Embarking on a weight loss journey can be daunting, particularly for women in the midst of menopause's ebbs and flows. Stay tuned to find out how you can best tailor your approach in the new year!
In our latest episode, we lay out a blueprint for shedding those stubborn pounds with a focus on the unique obstacles faced during this transformative time. We dive into the essentials, from the mindset shift needed to foster realistic goals to creating an environment that champions your health goals. Learn how to set yourself up for success and why understanding your motivations is a game-changer for maintaining that hard-earned progress.
Fuel your body and your weight loss dreams by mastering the art of nutrition with our guidance. We unpack the mystery behind daily caloric needs tailored to your body's requirements and the power of whole foods in your dietary arsenal. Join me as I share my personal routine of balancing carbohydrates and the strategic incorporation of proteins and fibers to maintain muscle and keep hunger at bay. This episode provides actionable meal planning strategies, ensuring that from sunrise to sunset, you'll have the knowledge to make informed and health-promoting food choices, steering clear of hidden sugars and processed pitfalls.
As we round out the conversation, we underscore the synergy between smart nutrition and tailored exercise routines. We tackle the common misconception that exercise is the be-all and end-all for weight loss and instead illustrate its role in a multi-faceted approach. Listen in for practical tips on starting with low-impact activities and gradually introducing resistance training, an essential component for women navigating menopause. From confronting cravings to championing consistency and setting achievable expectations, this episode is your companion on the road to a lighter, healthier you.
Join us, not just for advice, but for a community ready to support you through every step and misstep of your journey!
***
Just in case you missed it:
Join my10:21 Day Weight Loss Boot Camp, to be apart of our vibrant community and kickstart your journey!
See you there!
Embarking on a weight loss journey can be daunting, particularly for women in the midst of menopause's ebbs and flows. Stay tuned to find out how you can best tailor your approach in the new year!
In our latest episode, we lay out a blueprint for shedding those stubborn pounds with a focus on the unique obstacles faced during this transformative time. We dive into the essentials, from the mindset shift needed to foster realistic goals to creating an environment that champions your health goals. Learn how to set yourself up for success and why understanding your motivations is a game-changer for maintaining that hard-earned progress.
Fuel your body and your weight loss dreams by mastering the art of nutrition with our guidance. We unpack the mystery behind daily caloric needs tailored to your body's requirements and the power of whole foods in your dietary arsenal. Join me as I share my personal routine of balancing carbohydrates and the strategic incorporation of proteins and fibers to maintain muscle and keep hunger at bay. This episode provides actionable meal planning strategies, ensuring that from sunrise to sunset, you'll have the knowledge to make informed and health-promoting food choices, steering clear of hidden sugars and processed pitfalls.
As we round out the conversation, we underscore the synergy between smart nutrition and tailored exercise routines. We tackle the common misconception that exercise is the be-all and end-all for weight loss and instead illustrate its role in a multi-faceted approach. Listen in for practical tips on starting with low-impact activities and gradually introducing resistance training, an essential component for women navigating menopause. From confronting cravings to championing consistency and setting achievable expectations, this episode is your companion on the road to a lighter, healthier you.
Join us, not just for advice, but for a community ready to support you through every step and misstep of your journey!
***
Just in case you missed it:
Join my10:21 Day Weight Loss Boot Camp, to be apart of our vibrant community and kickstart your journey!
See you there!
Hello, my friends, happy holidays and welcome to my podcast. Are you looking to start your weight loss journey in 2024? Are you struggling with weight loss? Are you a female in menopause and just seeing one or two pounds creep on here and there and not sure what to do? If that's you, this is the podcast for you. Today, we will be sharing some timely tips and takeaways to help you not only start, but to be successful at your weight loss journey. This podcast is actually a live Instagram replay on the topic.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Thriving Through Menopause podcast. Listen in as we explore a wide range of topics aimed at supporting you in your health and wellness journey. Hopefully, the practical tips and strategies offered potentially help you adopt an empowering approach towards menopausal weight loss and belly fat reduction. And now here's your host, Dr Anaka Yembe.
Speaker 1:Hello, my friends, welcome, welcome, welcome to this live video. Today I will be talking about a very important topic. I have received this question so many times in my inbox how do I start my weight loss journey in 2024? Alright, first things first, go ahead and share this video with your friends, or tag your friends, because we're going to dive into some very important information here. I've got my show notes right here so I don't miss anything. But anyway, we want to not only start a weight loss journey, but we want to be successful at it. So I want you to pick a pen and paper, have it on hand, because you're going to take so many notes today.
Speaker 1:My name is Dr Anaka Yembe. I'm a family medicine physician. I practice full-time emergency medicine. I run a weight loss clinic in the hospital quite time and I have an online weight loss program. I have struggled with obesity all my life. My heaviest weight was in 2005. I weighed slightly over 300 pounds. So I have done all the things. Currently, I weigh 157 pounds. Most of my last few pounds I lost during menopause. I'm almost 56 now. So everything I'm telling you, I'm telling you from personal experience, professional experience, what works and what has worked for my patients and what has also been scientifically proven. But why is it so important to lose weight here? Alright, obesity Obesity now is on the rise.
Speaker 1:If you have a BMI, so look that up online BMI if it's over 30, then you are obese. Why do we worry about obesity? Because it puts you at risk of major medical complications hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, strokes, depression, as well as cancer. If you're a parent, like myself, any of these major medical complications that you develop you also determine a family history. So if you develop hypertension, your daughter or your son is going to be at higher risk as well. We don't want that. We want to be healthy for ourselves and we want to not pass on a life or a generation of ill health or disease to our loved ones. Currently, 41% of Americans are obese. That's huge 41%. So it's really, really important for you to work on your weight.
Speaker 1:Those of us who are in menopause. Yes, we know that the weight loss is also a little bit challenging, so I'm going to just touch on that here. But anyway, this video is for everyone Men, women. How do you start next year? So number one, number one, it all starts up here the mindset. How do you think in order to lose weight successfully, long term Mindset? So number one is preparation. You've got to prepare your mind. You've got to also prepare your environment. So, number one look around you, look at the foods that could be tempting, those that are unhealthy, and take them out of your environment. I didn't say throw them away, because it's impossible for me to feel or think or assume that you went to stop eating something for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:But those foods that are unhealthy.
Speaker 1:Remove them from your immediate environment from your kitchen, from the pantry, from your vehicle, from your bedside cabinet, from your purse. Just remove them. That's how you prepare your environment for successful weight loss. So we're going to do that before 2024. A second thing to do is to set a goal. We've got to have a goal. A goal is like a destination. A goal tells us where we're going. So sometimes we wake up and we say, well, I just want to do some weight, I just want to shed some pounds. That's not enough, because we're not giving our brains specific directions. Your brain is so specific, so when you just give it instructions that are not specific, it may be confused. Set a goal. Some of us have big goals, some of us have little goals.
Speaker 2:When I had to lose weight.
Speaker 1:I wanted to lose just a hundred pounds. I just wanted to get under 200 pounds. That's okay. That's a good starting point. If you have a big goal, actually a lot of weight to lose, I encourage you to chop it up into smaller bites, because smaller bites can be hit more easily and they all add up to that big goal.
Speaker 1:See, so if I have a hundred pounds to lose that's big I'm going to chop it down into 10 pounds. I'll tell myself I want to lose 10 pounds in two months, so what does that tell you? When you have a goal, attach a timeline to it. Okay, because a goal without the destination is just a wish. So set your goal and set your timeline. Write that down somewhere. The next thing you want to think about also is your. Why Find your? Why Find? Why do you want to lose weight? There's so many reasons.
Speaker 1:The easiest one for us to think about is I want to lose weight because I want to be healthy, and that's good and fine, but we want to make it a little bit more personal. I just want to feel good, I want to look good, I want to fit in those jeans. I want to go for the graduation, for the wedding in June, that's okay. Any why that you can hold on to that will motivate you, is important. I'm telling you from experience my biggest why when I started losing weight, was to be able to sit in an airplane and not cramp up the person next to me and not have to ask for an extender to strap the belt over my thighs. That was a big deal for me, and when I lost weight and I could strap the belt without an extender, I was so happy. So pick any goal, any why, anything that will motivate you. Write that down, because weight loss is not easy. So when you go and get stuff, you want to refer to your why, and if your why is powerful enough, if it talks your heart like you want to strap a belt over your thighs in the airplane without an extender, use it. If it motivates, you, use it Alright. So you want to make your why also very personal to you, so it shouldn't be what somebody else wants for you. It needs to be something that you want for yourself. I say that because I was born at 10 pounds. My whole life I was obese and so growing up I didn't know what I wanted for myself. I used to listen to my mom, other family members, what they said to me, and it almost seemed like I needed to lose weight for that reason. No, find a why, a reason that recruits your heart and your soul, so that when it's difficult for you to continue your journey or you hit some difficulty, you know then you're going to pull that why and look at it Alright. Next thing, when it comes to mindset be patient, be patient, be patient. Patience is key. The way it did not come up just today. You did not gain it all today, so it's going to take time for you to lose the weight. These are the things that you need to have in your mind and they're going to set you up for successful weight loss.
Speaker 1:The next thing is think about changes that you can live with for a lifetime. Example I am not a vegetarian. By no means. I'm not saying that being a vegetarian is bad. I'm just saying I am not. So if I want to lose weight, I cannot all of a sudden decide to become a vegetarian. That is not sustainable for me. By the same token, a vegetarian cannot say well, I want to lose weight, so I'm going to eat all these animal proteins. That is not going to be sustainable for them. You want to pick a lifestyle that is really you, that really mirrors your lifestyle, but you also want to be patient. Losing weight takes a long time. Losing weight is not a linear process. Your weight doesn't just come down in a linear manner. You notice that you're going to lose some gain some, lose some gain some, so expect that already to happen when you go into it. I hope you're taking notes, alright. The next thing that I want you to think about two things number one consistency.
Speaker 1:Consistency is key. Consistency is key. Whatever habit you change, you want to be able to do that consistently. Next thing weight loss is a lifetime journey. So whatever you choose to do now, we don't lose the weight and go back to her always because, yes, we've arrived at our goal. So whatever you're doing now, you are going to continue to do for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:Alright, I want to talk about one last thing before we start on the next tip make small changes. Don't make a huge overhaul. Change my whole life, don't do that. Make small changes. Example I had this written on the piece of paper make small changes. I'll tell you how habits add up, and I have it added up here. So example if you eat two slices of white bread every morning, you can just make a small change and say I'm going to eat one slice. Imagine if one slice is 140 calories. In one year you are saving 51,100 calories. And if 3,500 calories make a pound just by cutting out one slice of bread for 365 days and doing no other thing, you lose 14 pounds.
Speaker 1:Make those small changes. You may not see the benefit right off the bat, but small changes are going to add up to that big change that you want. Start small and build up. Don't overhaul things because they may not be sustainable. Alright, let's move on to the next tip that I have for you.
Speaker 1:This is the big one. This is the big one nutrition. Nutrition is key. Nutrition is going to be about 75 to 80 percent of your weight so when I talk about, nutrition. Starting small number one, the very most important thing that you can do is to eat food that is as minimally processed as possible.
Speaker 1:That's very important Once you start going to process foods. I'll give you an example. If I go into the grocery store, I want to buy ground turkey or chicken breasts or ground meat or beef, shrimp, single macronutrient ingredients. Instead, if you go to the frozen section and you get the chicken dinner that is highly processed by the manufacturer, what they do is they take out the good stuff that's in the food and they add so much to it. They add salt, they add oils, they add sugar and, mostly, preservatives. Those things are toxic for our body. They change our gut microbiome, they make us gain weight, they make us gain belly fat. Not good, not bueno, the expensive waste of time. So go to the outside aisle in the grocery store. That's where you need to be walking and getting your food.
Speaker 1:Nutrition is key. So when I tell people nutrition is key, the very first question is how much do I need to eat in a day? Actually, I had that question today. How much food do I need to eat in a day? You want to calculate the number of calories. I know this may go over your head, but everyone needs to know how much food we need to eat in a day, and this is the reason why, if we don't know how much food we're eating, maybe we're eating too small, too little, or we're eating too much and our weight is going all kinds of weights. The way to calculate your caloric intake for weight loss I make it that simple Go back to that BMI chart and look up your ideal weight.
Speaker 1:So to know your ideal body weight, you must know your height. I used to overestimate my height for a long time. No, ma'am, measure your height. So go with your height and look at a normal BMI for yourself and you're going to find out what an ideal body weight is for you. These are just estimates. It's going to be a range maybe from 140 pounds to 147 pounds. That tells you you're in a normal weight range.
Speaker 1:Pick one number. Example I can pick 145 pounds. Whatever number you pick, that's a good place for you to start. It's all estimates. Everything is an estimate, but you got to start somewhere. Take that ideal body weight and multiply that by 12. You're going to get the number of calories that you need to consume for weight loss. I hope you got that Ideal body weight. Multiply that by 12. All right, now, if you want to be really fancy and you want to calculate your total daily expenditure and you want to use all these apps that tell you how much you want to be eating. And now you know that this is how much energy I need to eat to stay at the same weight. And you're thinking how much should my calorie deficit be? Listen, I encourage you to go with a small calorie deficit of 250, and these are for the people who want to make it complicated. Now you can make it very uncomplicated by using the formula I just told you Ideal body weight, multiply by 12. That's it. Use that as your total number of calories that you want to be consuming per day. Very important.
Speaker 1:Now let's move on to what we should be eating for weight loss, and we're preparing for 2024. 2024 should be your year. It should be your year of success. All right, what should you be eating? Number one protein. Number one protein Prioritized protein. You cannot really gain too much weight if you're eating healthy proteins. And, by the way, when you lose weight, we assume, most people assume that I'm losing fat. It doesn't really work like that. You may be losing some fat and you may be losing some protein. You may be losing some fluid.
Speaker 2:You may be losing different things. So when you weigh, yourself.
Speaker 1:It's just not an indication of body fat loss only. We're going to try to consume more protein so that we can minimize the amount of muscle mass lost, because if you lose too much muscle when you're losing weight, you're going to get in the bind. I mean your base on metabolic rate drops and then it gets so difficult for you to lose the weight. So prioritize your protein. Question how much protein do I need to consume per day? Go back to that formula ideal body weight, multiply that by one. So if your ideal body weight was 145 pounds, ideal body weight in pounds, if it was 145 pounds, multiply that by one and that's how much protein you need to consume per day. Very important. So that's proteins. Think about on-process protein. So things like eggs. I have so many lists up here on my Instagram page. You can just scroll back and look at those videos. So I'm more proteins like beef, chicken, fish, eggs, egg whites.
Speaker 1:You have plant-based proteins as well beans, peas, lentils, quinoa, tofu there's just so many different kinds of proteins. I'm talking about the protein content in the food that you're eating. So if I say consume 140 grams of protein per day, I'm not saying consume 140 grams of chicken. I'm talking about consume 140 grams of protein in the different foods that you're consuming. I hope you understand that one. So those are healthy proteins, on-processed. The next thing you want to think about is the next food group is fiber. So healthy carbohydrates, fiber. You are really required or recommended to consume 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day.
Speaker 1:The way I look at it, to make it really simple for myself, I eat one cup of cooked vegetables or two cups of raw vegetables for each meal. So if I'm eating three or four times a day, it's the same thing. And yes, ma'am, vegetables for breakfast. I'm going to show you ways that you can incorporate vegetables in your breakfast Simple, simple, simple ones, very simple. I use cauliflower a lot, the frozen one, because it doesn't have that fresh, rusty flavor. So you can easily take it, thaw it, defrost it, then fry that in a frying pan and add your eggs to it. You can also add it to your oatmeal. You can also take the frozen one and just throw it in the blender for your smoothie. Make sure you're consuming those vegetables, because they'll also help you with belly fat and they will also help you lose weight overall. And yes, that's our question there.
Speaker 1:This also works for women in menopause, especially for you women in menopause. I'm almost 56. So I'm telling you what works for me, and most of the women I coach online are peri or postmenopausal, so this also works for you. So we've talked about protein. We've talked about healthy carbohydrates. In your fiber, there are also some more starchy carbohydrates that are also healthy so long as they are on process. So things like potatoes, things like rice, things like oats yes, brown rice oats those are on process. You can incorporate those, but I want to minimize those. Now, how much carbohydrate do I need to consume per day? The formula is exactly the same like the protein One gram of carbohydrate per pound of ideal body weight. Now, in real life, I tell you what I do.
Speaker 1:I dial that number low a little because my ideal body weight is 155 pounds and I don't want to consume 155 grams of carbohydrate. I've gotten to that conclusion after testing and trying it for months and months and months on my body. But I did start with 150 and now I've eased back down to somewhere between 120 to 130 grams of carbohydrates per day. But everyone needs carbohydrate, very, very important. All right, let's see.
Speaker 2:What if I don't like?
Speaker 1:the natural taste of food that much. This is what I tell people. If you don't like the taste of natural food and I'm not sure what you mean by natural food maybe you're talking about healthy food, all the foods that we eat right now. These are learned behavior. These are the things that I learned, so I'll start small. The same way, start learning how to eat real. On processed foods, start slow. Which one can you start with? Maybe just some eggs in the morning, instead of eating something that's highly processed for breakfast.
Speaker 2:Maybe just change your breakfast into something healthy.
Speaker 1:Stick with that for now. After a few weeks maybe you can try something for lunch as well as breakfast. Start slow, but stay on it consistently, all right.
Speaker 1:So we'll talk next about facts. If you think about your total calories that you need per day carbohydrates, proteins the next ones will be facts. Once you've calculated the carbohydrates and proteins, the last food group is fat. If you're really, really confused about this part, I want you to consider hitting the link in my bio and joining my weight loss program. Very important you need some fat. I made that mistake of eliminating fat from my nutrition one time. It was not sustainable for me and it's not healthy either.
Speaker 1:Enzymes and things like your hormones they have a basic cholesterol structure. So you do need to eat some healthy fats in your nutrition. So things like avocado, olive oil, avocado oil, those kinds of oils those are healthy. The nuts and the seeds those are healthy. Chia seeds and almonds those are healthy. So incorporate some healthy fats into your nutrition as well.
Speaker 1:There's a thing about the order in which you eat your food. How do you eat your food? So if you sit and eat, let's say you have potatoes, which are healthy, you've got some chicken that's healthy. You've got a salad that's also healthy, and you've got some avocado that's healthy. You've got your bowl here, your healthy bowl going on. What we recommend is that you eat in this order vegetables first, and then the proteins, and then the fats, and then the carbohydrates last. That decreases the absorption of carbohydrates into your system.
Speaker 1:Why is it that we want to decrease processed foods? Why is that we want to eat carbohydrates last? Because carbohydrates get into our bloodstream when we eat them and it causes the production of insulin. Insulin is that hormone that breaks down carbohydrates, and it's good. Breaks it down into glucose, gives us energy so we can walk around and keep our brains alive. However, if we consume too much or too many carbohydrates, with time our insulin level gets too high. Insulin is also a fat storage hormone.
Speaker 1:This is why we encourage you to eat foods that are on process, because the manufacturers are notorious for adding sugar to almost everything that is manufactured. Now, even if it's not on the label and even if the thing says zero sugar, you want to be leery if it tastes sweet. How do I know that? Because the government, the FDA, they allow the manufacturers to have a 20% margin of error. If it's less than five calories, it's going to be listed as zero, even though it has some calories and some sugars in there. They can also have a 20% margin of error when they label your food, and that's legal so bottom line just go with the fresh fruit and you're not going to have that problem.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's break down nutrition into a practical, more practical at this point. So now I've talked about proteins, carbs, healthy fats. How does that actually happen in real life? Number one it starts with what you bring into your home, how you shop. Before you go shopping, I want you to think about what you're going to eat. What are you prepping? What are you preparing for the next two, three days, not a whole week. Shrink your preparation into just a few days. This way, you can master and you're able to look at the ingredients on the back of any packaging that you purchase. If you're going through the fresh fruit and fresh vegetable aisle, you're not going to have that problem because it's just one ingredient. Anyway, before you go shopping, I insist to my patients and to my coaching clients go to the grocery store with a list. This way, you stick to your list and you have less chance of being distracted, less temptation If you stick to what you have on your list. That's very important.
Speaker 1:The very second thing to think about is to meal prep all the things that you typically eat through the day. So are you a breakfast person? Don't meal prep, just dinner and lunch. And then you wake up in the morning and thinking, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what do I eat for breakfast? Prep that as well. I meal prep in my scrambled eggs. I meal prep my muffins for breakfast. I meal prep whatever I'm going to eat in the morning because it seems like my morning.
Speaker 1:I don't have time. I'm always in such a hurry, so meal prep all the things that you need to eat. Is this the Christmas season. Are you celebrating with family and friends? Are you the one that's going to go out a lot and snack and you catch yourself stopping to get I don't know, coffee and maybe something to eat with it? Okay, you like snacking? Go ahead and prepare yourself a healthy protein snack. Anything. I make protein brownies out of zucchini and protein powder, and those are delicious, why Because?
Speaker 1:they help me.
Speaker 1:This is the time when I have to go here and there. So, guess what? I just bring a few protein brownies in my purse, which is just protein powder and zucchini, and I'm eating that on the way there, drinking a lot of water. So there's just not much space in my stomach. So think about your habits and you want to meal prep accordingly. If you're somebody who eats just twice a day, think about how much protein you want to eat. Meal prep according to how you eat.
Speaker 1:The next thing about meal prep is for regularly eating. Please, please, keep it simple. So if I'm going to work Monday through Friday, do not look up recipes. Now is not the time Again. This has to be sustainable long term. So if I'm meal prepping, I simply take the chicken or the beef or whatever it is, I season it, chop my vegetables, put it in the same tray, either stick it in the oven or stir fry it on the stove top. One hour, two hours I am pretty much done with my meal prep for three days. One, two hours is too much. I'm meal prep for the next two or three days. Make your meals for regular eating Very simple. Do not look up recipes. All you need is that macro nutrient, as in the beef, the chicken, the fish, the shrimp. You need some seasoning, cook it, air fry it however you want, and then you need the vegetables to go with it, and the more starchy vegetables to go with it. That's it.
Speaker 1:This is not time to look up recipes.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah Once in a while.
Speaker 1:You want to make something interesting, something delicious, Once in a while to add to all that you have. Yes, that's when you look up one recipe, but please don't look up recipes for your regular meal prep. Just think simple, as simple as possible. But you want to prep every single thing that you're eating. I even prep my turkey bacon, why? Because I'm going to eat two strips of turkey bacon every morning. Yeah, that's highly processed, but I'm going to have two of those every single morning, all right, the next tip we'll talk about is exercise.
Speaker 1:Exercise seems to be a big deal for some people who want to start losing weight, and for me personally. I was born obese. I just stayed obese all my life. Look at all my childhood pictures. I was obese and so I tried everything. I've tried the military diet, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, the egg diet, the water diet. I haven't tried the egg diet. I'm sure it exists, but I've tried every single thing. Nothing worked.
Speaker 1:So in 2010, I did the very first thing that came to my mind. I hit the gym. I started working out like a crazy person and at the 7th point I was running marathons. And my weight? I dropped 30 pounds. I stayed in the 250s, 260s. I was that obese marathona. My weight went nowhere. I was under the impression that I could have exercised a lot and lose the weight. Remember the beginning I told you exercise is going to be 20 to 25% of your overall weight. Exercise is great, of course, but it's not going to be what's going to make you lose weight. It's going to be in addition to proper nutrition. So, that said, the best exercise for you is the one that you love, that you can do seriously and that you can do consistently. So if you haven't exercised for the past three, four years and you're just going to start here January 1st of 2024, which hopefully, you can be motivated to start tomorrow, not January 1st.
Speaker 1:But anyway, if you're just starting up, just walk. That's the cheapest, most cost effective thing to do. Just get up and walk, that's great. You don't need any equipment. Just get up, especially after your meal, and just walk. Walk for 10 minutes. Come back next day, walk for 10 minutes, stay consistent with it, but make some progress. After I wait 10 minutes not enough. Then you can start walking for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. The CDC centers for disease control actually recommends 150 to 300 minutes of exercise in a week. So that really boils down to 30 minutes to an hour of exercise.
Speaker 1:Cardiovascular exercise is great. It gets a heart pumping, releases those happy hormones. There's nobody who ever did an exercise or workout and Bell just mentally crushed after the workout. You feel great because exercise releases those happy endorphins and you feel great. But starting off starts slow and build up. But just cardiovascular exercise may not do it for you. That's a good place to start, especially if you're a female in menopause.
Speaker 1:You want to add some resistance. Start picking up those dumbbells, start picking up those kettlebells. Start using your body weight. Anything starts slow and build up. When I started my weight loss journey I could not do a push-up, but I tried and failed and kept trying. Imagine the little baby who's seven months old. Eight months old and they start to walk. They try to fall, they try to fall and finally they start walking. It takes them a few months to actually accomplish the walking. Now, if all the babies quit walking when they fail, you're going to have all these adults crawling over the planet. So just don't give up. Just keep trying. The same thing with nutrition. You should expect yourself to be 80% accurate. There's no 100% accuracy when it comes to nutrition and when it comes to exercise. So expect some fails, expect some mistakes, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:So cardio, muscular exercise and resistance exercise For me personally, right now I do more resistance work compared to cardio. So if I have an hour in the gym, for example, I'm going to spend 45 minutes doing my resistance work well, first. So either kettlebells, dumbbells or barbells, whatever I'm doing and then the last 15 minutes is going to be walking on the treadmill or jogging on the treadmill or the elliptical or the stair master, whatever you choose. The key here is to be consistent. Long-term resistance exercises you can do those two to three times a week. Cudgill muscle exercise really at least five times a week. If you can get 30 minutes in, you are going to be in good, good shape. All right, other things we need to think about. I'm going to call these challenges.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest challenge that I have personally when I started losing weight was the cravings. Oh my gosh. I cut down on my food. I tried to eat right and it seems like I got all this munches at me, coming at me from everywhere.
Speaker 1:Now, that's when I didn't know about proteins, because when you eat enough healthy protein, they stay in your stomach longer. Your body takes a longer time to digest. Your body uses more energy to digest proteins and so it decreases your cravings. If you're somebody who struggles with cravings, eat a savory protein, high protein breakfast in the morning like scrambled eggs that's my goal to scramble egg whites. So eat a savory breakfast, something that's not sweet, and a savory dinner I don't know, salmon steak. Your two buffer meals should be high protein and not sweet. That's going to help decrease your cravings. If you focus on increasing your protein consumption, that's a good way to decrease your cravings, all right.
Speaker 1:Next challenge that I see people having is consistency and motivation. Oh my gosh, I'm not motivated to even work out. I'm not even motivated to even start. I'm not motivated to do anything. Or I tried and it got to the third day or the fourth day or the third week and my weight did not change, and so I quit. I get that so much. I've done it. That used to be me. Listen, motivation does not exist all the time. It could be there sometimes, especially when you see results, which is the biggest motivator. But my thing is just do the necessary things that you have to do, whether you like it or not, do it. So you want to be disciplined? Is the word Discipline means I'm going to do it regardless, all right.
Speaker 1:The next thing is barriers. There's some things that block us from doing what we want to do, and the biggest, the biggest barrier is temptation, temptation. Listen, go pull out the chocolate, german chocolate cake from your refrigerator. Don't tell yourself it's going to be there, so I'm not going to touch it. Listen, if you like me, I've got some things that cannot live with me in the same environment. They've got to be gone because we're very, very seems like my head goes in the thing and doesn't come up for air until I've consumed it. Biggest one for me is peanuts. I have to eat a whole bottle of peanut if I see it. I still eat the peanuts, but I get just one little sachet from the gas station once in a while. That's one of the biggest barriers that I have to do, have to deal with you know yourself.
Speaker 1:Some of the barriers are friends and family.
Speaker 2:Hello, why are you?
Speaker 1:struggling to lose weight. Why are you doing this? I'm going to just discourage you when the journey is already hard enough. Now you are not saying throw away your family or your friends, which you may can extend that distance between you and them. So you're not with them all the time and they're not discouraging you all the time. All right. Next challenge that we have is those workouts. Some people feel listen, I'm working out so much, I'm going to the gym every day, I'm doing all this stuff, my weight is not going anywhere. Listen, one of the biggest things that you want to do to be successful is to track what you're doing.
Speaker 1:You cannot measure success without tracking. So if you're not writing down what you're weight is, week to week to week to week, if you're not writing down what you're eating, if you're not writing down how much water, if you're not writing these things down, tracking them, you may not be able to measure your success. Sometimes we don't even see a change on the scale. But what if I'm not wearing size 12 and now I'm wearing size 10? Something is changing there. So measure yourselves, see how you feel. If you're feeling, great, yes. But if nothing is changing, go back and look at your diary. Are you writing down everything? That's number one. Number two are you snacking too much? We've got to look back at history by tracking. If we don't see a change, all right. Next one I'm going to talk about here is the go to meals, and I think I've touched on that already.
Speaker 2:We know ourselves, so when I start on a healthy meal plan.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be unrealistic Come 2024. Last thing I need to do is to look on Instagram and look at her how good she looks. I'm going to eat exactly what she's eating. I'm going to work out and do it.
Speaker 2:Hey, what if that's not?
Speaker 1:for me? What if it's not my lifestyle? What if she's eating things that I don't eat? What if she's on a keto diet and I'm not keto, by the way, by any means, but I want to have some go to things. I am personally notorious when I talk about meal prep. I'm very good at prepping something today and waking up tomorrow morning and not wanting to eat it. I didn't know myself. So, in order to get around that, what I do is I have always have egg muffins frozen. I always have protein muffins frozen. I always have a smoothie that's frozen, just in case I wake up in the morning and my brain goes to work. What I don't like. What a prep. So I want to eat something different. No, it's not gonna come from fast food. It's still going to come from your refrigerator.
Speaker 1:Think about some of those things for yourself, all right. Next thing we'll talk about is sleep. Sleep is important for weight loss. Actually, sleep seven to nine hours a night is really important for weight loss. Why?
Speaker 2:is that.
Speaker 1:Your hunger and satiety hormones. Those are produced when you are asleep. So if you don't sleep enough, your hunger hormone grailin its levels are too high. It makes you want to eat all the time. Most of us who are obese, we don't sleep enough. All right, so you want to be sleeping. Now you're going to ask me, dr Yembe, I know you work in the emergency room two days straight, remember? I told you 80% accuracy is great. I can't quit my job and say, wow, I tried to lose weight. I'm gonna say those two nights Monday night, tuesday night my sleep is going to be very poor and fractionated, which means when I come home on Wednesday I am literally in a coma very early, and that goes on and on for the next few days. Generally, by eight o'clock every single night, I am passed out asleep. Sleep is important. It's going to help you lose weight, lose belly fat, all right.
Speaker 1:Last thing is going to be water drinking enough water. Stay hydrated. You really want to work on drinking the correct things. I've seen people who have maintained their weight by consuming excess calories in drinks. So things like smoothies, orange juice, the coffees, the gourmet coffees. Talk about smoothies. That's another big one. Homemade juice. Don't do it. Don't do it only out of fruit. Make it mostly vegetable. Add a little bit of fruit to it. Bottom line you, if you're not careful, you can really drink too many calories. So you want to drink water. Increase your water consumption. That's going to increase your overall hydration and it helps you lose weight when you're hydrated. Studies actually show just being dehydrated can slow down your weight loss because our bodies are mostly composed of water.
Speaker 1:So really, in summary, we've talked about setting that goal, figuring out your why, your reason for losing weight, taking action. So you can listen to a good story like this, you can do all your research. You can just plan, plan, plan and not take action. We're going to go nowhere.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things I encourage you is to just start. Whether you feel you're fully prepared or not, just start. Just take action. Start now, start today. You don't have to wait for in the morning, you can actually say this evening I'm going to have some healthy vegetables, a baked sweet potato and some chicken or some beef or some steak and I'm going to not go to fast food like I used to. Start now, yes, the life will be safe, and I'm also going to put that on my face on my youtube channel. All right, take action. Very important. Next thing make sure they have it's the habits that you start now. You can continue for lifetime. When I went on vacation to Jamaica, I was at the gym every day. It didn't seem like a big chore to me, but I had a lot of questions. Wow, do you have to go to the gym? As such a competition was over, I'm not going to the gym because it's a competition my body just naturally wants to exercise now pretty much almost every day.
Speaker 1:It's just something that I'm used to. But I've been doing this now for 14 years. It's January 1st. It's going to be 14 years that I've been on this lifestyle. Just do what you need to do and after a while those habits become just ingrained in you and you just do them without thinking. It's just like waking up in the morning and driving to work, all right.
Speaker 1:Next thing I'm going to remind you of is don't wait for motivation. The last thing is you can harness the power of the group. Trust in the process that you started. Measure your progress. If you're not measuring it, you don't know if you're making progress. Find a coach, somebody to help you.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that coaches were important, that important. I have a coaching group on Facebook. That's a private group. You have to subscribe to it. The next cycle starts on January 2nd. Hint, hint, just in time. January 2nd, that's when the next cycle starts. So if you think it did help which sometimes it's really beneficial to join a group of like-minded people who are doing the same thing and accomplishing the same goals that you want to accomplish, join them, so you're in the environment of people who are encouraging and helping you along the way I. Right now I have a coach who helps me with my workouts and my nutrition. I believe everyone needs a coach to be successful. So that's it for me now, and I'm going to come back with another life next time. All right, thank you, thank you and have a fantastic.
Speaker 2:Christmas. Thank you, bye. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of thriving through menopause. We hope you found valuable insights and practical advice to support your journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, share it and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember, menopause doesn't have to be a challenge. It can be an opportunity for growth, renewal and self-care. Connect with us on social media, where we share additional resources, tips and advice to help you along your path. Once again, thanks for listening in and we hope you'll join us again on the next episode of thriving through menopause. Until then,