6 easy tweaks that jumpstarted my 40-lb. Weight-loss

Today I'm going to share exactly how I would start if I were to go back and start my 40 pound weight loss again. And see, once I started my weight loss, things started happening quickly. But it took me a while to get my weight loss going. I was at a standstill, I was at a plateau I couldn't break through. And so today I'm going to teach you the easiest things to do to break through that weight loss plateau so that you can start losing weight. And once you start, it starts coming off quickly. So let's do it. I'm Nagina Abdullah, a weight loss and metabolism boosting coach for midlife women women. I have a degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley and I have helped over 1, 500 women lose weight and get to their dream bodies after the age of 50 when nothing else was working. So I want to share with you how you can do the same as well. So let's get to it. The first thing is, is to think of weight loss as fun. This was one of the most instrumental things I did that absolutely got my weight loss going so quickly. It was just stopped before it wasn't happening. This fusing your water is going to help you enjoy it more and it's also going to give you these extra benefits. And so in addition to that infused deboing water, I love to start my day with cinnamon in my coffee and sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon in my coffee. You don't need anything more than an eighth of a teaspoon. You don't even need to measure. You just sprinkle it in. And what cinnamon does is that it helps you bring down your blood sugar and helps you store less fat. So it's helping you with your metabolism. So really having that infused debloing water and then your coffee with cinnamon or coffee or tea with cinnamon, if you don't drink caffeine, you can add that cinnamon into a smoothie or on top of some fruit you're having in the morning and that really gets your, your blood sugar more even. So these are some things that when I started doing this, I actually started losing weight so quickly. It was, it was actually really fun to do this. So this still goes hand in hand with the fun principle. And then I just started seeing my, my body start shifting. And so these are really easy things that you can do that actually make you want to do more healthy things if you start here.

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All right. So the next thing that, that I did to, for my weight loss to actually get started and what I want you to do is not to focus on counting calories anymore. No longer focus on counting calories. I'm sure you've done that. I have done that in the past. Guess what? It actually worked for me when I was in my 20s and 30s, but it stopped working for me after that. And it's actually not the most important thing. The most important thing for you to do is to balance your blood sugar. And the way that you balance your blood sugar is by the types of foods you eat. So instead of counting calories and having potentially some unhealthy foods, some foods that are bloating you, some foods that are causing your blood sugar go up and then go down, what is happening when you're eating those kinds of foods is that you're storing more fat. And your blood sugar, when it's raised by eating something that is unhealthy, something like a simple carb or a food that you're eating all by itself, that's just spiking your blood sugar that breaks down to sugar. Your blood sugar is going up, insulin is being released, and that insulin is bringing your blood sugar down. Because the role of insulin is to keep your blood sugar even. And when your blood sugar is brought down, that it's storing that sugar in your cells as fat. And so what we want to do is we want to avoid those ups and downs and we want to keep our blood sugar even. And the other benefit of keeping your blood sugar even is that you're not having these energy ups and, and dips and crashes. You're not having, like, sugar ups and then sugar crashes. You are just keeping your energy even, and you'll find that you're more productive, you're more happy, you're emotionally more stable in the day, and this changes so much for you. So the way that you focus on your blood sugar is to pair your foods. And so, you know, I want to emphasize that I am talking about the types of food you're eating that are so transformational to your body. And so it's not about your calories first. Calories do come in later. But if you start managing your blood sugar by pairing your food so that your blood sugar doesn't spike, then we'll talk about portions. That's the next thing that will help you keep your calories at a good place. Okay. But managing your blood sugar, what I recommend is that you learn my fat burning food framework. And this is something that I discovered, I created, and I told you. It took me a while to get started on my 40 pound weight loss. But then once it started happening, I was like, oh, my God, this is so much fun. How is this happening? And I started realizing the patterns in what I was doing. And I saw that I was pairing my foods so that every time I was eating something, I wasn't spiking my blood sugar. And so the way to do this is to always make sure that you're having protein in your meal, because protein keeps your blood sugar even. And it, it actually like helps you bring down your blood sugar if you're eating something else that's more sugary. So you always want to have protein. I recommend 30 grams of protein. Then you pair that with vegetables, okay? At least one cup of vegetables. You can have more than that if you want. Now, vegetables are full of fiber. And so fiber keeps you, keeps you very satiated. It keeps you very full. It also keeps your blood sugar more even. So you're having protein, you're having veggies, and then you also have a healthy carb or a healthy fat with your meal, depending on what, what meal it is. In my fat burning food framework, I recommend doing a healthy fat at breakfast and dinner and healthy carbs at lunch. And that's because you burn off the carbs during the day. So when you're pairing your carbs with protein with tasty veggies, then you are absolutely going to. You're going to. Your blood sugar is not spike from those carbs like they would if you ate them alone. Now this comes into play even if you're having something that is considered healthy, like a fruit. So if you're having an apple, instead of having the apple by itself, pair it with either a protein or a healthy fat. A healthy fat also helps you bring down your blood sugar. So if you're going to have an apple, don't have it alone. Don't have it naked, okay? Have it with peanut butter, 1 to 2 tablespoons, or have it with 1 to 2 tablespoons of nuts, or have it with string cheese, or have it with cottage chees, or have it with a small piece of protein that you had extra from your lunch. So make sure you're pairing it with something, okay? So once I started realizing that I was not no longer counting calories, but I had just shifted the foods that I was eating, not even by a huge amount, but I just started being more intentional about adding protein to every meal and then eating healthy carbs, which didn't cause a blood sugar spike, and then adding more vegetables in and then also having those healthy fats it's like my body just started releasing fat. It was so much more fun when this started happening.

Okay.

And I just want to give you some examples of healthy carbs. Those are things like beans, lentils, Ezekiel bread, sweet potatoes, zucchini, regular potatoes, quinoa, millet, farro. These are all foods that are, that have some fiber in them. And so they're not going to cause a spike in your blood sugar like that. They help to keep you even.

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So. So remember to work on balancing your blood sugar. Pair your foods using the fat burning food framework. You are going to be set.

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All right. So now I also want to let you know this is something, a surprise that I have right now. But so what I, what I wish I had done earlier was that I wish I had tracked my weight and I wish I had tracked my measurements. Because this is the thing, when you track your weight, even when you're not losing weight, you need to see what's happening with your body. Okay. If you don't know what's happening with your body and you're kind of just guessing, you're just not going to get your weight loss as fast as possible because it's data driven. You know what's happening. You know, every week if you're staying the same, that something's not working. You know, if you're gaining weight, you got to make a change. And you know, if you're losing weight, then, yes, things are going okay. But this is what I recommend. I'm going to show. This is a scale that I recommend. This is a smart scale, and it is. This one is called the RENFO smart scale. And I'm going to tell you about why a smart scale is what you want to do. Now there's also another one that I use called Withings scale. That one is also really great. Now both of these sync with your phone. And the thing that's really important about a smart scale like RENFO or withings is that you're not only looking at your weight, you're looking at your body fat and you're also looking at your muscle mass. Because at the end of the day, when we're losing weight, ideally you're losing body fat and you're gaining muscle mass, but in the beginning stages of losing weight, maybe you're simply losing body fat. And that's okay. Okay, you can add, you can, you can layer on building muscle as a second phase. And that's actually what I did. So, you know, we sometimes may not know if we're losing body fat. If we're losing water, if we're gaining muscle and, and we want to be really clear about it. And it's also helpful for you to know what your muscle mass is before you start lifting and before you start working out so that you can see where you were, you know, and you can compare that. But what we want to see is your body fat going down. And sometimes your weight doesn't reflect this because maybe your body's holding on to more water. That's what happened to me for a while. I found out that I was very inflamed. I was losing body fat, but my weight wasn't going down. And the only reason I knew this was because I had a smart scale. So then I started taking steps to reduce my inflammation. Now, I want you to let me know in my comments if you're also interested in me doing another video about how to decrease inflammation. I would love to hear from you to see if that's something that's interesting for you. Okay, so, so what's happening here is that I started realizing, okay, you know, I need to focus. My body fat is going down, so it's actually working what I'm with what I'm doing. And so I felt good about that. And then I are working on another thing. And so it really helps you problem solve. And then if you are lifting, if you are exercising, you definitely want to see your muscle mass going up to make sure that those exercises are the right ones. Now I want to just take a quick pause and let you know that I have helped over 1,500 women get to the body of their dreams. And this is after they have tried everything. I would love to talk with you to talk about your goals, to talk about your challenges, and to see if there may be a way that I can help you. And so the way that I can do this is for you to book a net call with me by going to masala body.com forward/apply. And then you just pick a time, pick a day for me in the upcoming days and then you're going to fill out a very quick survey that comes up afterwards so that I can understand you more before I jump on the phone with you. And this is going to be a very fast call where I'm going to get to know you, get to get to know what, what you've been through, get to know what your goals are. And then we'll set up a longer call if I feel like I can help you, where I will share with you how I can help you and we'll walk through it step by step yet. Okay, so masala body.com forward/apply. All right, now another thing that helped me get started, which is absolutely against the grain of what we've heard, is that I started to eat more, to eat less. So to eat more, what that means is to eat more of those foods that are increasing our metabolism. I'm going to tell you what those are. But when you eat more of those foods, you increase your metabolism, but you're also full and satiated and you're no longer craving sugar or unhealthy carbs that are causing your fat gain, especially in your midsection. So you're no longer fighting your sugar cravings, you're simply eating more. And you feel content, you feel satiated, you feel amazing, and you are able to avoid any temptations. In fact, somebody could even bring around pastries, donuts, your favorite chocolate cake. And you may actually turn it down because you're just fine, you're content, you're no longer hungry at all. And, and so the thing is, if you start with the strategy of under eating to lose weight, you're going to soon find that doesn't work. In fact, you might be here right now because you've realized you've tried to undereat, you've tried to cut calories, and instead of you losing weight, you're just staying stuck. So you actually have to change your method. And so you do need to eat more of those foods that increase your metabolism. And then as a result, you won't be fighting sugar anymore. It's going to be a very natural, easy journey for you to eat healthy foods because you're full and satiate it all the time. And then you can still choose sugar. Oh, I still choose it, I still enjoy it, but I do it when it's appropriate for me. Maybe it's a birthday, maybe it's the weekend, you know, maybe I just, I want it for something special, but I'm not craving it all the time like I used to. Now, some of these metabolism boosting foods, they're all in my fat burning food framework and they include having more protein. So having things like eggs, chicken, turkey, fish. Fish is amazing. Salmon, cod, shrimp, shrimp, seafood, having those kinds of things, having cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, hemp seeds, lentils, beans, having foods that have more protein in it. Also eating, making sure you're eating those veggies because those veggies are keeping you full. And if you skip it, you're gonna crave carbs. So you really want to make sure you're having that one cup at least of veggies at every single meal. Or having low sugar fruit like strawberries or berries or tangerine green.

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And then also having the healthy carbs that I mentioned before. And then having healthy fats is so important. Those are things like avocados, coconut oil, nuts, almond butter, you know, fatty fish, fatty meat. Those are healthy fats. So you want to have more of these foods and you don't want to ever think I need to eat less, think I need to eat more of these metabolism boosting foods and you're going to watch your body transform. Okay, now finally, one of the ways that I really got started with my weight and what I recommend for you is that I got started, I was able to do this with my husband. My husband also wanted to get healthy. And so I started cooking some food, he started cooking some food, we started eating together. We started being so excited about how delicious our food was and how full we felt. And then we were just flabbergasted when we found out how much weight we were losing by eating so much food. And so it was really fun to share it with someone. Now I have so many of my clients and the reason that they're losing weight is because they have, have a community, they have a coach, they have somebody to talk to and to keep them accountable and to also guide them when they feel stuck and guide them on the right strategies. And so if you try to lose weight alone, it's very, very common that you will get overwhelmed and you will get off track and you will feel guilty, you'll feel regretful, and you'll just be on a yo yo cycle for years, decades, or even your whole life life. But if you have someone to lose weight with, whether it's a spouse, a friend, a trainer, a coach, a fitness community, a weight loss community, those are all things that you will, that will help accelerate your weight loss and make it and you will normalize what you're doing. Instead of you feeling like you're the only person that is doing these things that may sound extreme compared to what other people doing are doing, but what you're actually doing is just treating yourself the best that you can, it's important to surround yourself with others that are doing the same, saying, okay, now I would love for you to take this time and book a call with me to find out more about how you can, you can get through your challenges, how you can reach your goals and how there may be something or maybe a way that I can help you as your coach by creating the community that you need and by giving you the exact step by step plan to lose this weight. If you book a call@masala body.com forward/apply, I'll talk to you more about your own personalized goals, your challenges, and exactly what I can do and what I recommend you do. For you to get started in your weight loss journey, head over to masala body.com apply find a time and then fill out the quick survey that comes up afterwards and I will contact you very soon and I'm looking forward to talking to you now. Until then and until my next video. Check out this video that I think you're going to love and keep learning from. Thank you so much for being here. Are but when you eat more of those foods, you increase your metabolism, but you're also full and satiated and you're no longer craving sugar or unhealthy carbs that are causing your fat gain, especially in your midsection. So you're no longer fighting your sugar cravings. You're simply eating more and you feel content, you feel satiated, you feel amazing, and you are able to avoid any temptations. In fact, somebody could even bring around pastry, greased donuts, your favorite chocolate cake. And you may actually turn it down because you're just fine. You're content. You're no longer hungry at all. And so the thing is, if you start with the strategy of under eating to lose weight, you're going to soon find that doesn't work. In fact, you might be here right now.