones, but you are provided with breakfast, snack, lunch snack, and then you make your dinner. And I love that. I didn’t have to plan out what I was going to eat. I can just grab it and go on my way to the office. It made it so simple. And with these types of programs, we lose weight for quite a few reasons. Number one, eating six meals a day and eating within 30 minutes of waking up, resets your metabolism. I know it seems contradictory, but when we do this type of eating, your body learns to trust you again, when your blood sugar becomes stable, because you’re eating consistently throughout the day, your adrenals calm down, your cortisol calms down.
And that means you’re not holding onto fat because your body’s scared. You’re not causing inflammation because your cortisol is up and it really helps your body trusts. You course, there’s a calorie deficit, which is why we like to do the health coaching. And we do a health assessment before you start this program because we want to make sure that it’s safe and it’s healthy for you. The other big thing about weight loss with this is that you’re getting your full nutrients. And because these things are four to five. And what I love about this program compared to past programs that I’ve done or looked at, or that are currently available, that these are based on whole food. There’s other programs that I’ve done way, way in the past, where it was just synthetic chemicals that looked like eggs and it horrible. And people come into my office and be like, Alison, I can’t believe you’re like sharing this.
And like I know, but when someone needs to lose a hundred pounds or 200 pounds, this is, this is what we have to do. So now with this new program, we’re eating nutrient dense food with actual food in it. Amazing. Right? So when you have more nutrition in you, your body can feel better. Yourselves are going to have more energy, right? And so when we do typical dieting, if you will, or calorie restriction on our own, we actually don’t get enough nutrients like magnesium and calcium potassium. Your B vitamins. We miss out so much because you’re starting yourself or you’re not getting it in the right ratios. Or the favorite thing I’ve ever heard is my trainer said, I can have pizza and fruit snacks. As long as it’s within my macros will trust me. If pizza is all you eat, you’re not giving your nutrition.
The other reason that we lose weight on this program is because it supports your digestion. So it’s easier on your stomach. It’s easier to assimilate, which will immediately calm down inflammation, bloating, pain, all of those gut issues that we have. And then you’re going to be able to digest and break down food and assimilate that nutrition into your body, into yourself. So you’re going to have more energy. You’re going to feel better. The digests better muscles are going to be stronger. It is amazing. So why don’t we do this program? Weight is so much more than the way you look or what size you are. Right. I see in my patients how much their weight affects everything else that we’re working on. So to the facts, their inflammation and pain. So if you have shoulder pain, back pain, neck pain, especially in women, that neck tightness and that shoulder tightness is often related to weight because the inflammation is so high that your body can’t manage it.
I see how it affects their hormones because their body traps Astron essentially, and they can’t stop the cycle. I’ve worked with women who then transitioning into menopause for nine years. Your menopause transition should be one year. It should not be start and stop and start, stop, start, and stop. And wait is a big issue with this because it, again, like I said, it traps estrogen. But the other thing that it does, especially for women is estrogen turns into testosterone. And that makes it really hard to lose weight. That’s when we get facial hair and acne and Tommy weight, all of those things, so weight will affect your hormones. And when we lose that weight, your hormones tend to balance out beautifully. And of course, when we balance hormones, your weight’s going to fall off as well. So this is a great cycle that we work with.
And then lastly, I spent many, many, many of my patients out for sleep studies because of sleep apnea. So when we have fatigue or chronic sinus infections or lung issues, and we figure it out, I always send them for a sleep study and losing weight can help with sleep apnea and support normal, healthy breathing. So that way you sleep all night, you’re getting oxygen into your body and your brain, and you’re going to feel better. So that’s just a few examples of why we focus on weight. I did want to talk about a couple of things. Like there’s just one issue with the structured eating tight plan is that I do recommend that if you are doing this or your partner is doing it, that you do it as well. So if your spouse is doing it or the person that you’re living with the other adult in the house, you really want to do this program together.
So my husband and I did it together and when we were tired or we just really wanted to go get some ice cream, we really held each other strong. My patients who did this program on their own. And they’re really, I’ll be honest. Her husband was at hallway, didn’t want to do it. And they were either cooking two dinners because their husband refused to eat chicken and broccoli for some reason, or they went to a birthday party and everyone was having pizza and they couldn’t. And so honestly, having a support system going through a weight loss program is so, so, so important. And you don’t have to do this with your spouse. You can totally do this on your own. But I would say that would be the biggest thing that I learned in watching people go through this program, going through it myself is that you need support.
And so you have that support through me and the health coaches, things like that. But also when you’re sitting there and you’re home and it’s 10 o’clock at night, that support is going to be really, really key. The positives with this program, I would say is that the food is ready to go. You can just grab and go. You’re going to lose weight quickly and easily. You don’t have to think about anything. You don’t have to go grocery shopping anymore. It just takes a really big weight off of you because we want you eating consistently. We want your blood sugar healthy. All of these things are going to help you after you’re done with the program that you can send you to eat this way. You continue to learn what foods you like, you don’t like and start incorporating that. And those habits will stay with you for a very, very long time.
So the low in the video or the podcast, I will put the link for our free five pound weight loss challenge. I’m so excited about that and as well, the link to schedule an introductory call. So if you want to do a weight loss program or you want to get started with functional medicine, you can call me set up a time. We’ll chat for free and see what program would be best for you and get you on your way. So you can manage your weight loss or your other symptoms and feel great. And 20, 21, thanks for tuning in. And we’ll see you next time.
