If you're eating the right foods and exercising, yet still not losing weight, what are you missing?
Dr. Caroline Cederquist may have the answer.
Dr. Cederquist, board-certified weight loss physician, describes how your metabolism is the key to weight loss. If you aren't taking care of your metabolism, it won't be taking care of your weight problem.
Join Dr. Susanne and Dr. Cederquist as they discuss information contained in Cederquist's latest book: The MD Factor Diet.
Transcription:
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: June 5, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Caroline Cederquist, MD
You’re listening to RadioMD. She’s a chiropractic, holistic physician, best-selling author, international speaker, entrepreneur and talk show host. She’s Dr. Susanne Bennett. It’s time now for Wellness For Life radio. Here’s Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: If you are one of those people who eat all the right foods and exercise regularly but find that you are just unable to lose that excess fat and weight and are maybe even getting bigger despite all your efforts, my next guest is going to help you figure out what is really going on. She is a board certified weight loss physician and author of the MD Factor. Please welcome to the show Dr. Caroline Cedarquist.
Thanks for being here Dr. Caroline. What are some of these warning signs? Warning signs that we should look out for that indicates that you have a slow metabolism?
DR. CAROLINE: The main thing is when you are finding that you are developing weight in the abdominal area because many women will say, “Oh, I’ve always had some weight in my hips and thighs, but I’ve never had weight in the belly.” The fact that we wear clothing with a waist can be really helpful. Where it’s like, “Wait a minute, are these getting tight? Did I just wash them?” But really being able to watch that because it is the abdominal weight that seems to be the biggest trigger.
DR. SUSANNE: Gotcha. There is no doubt that a lot of us actually walk around, what I call, a skinny fat person. Their legs and arms are really nice and tone, because they do exercise. But their waist is getting bigger and they are literally gaining more fat replacing the muscle on their body. When you see that, that’s, I believe, a warning sign as well, isn’t it? Isn’t that an indicator --
DR. CAROLINE: Absolutely. No question. Where you carry your weight. What is interesting is when men gain weight, they gain it in the abdomen. Women tend to gain weight in the hips and thighs until menopause or perimenopause and then they start developing the abdominal weight. That is absolutely one of the things that we need to look out for-- “This might not be the same type of weight I always had”--and we, indeed, find it is sometimes harder to lose it.
DR. SUSANNE: Right. You’ve got a program on BistroMD.com where you actually service people all around because it is an on-line site where you actually sell pre-packaged foods for weight loss management.
DR. CAROLINE: Yes. What it is – over the years when I was working with patients, they would say, “This meal plan you put me on” – the adequate protein, because we want protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The breakfast, to be honest, is really challenging for many people. And we want protein at snacks. So, my patients would say, “This is a great program. I am finally losing weight. For the past five years, I haven’t been able to lose an ounce. But I am so busy and I don’t have time.” So, with BistroMD, we very much have a platform because we want the balanced meals that will correct this metabolic issue with adequate proteins, controlled carbohydrates, but a low fat diet and without chemicals. One of the things about frozen meals and convenience meals is typically they have more chemicals in it than food. I eat these meals. I need to feel that anyone eating this we can feel good about it. That it’s clean. There is minimal processing and it really helps when we have a busy lifestyle.
DR. SUSANNE: Oh, it sure does. America – we are all working, sometimes even two jobs and can’t get enough meals on our table. So, I totally get why it’s so important and the fact that you’ve been doing this for a while now. It’s lower in the chemicals and obviously healthy foods. That is fantastic. Now, how about cleanses? I want to talk a little bit about that because as a weight management physician, I have heard of a lot of those. I have actually been to them, not for myself but for my patients, checking out some of these services or centers where it is really low calorie and shakes and cleansing. Do you recommend that?
DR. CAROLINE: I don’t and I’m often asked about it. Typically, with a cleanse we are dealing with some sort of just juicing – and either juicing of vegetables or juicing with fruit – and I find that those are so low in protein. What ends up happening, even if you take healthy things like kale and things like that, you have to add some fruit to it to make it a little bit palatable. People can end up having a fairly significant carbohydrate or sugar load from that. There is no fiber with it, so it’s kind of in your blood stream right away. It can spike your sugar. I find that most of my patients have an issue with this blood sugar regulation or this metabolism dysfunction issue. I prefer, if somebody really wants to detox, that they have organic chicken or wild caught fish, good quality eggs and the vegetables. But get out the processed foods, get out the sugars, get out all the caffeine and alcohol. Because most of the time that we feel that we need to detox – we need to detox from that. We don’t need to detox from giving our bodies adequate protein. There is some evidence that even with 24 hours of being on a “fast” or juice fast – you are actually going to be in negative nitrogen balance meaning you are going to be breaking down muscle tissue and not having the building materials to bring it back up.
DR. SUSANNE: That is great information; particularly that you are saying that you don’t need to literally starve yourself to lose weight. That’s what I believe as well is we want to maintain the amount of food so that your metabolism doesn’t slow down. Right? Because if you reduce the calorie count, your body is going to naturally sync with it, reset and slow down your metabolism.
DR CAROLINE: Right.
DR SUSANNE: When you talk about the protein carbohydrate portions, and, of course, we want fat, but more importantly with carbohydrates, how many grams do you think people should have per day to be on that increased metabolic and rev it up?
DR. CAROLINE: Okay, if we’re talking about weight loss - and that is primarily what people are usually asking me about – we try to keep the carbohydrate intake to about 100 grams per day. I know that is a far-end concept, people don’t eat grams of food. they don’t even eat carbohydrates, they eat food. But for example a piece of bread might have 20 grams of carbohydrates that would be something that is higher. Some of the lower carbohydrate foods, like a cup of strawberries would be a lot less, like 10. Most of the vegetables are pretty low in carbohydrates as long as we’re not doing potatoes and corn and things like that. But it does definitely take us out of these higher carbohydrate foods – bagels and rice and pasta, which, per serving, could have about 50 grams.
DR. SUSANNE: Right, half a cup can literally shoot up those numbers. I totally agree on that low glycemic load foods. Also I find that when you are saying that you want to have those proteins regularly. If you don’t, your adrenals--we work so hard and those adrenals end up crashing. Do you find that to be true with all your patients, too?
DR. CAROLINE: What I find is most of our patients will feel so much better once they get on a structure of having some protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and also some carbohydrate and fat at those meals. So many people get into a habit where they don’t really eat all day. They might graze. They might be having these primarily high carbohydrate foods – chips and that – never any good quality food. Maybe their evening meal might not even be all that bad, but they haven’t given themselves what they need. So, they are tired and they go for the caffeine and all that other stuff. That, I think, is what I really think stresses the adrenals, when you give your body a small amount. We’re talking about 25 grams of protein – that’s like four ounces of chicken. That’s not an entire side of beef. Four ounces of chicken is a chicken breast. That’s what we’re wanting at lunch but we’re also wanting that at dinner. But how many people don’t even have that at lunch?
DR. SUSANNE: That’s right. That’s right. I know for a fact that a lot of my patients come in and they actually skip meals. They skip their breakfast, they just get their cup of coffee and they are out of there. Already you are starting the day on a deficit. Right?
DR. CAROLINE: Yes. Exactly.
DR SUSANNE: Is there one thing that you can share in just the last 30 seconds – what can we do right now to boost our metabolism?
DR. CAROLINE: What we can do is we can get the sugars out of the diet, the simple sugars, and start adding protein to your breakfast.
DR. SUSANNE: Love that. Alright everyone. Thanks so much, Dr. Cedarquist. I really appreciate you sharing this information with my listeners. To learn more about the MD Factor Diet go to BistroMD.com or as always you can go to my Wellness For Life radio show page on RadioMD.
This is Dr. Susanne Bennett, sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness here on RadioMD. Until next time. Stay well.
Dr. Caroline Cederquist has taken a road few physicians have traveled. Caroline read her first statistics about obesity at a very young age. Growing up, the majority of Caroline's family was overweight. Through her knowledge of weight management, she is proof that you can manage your genetic predispositions through healthy lifestyle changes. She wanted a career where she could help people understand this too.
