Pillar 1. Nutrition
Utilise intelligent bacteria to help you:
- Reduce stress.
- Increase energy.
- Increase satiety (satisfaction) after eating.
- Balance moods.
- Burn fat.
The “Calories in verses Calories out” method of weight loss is out of date. Nutrient density is now the holy grail of anti-ageing, long-term health and improved wellbeing.
Nutrient density foods are rich in nutrients but fairly low in calories. You will be more satisfied, sleep deeply, reduce food related inflammation and keep fat off for longer if you eat foods with high amounts of nutrients.
Your bowel movements should be frequent (and pass easily) so your weight and fat levels reduce daily. As you feed the healthy bacteria in your gut with nutrient dense foods they will multiply in numbers and help your digestion. As a result you use less energy on digestion and positively influence food cravings.
How important are these live organisms inside us? For every one signal that the brain sends to the gut, the gut in return sends nine signals back. The gut has such a strong influence on the brain and some scientists believe that the gut is even more important. It also houses approximately 80% of our immune system.
Therefore, foods that are energy dense such as sweets/lollies, chips or chocolate are all very low in nutrient density, addictive in nature and just don’t satisfy you do they? You just eat more and more until you either finish it all or feel sick. Not only that, these energy dense foods also instruct your intelligent “bad” gut bacteria to STORE more calories and your weight will increase quickly.
My point is this – the food you eat either tells your body to store fat or burn it depending on which gut bacteria is dominant. Feed the good bacteria with nutrient dense foods and you’ll never go hungry and also maintain a healthy body shape because the good bacteria will influence your healthy food cravings.
Sounds easy right? Well yes, but life as you know tends to get a bit stressful and stress kills the good bacteria in your gut. When we are upset, anxious, angry, busy, or overtired these feelings can cause us to crave coffee, alcohol, sugar, salt and fatty foods to “support” this stressful life. This is your built in biological response to stress where your gut tells your body to eat convenient food ready for the “famine or fight” that your body perceives is coming.
- If your body thinks there is a shortage of food it will store fat very quickly and be extremely slow in releasing this stored fat. It needs to have the quick burning visceral fat on hand to keep the organs working during the “famine”.
- If your body thinks you are in ‘fight or flight’ mode your stress hormone will stimulate your liver to release sugar into the blood stream to give your big powerful muscles the energy they need to keep you safe. The problem with this scenario is that if the elevated blood sugar is not burned as energy immediately it will be stored as fat.
These are two very common situations of how we get stubborn and uncontrollable fat gain when we live under constant pressure and stress and you are in survival mode.
When you are in survival mode your belly fat produces stress hormones that make you crave salt, sugar and fat, which of course leads to more fat gain. So you can see why it’s important to identify and deal with the root cause of your stress to get yourself off the diet merry-go-round and finally release that stubborn bodyfat.
As a coach I sometimes have to dig a little deeper with my clients to find out what is “keeping them awake at night”. Once they understand how their personal situation is affecting the way they eat as well as their mental health and physical body shape, they are much better equipped to overcome survival mode and return to “rest and digest mode” using natural therapies.