How To Conquer Cravings - Video 2 | Natalie Jill

Today I want to talk to you about why we're getting fatter and fatter and why some of the main healthy foods we're eating are creating some of the biggest problems. No pun intended. But before I jump in, I want to say thank you for all of the amazing comments and feedback on video one where I address the number one biggest obstacle holding back your fat loss. It sounds like it really resonated with you, which is exactly what I was aiming for. So please keep your feedback and comments coming. So today I want to keep the momentum going and help you overcome the second largest obstacle that stands in the way of fat loss. We overcame the first main obstacle in video one when we sorted out your short term and long term motivators and uncovered your true dcm, your driving core motivator. So now that you're laser focused on how to get and stay motivated, you are ready for this next step. So in this video today I want to talk to you specifically about why you eat healthy foods, but you keep getting fatter and fatter. In addition, because I really want you to get this, I'm going to share exactly how and why we get and store fat in the first place. So there's been a lot of new science in the past 24 to 36 months on this topic and much of this, this new science, it really disproves things that have been told to us as facts for the past 30 plus years. The updated science alone will completely change your outlook on fat loss. Just having this new information will make taking the correct actions so much easier. So you're definitely going to want to invest the next few minutes in your own education to get this information and make sure you hang on till the very end of this video because I'm going to give you three specific things that you can do today. You can start them today right after this video to start getting your body into some serious fat burning. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Natalie Jill. I'm a licensed master sports nutritionist and functional fitness trainer who's helped hundreds of thousands of people lose the fat and keep it off. So one of the things I hear all the time is some version of I'm eating healthy or I'm eating clean, but I just can't lose the weight. Is that you? When I start asking what foods they're eating, it becomes crystal clear to me they're eating healthy foods, but they're not eating foods that will assist with with fat loss. And there's a difference. For example, let Me ask you, what do you think of these foods? Oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice. How about potatoes? Or how about 100% whole wheat bread or just whole grains in general? And what about corn? I think we can all agree that individually they're all considered somewhat healthy foods. The issue comes when we start combining them to create meals. If you don't do it properly, those healthy foods can start increasing your waistline and can do it pretty quickly. Let's take breakfast as an example. Let's say for breakfast you have some oatmeal and you add maybe some fruit or honey to it and you have a piece of whole grain toast with a glass of orange juice. Sounds pretty healthy, right? Not if losing body fat's your goal. So I'm going to get into the why in just a second, but I want to take a minute to share a story first that really gives a real life example of how our bodies process certain foods and how they are contributing to our obesity. Now, I've been teaching these concepts for quite some time now, but this real life example really drove the point home for me more than anything ever has. And I think it's going to do the same for you. So I just returned recently from a trip where I spent a week in a very beautiful yet very poor country. It's actually the second poorest country in the entire western hemisphere, Nicaragua. A country recovering from civil war, dictatorships and natural disasters. I was on a trip there to serve those that cannot serve themselves in a very impoverished area called Tipi Tapa. Now, this area has a population of about 6,000 people and literally no economic opportunity. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen this with my own eyes. But this community, they had survived in some of the worst living conditions I ever experienced. For a country whose average life expectancy is 71 for men and 77 for women, the average life expectancy in this small area of Tippitapa is just 37 years old. Now, I stayed personally in the city of Managua, which with traffic was about an hour and a half drive each way to get in and out of Tippitapa. Now, the drive was pleasant for the most part. On the way there, the roads were nice until that one right turn. Now this one right turn down this rutted out dirt road led to our neighborhood in Tippitapa that we were going to be working in. This dirt road slowed our pace to a crawl as the van would routinely have to turn diagonal to crawl across big ruts and holes dug into the dirt road. I Quickly forgot about the bumpy road, though. When the smell of smoke overtook my senses, I looked up to see what was burning. And up ahead, I saw smoke. I mean, and very soon a sight that this, this site will just stick with me forever. As we rolled up on the source of that smok, I could see a massive trash dump. Not only this massive trash dump, but it was smoldering with fires all over it. So I went to grab my phone to get pictures of the fires, but when I was interrupted by my daughter just pointing out the window with her jaw wide open, she poked me on the shoulder and she said, mommy, look at those little kids picking through the trash. Sure enough, I looked. There were children as young as 4 or 5 years old all the way to adults sifting through the trash, looking for scraps of food, clothing, or any other treasure that could be found. This is a smoldering trash dump and there's people on here. This truly gave another meeting to one man's trash is another man's treasure. Standing on the other side of the road were pregnant teenage girls as young as 12 or 13. They were avoiding the smoke, but wanting to see if any food could be found. As we continued on to the neighborhood, which was right next to this dump that was smoldering, we passed groups of young children, barely clothed, barefoot and filthy. Then I noticed something really odd that stood out. I was really surprised to see how many obese adults were here. Now, remember, these are people that are very poor, have no economic opportunity, and they don't know when or where their next meal is coming from. Other than scraps of food that they would sometimes find within the rubbish. They rely very heavily on outside resources and donations of food. Now, on this particular trip, I was part of the outside source. I was one of the people bringing the food. Now, I knew we were doing a good thing, helping to feed the hungry families and build homes, etc. But as a nutritionist, looking at the food that we were serving and the food we were passing out to 250 families, I was really torn. And I discussed this with the group. I looked down at the food and it's this bag of rice, beans, cheap grains, and sheep oil. Now, all these are cost effective and can feed a lot of people. And I get that. I get that they don't spoil, they don't have to be refrigerated, and they're easy to transport in bulk. I got it. But were there unintended consequences? The food we were serving, high starch grains, had a long shelf life. It was cheap, it was easy to get. For them, it was fixing a temporary problem, hunger for that moment. But was it creating a bigger problem? What was so crazy is if you look at these people, hungry, starving, getting maybe one or two meals a day, if there were some, some sort of outside assistance, yet so many of them were obese, how could they be starving but obese? And then to hear the health problems with them. Type 2 diabetes, the average life expectancy half of what it was for the rest of the country. When we handed out the prepared food bags to feed them after we left, this is what we gave them. Rice, beans, corn tortillas, pasta and canola oil. But they were still hungry. Obesity and disease ran rampant. Why is that so? Listen, these people didn't have a choice. They don't have a choice. They don't have food. They're digging through trash looking for food. And this is what they have access to. You have a choice. We have choices with lots of food options. And we're choosing specific foods that we think are healthy that are contributing to a huge obesity epidemic and are contributing to making it so you can't lose that fat. But let's look at things on a deeper level. We to see how these foods interact with your body and how they impact your fat loss. These questions followed me throughout my entire week in Nicaragua. Not just because of how these people I met and how I longed to help them, but also in how this chance meeting of weeks serving them gave me a complete epiphany about what's happening in our fat loss. So remember our meal example from a few minutes ago where I talked about that breakfast of oatmeal and some fruit and honey and that toast with a glass of orange juice. So all of those that I listed, oatmeal, fruit, honey, whole grain, toast, orange juice, they're all carbs. Let's compare that to the food the starving yet obese people I saw on tippitapa were eating. Rice, starchy carb, Beans, starchy carb. Corn, starchy carb. Pasta, starchy carb tortilla, also a starchy carb. Now, to get a better idea of how this impacts our fat loss or. Or lack thereof, let's look at how carbs behave in our body. Now, before we get going, let me stop you right there and say, don't worry, I'm not going to tell you that low carb is the answer or that no carb is the answer because it's just not that simple. And that's definitely not the answer. But what I'M going to do is show you how fats, carbs and proteins behave in our bodies and why balance is so critical to our fat loss. The first thing we need to understand is a hormone in our body called insulin. So insulin basically regulates if our body is going to store energy as body fat, or if it's going to burn it. To cut to the chase, if your body is producing insulin, when it's producing insulin, you're not in fat burning mode. So you're probably wondering, okay, well then how do I stop my body from producing insulin? Then that might be the right train of thought, but it's definitely not the solution. So. So let's keep looking at this from a simplistic point of view to better help you understand insulin and how it works in your body. Think back to a time when you had a big high carb meal, like a big pasta dish, or maybe a bowl of oatmeal with some sugar. How did you feel after when you were headed back to work or sitting in class? Did you have trouble concentrating? Did you feel groggy? Did you have lack of energy? Did you feel like you needed to take a nap and you couldn't focus? Think. The non scientific term for this is a food coma. And if you are a lot like me, you've probably experienced this once or twice in your life, or maybe you experience it daily. I know this is going to sound complex, but it's actually pretty simple. What we want to do is control our insulin levels the best that we can. We want to keep things even keel and minimize those insulin spikes that send our body not only into a food coma, but but into that dreaded fat storing zone. So first, carbohydrates, a primary macronutrient that stimulates the body to produce insulin. Carbohydrates are broken down to a sugar called glucose, which enters into our bloodstream. Now, as glucose enters the bloodstream, it raises blood sugar levels. Now, elevated blood sugar triggers the release of insulin. Because remember, the job of insulin is essentially to control and regulate the sugar in our blood. It's its job to move it out of our blood. So it does this by signaling to the liver, muscle and fat cells to take the glucose out of your blood and to use it for energy. But what if the body already has enough energy? Then the insulin signals to the liver to take the glucose and store it as glycogen. Now, glycogen is the energy that powers your muscles during exercise. And it's what endurance athletes try to replenish while they exercise. The average person has about 1500-2000 calories worth of stored glycogen in their bodies. About 20% of that is stored in the liver, and the other 80% is stored in the muscles. But what do you think happens when those glycogen stores are full? Let me tell you, if the storage is full, then the body can't use the glycogen for energy. So then what does the body do with the extra glycogen? That's right. That excess glycogen gets stored as body fat. Not good, right? You've probably heard about the popularity of going low carb or no carb. Now, I'll be honest. In the short term, this strategy works temporarily because no carb means no insulin production, which means you're not storing fat. But the problem is your brain and your body need carbohydrates to function. We want to lose fat, not muscle, so we need carbs. A no carb plan only works in the short term, as eventually you're going to have to start eating carbs again. One other little tidbit about glycogen stores in your muscles is that each gram of glycogen in your muscle holds about one ounce of water. So think of glycogen as acting like a sponge that holds water. So you'll lose weight just by burning out your glycogen stores. But it deceives a lot of people because it's all water weight, not fat weight. So when you do start eating those carbs again and the glycogen is replenishing your muscles, it will pull water right back in with it. And with that, all that weight comes right back on. So remember, we want fat loss, not temporary water loss. Okay? So hopefully you have a little bit better of an understanding of how carbs behave in our body and how low carb and no carb only work in the short term. But next, let's take a look at fats. Now, fats have zero impact on the body as far as producing insulin goes. Fats do perform a very important function though, because they slow down the absorption of carbohydrates in the body. Now, a lot of us are always trying to rely on willpower. What if you could naturally control your appetite and not have to rely on that self control or willpower? Wouldn't that make it a little bit easier? You see, when fats hit your stomach, it secretes a hormone that goes directly to the brain that signals the body to stop eating. Talk about a huge benefit of fats. They Help you to not overeat. Now, you could see when we were being told to eat fat free all those years ago, this really wasn't doing us any favors, because when we went to fat free, what we were doing was eating a high carb replacement. I can remember going to the movies and grabbing gummy bears and thinking, okay, they're fat free. I can have them. The problem, I couldn't stop eating them. I would eat the whole box and still be hungry for more. What I didn't know then was that without that fat and all those carbs and sugar, it was just spiking my insulin and I was craving more and more carbohydrates. Now it's time to look at protein. Protein has minimal impact on insulin production, but it's very important for another special reason. Protein stimulates another hormone which produces basically the opposite effect of insulin. Not only does it have the opposite effect, but it helps to control excessive insulin production. So the hormone secreted when you consume protein is called glucagon. To keep it simple, insulin tells the body to store blood sugar as glycogen. Glucagon tells the body to release stored glycogen into the system. Now, that's about as complex as we need to go right now. But does this make sense? Insulin determines if your body is storing or burning fat. Carbohydrates stimulate the production of insulin. Fat, fats, and protein do not. Fats slow the absorption of carbs, which slows the insulin release, and fats signal the brain to tell the body to stop eating. Protein secretes a hormone called glucagon that is basically the opposite of insulin, and it helps manage excessive insulin production. So now, hopefully you understand the basics about insulin and how carbohydrates, fats, and proteins behave in the body. Understanding the impact one has on the other is the second most critical phase of fat loss. So when you think about your healthy eating habits, you probably can identify a few places where you're making some mistakes that are contributing to you holding onto that stubborn body fat. Now, the good news is that I'm going to tell you three things you can change today, right now, to reduce the amount of insulin in your body and control unwanted cravings. The first one is a modified version of fasting. Now, don't forget, I'm not going to tell you to do intermittent fasting extremes where you just eat for four hours of the day and that's it. I'm not going to tell you to fast for a full day or even three days. But seriously, Small cycles of fasting is huge for helping to solve this problem. When your body gets a longer break from eating, your body stops secreting insulin. And when you're not secreting insulin, you get into serious fat burning mode. Take a long break at night, so a 12 hour break. So start eating later in the day or stop eating earlier, stop eating after 5 or 6 o'. Clock. Give yourself that 12 hour break to let your body not secrete insulin. Have it in that mode where you are burning fat. Another tip I have for you is to limit your starchy carbs to two to three servings a day. So for example, if you want that oatmeal for breakfast, or you want a sandwich for lunch, or you really want that potato, you've got to limit those. Consider limiting them and having, if you have one for breakfast and lunch, not having one for dinner, watching those portions and having less. Simple, right? My third tip is when you do have those starchy carbs, combine them with a protein and fat to slow down that absorption. For example, if you want that oatmeal, also have some eggs and maybe some almonds with that. Almonds are fat, eggs are protein. Combine it to slow things down, it'll help you keep full longer, it'll help keep you satiated, and it will also help to control those insulin levels. Now you might be thinking, is this stuff really going to work? Am I really going to see a difference if I eat three meals a day or if I limit starchy carbs or I add protein and a fat to my carb? That seems like more food, right? That doesn't make much sense. But I'm here to tell you that yes, it actually makes perfect sense and it is scientifically proven to help you with long lasting sustainable fat loss. So yes, it's totally going to work. And not only is it going to work, it's going to make you feel amazing. You're going to feel more satiated and your fullness will last for several hours. Remember what we just learned. Insulin is trying to help your body regulate sugar. Starchy carbs contain a ton of sugar. If you don't believe me, just start paying attention to labels and you'll see just how much sugar is really in there. So? So because of this mass amount of sugar, your body is trying to place it elsewhere, taking it out of your bloodstream to convert it into energy. In other words, glucose. An overabundance of glucose that can't be used for energy is stored as fat. By eating fat and proteins with these starchy carbs, Remember what I just taught you. You're slowing down the absorption rate of the carbs. Fat is basically acting as your willpower because your body won't feel the need for more sugar and more sacking to give you that pretend energy boost. When you add these proteins and fats, you'll actually feel full. You'll eat tastier food. In fact, you may even feel like you're eating more food than you would have, but you're eating the right foods, so it's not gonna feel like some traditional calorie restricting, icky diet. And best of all, you're not gonna be storing fat. I mean, how awesome is that? Listen, trust me and try making this change now. You will not regret it and it's not as hard as you think. So if you're following me through this four part video series, you've learned how to find your dcm which sets the foundation to get your momentum revved up and to make some serious changes that will accelerate your fat loss. I just spent the last few minutes teaching you why starchy carbs contribute to our fat storage and exactly how to slow down insulin production in your body. I gave you some tips you can use right away to start making a massive impact on your eating habits, your waistline, and how you feel. I really hope this was helpful to you to help you understand why we haven't been able to get motivated and exactly how we get fat. So I'm excited to share with you some more great content coming in my next video. It'll be out in about 48 hours, so be on the lookout for it. You will not want to miss this. We're going to talk about uncontrollable cravings and explain the science of why you can't stop craving, wanting to eat those foods that aren't helping your fat loss. Because you know what? It's actually not your fault. And we're going to talk about what to do when your mind is telling you no more, stop. You've had enough. But your body's screaming at you, craving more and more and you just can't literally stop yourself. I know this happens to you because it happened to me all the time. And in fact it happened recently and in a really bad way. And I cannot wait to tell you my story and how I figured out how to stop. Stop that. Now before I go, if you found this video helpful, I would love to hear from you. Would you mind leaving a comment below and let me know one thing you learned today in this video that you did not know or understand before and how you can apply this to your life and current eating habits. And if you're up to it, also share one thing you'd like to learn as we move forward. I want to make sure I'm providing you with content and answers to your questions that you want. So please let me know what else you would like to to learn. And thanks again for watching and be on the lookout for the next video that's coming soon.