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We don't have a weight loss problem.

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We have a weight loss maintenance problem.

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In other words, the ways in which we lose the weight aren't sustainable.

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Welcome to the show where we help you make smart nutrition simple.

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If you want proven nutrition strategies to help you build a better body and create the energy to show up for your family without overly restrictive and unrealistic dieting.

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Then you're in the right place.

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Make sure to subscribe and enjoy this episode.

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The best strategies that we tell clients for maintaining weight loss over the long term are to, to make sure that they have nutrition and exercise and lifestyle behaviors that are sustainable, right?

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Because when it comes to long term weight loss, consistency reigns supreme.

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And I imagine everyone who's listening to this has lost weight at some period of time and perhaps has gained it back.

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And what we know very clearly is we don't have a weight loss problem.

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We have a weight loss maintenance problem.

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In other words, the ways in which we lose the weight aren't sustainable, right?

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Just think about all of the, the myriad of diets out there and the the restrictive practices, whether it be nutrition or exercise and all of the fads that we've all,, succumbed to and what we see very clearly with individuals that are successful long term and are able to maintain weight loss is legitimately becomes part of their identity,, to the degree that they become someone who enjoys eating healthy, nutritionally dense food.

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They become someone who enjoys moving their body in multiple ways, multiple times throughout the week.

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They become someone who enjoys strength training as an example or hiking or biking or dance class or whatever it is.

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But it's just part of their lifestyle they enjoy and rely on behaviors and skills around cooking food at home and meal prepping or eating at healthier restaurants or not overindulging or not stuffing themselves.

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They appreciate the feelings of what it, of what it feels like to be hungry at periods of time throughout the day and not worry about it because they know it's a normal part of calorie balance.

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They focus on optimizing their sleep routines and managing their stress levels and minimizing alcohol intake.

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And so these are all of the behaviors and tools and skills that we work with clients around to identify what makes the most sense for the client, given their lifestyle, their preferences, their behaviors, their commitment and readiness for change.

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And it's like, you know, we know where you are now and we can acknowledge where on the spectrum you lie and where you wanna go.

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So now the que you know, begs the question of like, how do we help you become that type of person, right?

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The type of person who actually enjoys and is intrinsically motivated by all of those things, right?

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Otherwise, what we're gonna find is that this quote unquote motivate, that we're relying on motivation.

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And that is an unsustainable way of, of being successful because we're, we're most people are not motivated.

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I don't know anyone who's motivated all of the time.

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And, and so it becomes something where you're intrinsically driven to enjoy the process and align with how good it feels to exercise, to eat healthy.

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And because, you know, it contributes to a better quality of life.

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How do you balance calories without becoming obsessed?

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And without necessarily counting them.

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And this is a good question because there's at the end of the day, we wouldn't have to be so potentially myopically focused and regimented on calorie management.

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If the calories that we consumed weren't so weren't so dense.

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In other words, if the foods that we consumed were healthier foods that were higher nutritional value, that high amounts of fiber and water and lower caloric value like 100 and 200 years ago, then we wouldn't have to be as obsessed with focusing on how the calories are adding up.

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And so one of the conversations that we have with clients is listen, calories.

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Absolutely.

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Matter.

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Right.

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But they're not all that matters.

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And if we could do nothing else but teach you how to start to build your plates with, like I said, nutritionally dense, high fiber, high water, low calorie value foods, then invariably you wouldn't have to worry very much about how the calories are adding up because it's gonna be really damn hard to overeat chicken breasts, broccoli, potato, you know, salary.

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Like you don't go binging on those things when we're eating nutrient dense foods.

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But when we're consuming sugary drinks and pastries and, you know, very,, high fat, high carbohydrate, high processed, refined,, artificially flavored.

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And again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with those except that it's hijacking our brain to say, eat more, eat more, eat more and it's just too easy to consume a day's worth of calories in one sitting.

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And that's the problem.

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So, were relegated to listen, if you wanna eat these things, which by all means you absolutely can and you can eat those and lose weight, but you don't have to eat those.

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And if you did nothing else but started eating what we call more s single ingredient foods.

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Think about the perimeter of the grocery store.

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Right.

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We have meats, dairy fruits, vegetables.

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, I mean, that's, you know, that's pretty much it.

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Right.

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, whole grains.

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Well, if we're eating those, we're preparing foods ourselves, we're minimizing the amount of extra oils and,, processing and, and what have you.

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Well, again, it's, it's a lot harder to over consume calories because we're full, we're satisfied we're giving the body what it needs.

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But if we're eating Doritos, you know, you're gonna go through a bag in no time and, and that's, you know, that's the problem.

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So, so that's where we look at.

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, how can we leverage the calorie tracking process to infuse the behaviors and skills that are gonna teach you how to and get you to enjoy eating healthier foods to the point where now you enjoy eating healthier foods and you don't have to worry as much about tracking.

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That's, that's the goal.

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So the, the question is, what role does gut health play in the weight loss process?

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And my response to that is the, the role that the gut plays is far, far above and beyond what any of us realize.

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And I think what we're gonna start to realize over the and acknowledge and, and see from research and we're already, you know, we're already there if we were to do some digging.

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But what we're seeing is that the integrity of the gut is a significant contributor to overall health, to say nothing of kind of our ability to lose body fat because you know the saying that the gut is the second brain and we have this very visceral relationship between the brain and the gut and the signals that go back and forth and the composition of the gut in terms of the hormones that our body produces, the neurotransmitters that our body produces to the degree that I don't know who it was, who it was.

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Maybe Socrates.

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All he said all disease begins in the gut and, you know, this is thousands of years ago and, and so the gut in and of itself is this is this very diverse living environment that has millions of, of both beneficial bacteria as well as, you know, potentially harmful bacteria.

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But what's important is that there's a symbiotic relationship between kind of the gut bacteria and our health and our ability to digest, absorb assimilate nutrients again, to be able to, to produce certain chemicals and hormones in the body for our brain health, for our energy, for our emotional well being.

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And it seems that especially with things like like S C sections with bottle feeding babies, with chemicals in our environment, with food processing, a lot of Children now and in years past are losing out on the ability to build this robust immune system in their gut.

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because they're not going through the vaginal canal because they're not getting mother's milk because of the food again, because of the food quality and that's, it's not good or bad, it just what it is, what is.

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but, but the reason that matters is because we're at a disadvantage because of the role of antibiotics and how antibiotics can kill off gut bacteria.

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So, again, it's like our health is determined by our gut health.

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And if we don't have a healthy gut and we have this, this imbalance, this dys biosis of, of bacteria in our gut, well, then it's gonna affect everything else.

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And I think that's a lot of what we're seeing with emotion issues, psychological issues, behavioral issues, chemical imbalances in the body to say nothing of, of the body's ability to burn body fat to digest, absorb and assimilate nutrients, autoimmune issues with the, again, the integrity of the gut.

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And so it's a very long winded and somewhat obtuse way of me really expressing that it matters and it matters a lot and I think we're gonna continue to see just how much it matters.

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But that is where if you're not going to the bathroom every day.

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So if you don't have solid bowel movements, if you're not going, you know, at least every day, then you're, and you're not eliminating properly, then you're gonna have detoxification issues.

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You're gonna have nutrient deficiencies.

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And so again, like there's a reason our bodies ca our, our company called body systems is because everything is connected.

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And so we need to look at everything as a whole if you're not losing body fat.

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And there's chemical imbalances, you don't have energy, you can't think straight.

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You can't sleep, you can't poop.

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Like we have to look at the gut, we have to look at your detoxication pathways and on and on.

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And so that's where it is fundamental.

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So when we look at it, the way that we help clients with gut issues is by really just first and foremost, digging deeper around asking the right questions like, hey, do you eliminate, you know, do you have daily bowel movements or are you constipated?

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Are you experiencing loose stools?

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What kind of foods do you consume?

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Well, let's look at the nutrient diversity of the foods based on our calorie tracking data.

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Let's we'll use more advanced questionnaires just to, to really look at different body systems and what body systems might be screaming for attention, maybe it's the liver and the detoxification pathways or, you know, gut dys biosis or right, like whatever it is.

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And then based on that, we can look at all right, behavioral alcohol, caffeine, lifestyle supplementation, food quality, stress management, all of those types of things are at the end of the day, it all comes back to nutrition, lifestyle exercise.

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However, there's certainly interventions from medical supplemental detoxification from which we have a amazing network of practitioners that we can refer out to if it's necessary for more advanced diagnostic testing as well as treatment.

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Well, there you have it.

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That's it for this episode of the smart nutrition made simple show if you have questions that you'd like us to tackle in an upcoming episode.

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Then we can't wait to hear from you.

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So you can submit your questions directly by just messaging us on our social media.

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That's at body systems coaching or you can just message me personally ben at body systems dot com.

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Appreciate you guys listening and I will catch you in the next episode.

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Thank you so much for listening.

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And if you found this content valuable, here are four ways I can help you in your nutrition journey for free one, grab a free copy of my fat loss Fix guide at fat loss fix guide dot com.

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