5 Secrets to Long-Lasting Weight Loss

Transcription:

5 Secrets to Long-Lasting Weight Loss

This episode of Talk Fitness is in partnership with The Vitamin Shoppe, where knowledgeable health enthusiasts are standing by to help you thrive every day.

Lisa Davis (Host): So glad you’re listening to Talk Fitness Today. You know we often hear about weight loss, lasting weight loss, what it takes, what’s involved, but you know it’s not really purely a numbers game and here to talk about this and more and actually to shed light on the five secrets of long lasting weight loss is the fantastic JJ Flizanes. She’s an empowerment strategist and a host of the Fit 2 Love podcast show. She is the Director of Invisible Fitness and Amazon bestselling author of Fit 2 Love, How to Get Physically, Emotionally and Spiritually Fit to Attract Love of Your Life and author of Knack Absolute Abs Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. I could go on and on and the whole show could be taken up with all of her amazing accomplishments. But I’m going to bring her in instead. Hello JJ.

JJ Flizanes (Guest): Hi Lisa. Thanks for having me.

Lisa: It’s great to have you on. Alright so I had JJ on my show It’s Your Health many moons ago and I’m so happy to have you on here now. It’s been far too long. So, I mentioned in the beginning, a lot of people think well it’s just a numbers game or if you just eat less, move more; but it seems a little bit more complicated than that. There’s a lot of other things that go into it. So, I love this and I’m really excited, so, let’s jump into this. Let’s talk about these five secrets. So, first one is know and love your gut.

JJ: Right. Digestion represents two things; how we digest our food and process nutrients and build our bodies and support our bodies. It also represents how we deal with life. When you are stressed out, or nervous or worried, your digestion is affected. And digestion is really where it is at in terms of nutrients and taking your food and utilizing it. We know our focus on calories, our focus maybe possibly what foods you eat or not to eat, yet if we are not looking at how our body is utilizing the foods and if it is working; which is what your digestion is going to tell you; though I missed the mark and people can be eating a lot of “diet food” and be gaining weight or keeping their bloat or not finding the results they want because they haven’t take the clue or the cue from the digestion which is telling them exactly what’s going on. And for instance, one of the ways that you can tell how your digestion is, is all the different symptoms people may or may not think are normal. The first one would be you know you have – if you are eating three meals a day, then technically you should be eliminating three meals a day. Yes, that would mean that you are having three eliminations and most people I think are lucky if they have one every couple of days or maybe have one and they think that’s normal. Well, it’s not normal. Well, it’s normal because it’s what you are used to, but it isn’t normal, it’s not an indicator of health.

And I don’t think people understand that. So, that’s one of the very first things, you are constipated if you are only having one elimination a day. And most people don’t think that way they think oh one is good. Well did you eat one meal? No, you had three meals and some sex. Well then what happened to the rest of it? So, there’s a block in the pipe. There’s a problem with how you’re taking things in and so digestion is really what I would prefer people to focus on first and indicators of good digestion which might mean eliminating certain foods that disrupt your digestion. Other factors that people think are normal, which are not, they are indications of bad digestion which are gas, and bloating and constipation and diarrhea or loose stool, IBS, obviously that’s what that is and mucus from blowing your nose to having lots of phlegm in your throat, skin issues, itchiness, scratchiness. Those are all indications of bad digestion.

Lisa: Yeah, I’m so glad that you mentioned all those. Because I think it’s true. I think because people are used to standard American diet, they are not going to eliminate as often. But we really need to be and if we are not, like you said that’s indicative that there is something going on there. Now would you recommend probiotics as well as something that is going to?

JJ: Absolutely.

Lisa: Because I have heard that can help yes.

JJ: Yeah, absolutely. Somebody I had done a show yesterday that was live, and someone written in and asked and said she was told she had bad bacteria in her gut and what she should do about it and of course it’s multifaceted in terms of what that approach is. Because there’s obviously taking out some of the foods that irritate you, but it is also adding in things that are supportive and probiotics are one of them and for sure, I would recommend across the board; that everybody be taking one. The reason why people need to be taking one is because we don’t eat fermented foods everyday or even every week or every month that our ancestors did to combat and help us breakdown some of the higher fatty, higher protein things in our diet. So, probiotics – a good enterically coated dairy free, gluten free probiotic would be an awesome thing to add for everybody.

Lisa: Now, I am dairy free, but talk to us a little bit about that, because why do you feel it is important to have a dairy free probiotic?

JJ: So, dairy while people might think oh, you do health and you have a restrictive diet, which I do, but I don’t feel restricted at all. I’m all about replacement not restriction. But when it comes to what foods in our bodies work and don’t work; I was a cheeseaholic for a long time, so don’t think for a moment what I’m about to say means I don’t like cheese. Okay. But cheese it not meant for us. We are not cows. In fact, cows don’t drink milk. Milk is for the calf to fatten the calf. Past that, the calves eat grass or corn or whatever you are feeding them. But cows don’t drink milk. So, that breast milk of that animal isn’t supposed to go in our bodies. We do not match the biology of a cow. Most human mothers do not give their breast milk to cats and dogs. Why would we think that we can ingest the breast milk of another animal? Now, again, like I said, I love cheese. It tastes good. A lot of it tastes good. But it is not meant for us. And unfortunately, there are so many people who don’t realize that their symptoms are created because they are ingesting dairy.

Lisa: Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that, because I have been on that I should say the nondairy bandwagon for a long time and I’m not belittling it by calling it a bandwagon. It’s just it’s so frustrating when you talk to people. But milk is good for your bones. And milk is good for this, it’s like it’s kind of the dairy board pushing their agenda. It’s just really tough, right like how do you get this paradigm shift when there is so much that we have been indoctrinated with and it still makes me insane that kids are given milk at school every day. It’s just ridiculous. That’s a whole other subject.

JJ: Yeah, we need a whole show just on dairy, but and about marketing and the inaccurate views and the current research that Western Medicine keeps lying to and not pay attention to. But that’s how it just takes a while and so, more people are sick and so more people have issues than people go oh maybe we shouldn’t put pesticides in our food. People are dying about eating a peanut. What’s the problem? But until it’s more of an epidemic, people won’t pay attention because they think oh that’s not true. I don’t believe that. Well alright. So, yeah, I agree with you on the dairy. Again, and there are even organic dairy, while there are some benefits, you just risk the fact that your body doesn’t, won’t break it down. Because that protein in that dairy which is why actually butter is okay, because there is no protein in butter. There’s protein in milk and in yogurt and kefir and things like that, it’s the protein that is too big for us to breakdown and that’s why I recommend the dairy free probiotics because if you have a dairy sensitivity you are not even aware of; I have taken probiotics with dairy and then that has constipated me. So, it doesn’t even work. Because I don’t eat dairy and I took a probiotic that had dairy in it and it wasn’t working and I was like why isn’t it working? Causing a block because my body doesn’t take well to dairy. Especially when you remove it.

Lisa: Yeah. I definitely want to – I mean I would love to have you back a lot especially to talk about this dairy issue further. Alright, so the second one in the five secrets of long lasting weight loss is exercise smarter, not harder. Talk to us about this.

JJ: It’s amazing to me, still, after twenty years of being a personal trainer; even though I do understand. What you focus on is what you pay attention to. And when it comes to exercise, too many people just think well just exercise. Just go to the gym. Just go to a class. Just do anything. Do anything, it will all work the same. I mean not that that’s what they think it will all work the same. But heh, if I’m exercising, I should be getting results. But people this is science. And I – you would not tell somebody or accept a diagnosis from somebody if I said to you Lisa go shopping. Like you would have like twenty follow-up questions about that. Like shopping for what? Like going clothes shopping, grocery shopping, house shopping like what am I’m buying? Right, but people just are told to exercise more. What the hell. Exercise more. And so, when it comes to one of the things that I – that really bugs me about like the Fitbit community there are positive and negatives. But here’s the big negative. Oh my God I have to get my 10,000 steps. That’s like your focus for the day to get your 10,000 steps. Guess what. Your 10,000 steps is not going to make a big difference in your physical health. You walk more, you will burn a little bit more calories, especially if you are going from like zero to ten, fine. But if you are someone who gets 10,000 steps in all the time, you are going to plateau. Ten thousand steps doesn’t build muscle. It doesn’t increase your cardiovascular output. It doesn’t create endurance. It doesn’t create any of that. And people are so focused on this random freakin number, because they think that it is good for their health, that they bypass not doing proper exercise.

So, lots of people are doing the wrong exercises and then complaining that the exercise doesn’t work. And what’s really not working is that you have no idea what to do with exercise because there is a lot of science. And some exercises create and build muscle which creates your metabolism. And the higher your metabolism, the more calories you burn at rest. We want to be efficient with our time. I’m definitely not one who says go exercise more. I am going to say well what are you doing and is it working? Is it efficient? How do we best utilize your ten minutes to thirty minutes to 45 minutes, once, twice, three times a week to get the most bang for your buck? And it is a manipulation of science, not what class am I – you know someone asked me yesterday in an interview. What do you think people just find things that they like to do? And it is twofold. If you are someone who doesn’t exercise, who has got no habit, then yes, the first step is to create a habit and to find something that you enjoy doing, that you want to do. That’s very important. But be realistic about what you are going to get from it. Don’t go into a Pilates class that is on a reformer where you never get off like off of it and think you are going to lose 20 pounds. It’s not cardio. And it’s not even that much muscle building in Pilates either so you can’t go into a hatha yoga class expecting a transformation because that’s not what it’s designed to do.

And so, you find something you like to do to create the habit and if you already have the habit; it doesn’t matter if you like to do it or not, it is whether it works. If you want it to work, there are certain things that need to happen like resistance training in order to build muscle, build bone, increase your metabolism and get leaner. I mean you are not going to get it any other way.

Lisa: Yeah, that makes so much sense. So, it obviously, you need to do something with you are saying like either some kind of resistance, bands, weights, things like that. I was about to say, I love body weight.

JJ: You can use body weight. But again, there is a science of when you are strong enough to handle all the different forms of body weight you are using then how do you make it harder to get to the next level? Because, your body will adapt and once you adapt, you need to change what you are doing if you want more results. You are not just going to do this thing over and over again and you are going to keep getting results. You are only going to get results to the next level. It’s like going through school. You are not going to repeat first grade 12 times. You are going to go to first grade and then you are going to go to second grade and then you are going to go to third grade and things get harder and you learn more and you do different things and that’s the same with your body. You are not just going to do the same routine for five days a week or two days a week for like ten years. It’s going to stop working after the first three months.

Lisa: Oh wow. Yeah, that’s important to know.

JJ: Yeah, it’s science and that’s why I have a job. Because people say oh yeah well exercise doesn’t work. Like yeah, because you are doing it wrong. You don’t understand science and a lot of trainers don’t even understand science because there are several things that work in there. There’s the muscle building part and the metabolism increasing part. There’s the cardiovascular part, that is calorie burning but I wouldn’t even say – consider it a short-term strategy versus a long-term strategy. What’s going to keep giving back to you year after year and make sure you do some of that now and then the cardio piece, that especially women do and women over 50 who go through menopause and wonder why they are not losing any weight because they are doing the wrong exercises. So, it hasn’t changed, twenty years, I have been saying this same thing. For twenty years. And it is only until people get there and get frustrated enough that they actually call me or find somebody else that actually tells them the same thing and changes what they do. So, that’s why I wrote this book. It’s twenty years of my work basically all rolled into five simple secrets that are proven to work to make real change.

Lisa: Oh, that’s awesome. I like that. You know you just mentioned menopause, so I had my uterus taken out several months back because I had a ginormous fibroid and, so I went like just straight into menopause, but I was taking hormones a little bit and now I’m taking hormones, but it’s really important to balance and replenish your hormones. So, let’s talk about that.

JJ: Yes, secret number three is about balancing or replenishing your hormones because your hormones are your building blocks for your body and they keep you young and vital and optimized and we sort of again, like that western mentality, western medicine mentality of like oh well, I’m going to age, I’m going to break down and I’m going to decline. Well, that’s a choice. You don’t have to do that. If you do nothing, yes, that’s what will happen. But, we have, I’m not a fan, I do not support synthetic hormones, so Premarin, Prem Pro, things like that, I do not support synthetic hormones because they are synthetic. But I do support bioidentical hormones and I do support all kinds of homeopathic, Chinese medicine, herbs and acupuncture. All kinds of other ways, naturopathic ways for you to increase your hormone production. Exercise will help increase your hormone production. Good resistance training will help increase your hormone production. So, making sure that you work with a functional medicine physician or if you can’t find one, you can pay for your own blood work. You don’t have to go through a physician, which most people don’t know. Places like Life Extension, and Everly Well have home tests that you can take, or you can order online exactly what you want, and I have got them all listed in the book and I have got a sheet on the website as well, you can download it. Take to your doctor or take to the lab to say these are the tests that I want, and it gives you a very comprehensive profile of your metabolism and of all the hormones that make up your metabolism, from your adrenals to your sex hormones to your thyroid to your iron, even in your vitamin C and are all really important and most people are just going to the doctor and letting the doctor lead them and say well let’s do. And they test things like TSH, the thyroid stimulating hormone and TSH is one of those tests that has such a large range that you can be – you can have a thyroid problem for years and it won’t be detected because that range is so large. It’s one of the most general tests out there and I definitely recommend not to rely on that. But you do need to work with a physician or at least the lab, to start getting some of these numbers and take control because what happens is you decline and then you go oops, now what, right and if you kind of get out ahead of it, you won’t decline, and you can actually just be optimal, maintain your vitality and be healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy then death versus healthy, decline, decrepit, decrepit, decrepit and then dead. It’s just a choice. And it’s a lot easier to maintain a better weight, more muscle, active tissue, strong bones, strong joints when you combine so far, all the things we talked about, cleaning up your digestion, adding in good resistance training and exercise that is specific and adding the hormones so your body can hold on to all that.

Lisa: Yeah, I agree, and the book is the Invisible Fitness Formula, Five Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame. I want to definitely touch on the ending body shame after we go through these. The fourth one is to fully embrace and process your feelings. Oh my gosh, I’m always saying that to my daughter. It’s so important. We cannot just keep things in and just let it build up and not process our emotions.

JJ: Yeah and so it works like this. We have a thought, or we observe something and immediately, we have an interpretation and that interpretation creates a feeling. And if it’s a negative feeling; that’s energy and somehow that energy needs to be like a calorie, utilized or stored. So, if it is not expressed; it is not released, it’s stored. So, between disease, poor digestion, repressed feelings and multitudes of addictions that we all have; that’s another reason that people face; especially with weight loss because if they are emotional eaters, or they don’t know that they are emotional eating, they tend to focus on calorie counting and exercise. And you are not going to win that game, when you are not underneath the hood of a car fixing the engine. The engine that’s the issue and we have to settle some of those emotional and mental issues, release them, transform them, transcend them, leverage them and let them go and be what they are supposed to be versus holding them, repressing them, and that’s really what happens. I talk a lot in that secret about the addictions that we all have.

Most people when they think of addiction think of drugs, or alcohol, but truly and those are definitely hard addictions; we all like the most common addiction is control issues. Most people have control issues and that’s an addiction. And that can lead to emotional eating because you are trying to control how you feel and you feel uncomfortable when negative feelings come up so rather than express them or be with them; because it makes you uncomfortable to feel out of control; you eat, or you shop, or you sleep, or you work. Workaholism is another one, right this state that we are in it’s like oh I’ll just work. I won’t sit and feel my feelings, I’ll just distract myself with work, but I’ll tell myself oh but I’m making money. Oh, but I’m helping people. At what cost? The imbalance of a lot of how we handle this stuff is what creates this emotional need to numb and where we use, selectively use food. Even if you are not identifying yourself as an emotional eater, we all do it at some point, out of either boredom or I just feel uncomfortable or I’m just going to eat because – people think when they – when smokers give up smoking and then they gain weight, they want to say oh it’s an oral fixation. No, it’s not an oral fixation. Just because somebody quit the act of an addiction; whether it be drinking or smoking or some kind of harder drugs, unless you change the emotional energy underneath it; it’s just a habit. The habit doesn’t mean anything. It’s the impulse that’s the issue and so you are just going to replace it with something else. So, food usually ends up being what people replace giving up alcohol and smoking with.

Lisa: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And again, I’m so impressed JJ with all the great work that you have done, and I love your matter-of-factness. And it is like you just tall it like it is which is very refreshing. Alright, the last one is get the courage to connect. I like that. Connection is really important.

JJ: Well we think we’re connected because of technology and with that great and like you know I love – I have built a really a strong community through my podcasts and that feels awesome. But until it manifests in your life, and until you utilize it as accountability and true human connection; it’s kind of false. I mean it’s not false in that it’s not a real relationship; but we aren’t digital humans. We are physical flesh and blood vibrational beings who have an experience and so the courage to connect is twofold. The first one is about having the courage to actually connect with yourself to do this work. Because most people don’t want to which is why they say program after program, year after year, joining the gym, doing a diet, doing a cleanse every couple of months, doing a marathon. Oh my God. Do you know how many people are marathon addicts? And it’s because they want to lose weight. So, they just do marathons. Because they are like that’s how they maintain their weight, yet marathoners off-season, usually gain a lot of weight and they have no muscle because they don’t cross-train, most of them. Anyway, so oh they are a marathoner, they are an athlete. Okay. Maybe. But what do they do off-season? Are they healthy off-season? Do they pay attention? Do they do – or do they just use marathons to control their weight because during the off-season, or whenever they are not training; they are indulging or using food to know, which a lot of people do. The courage to connect is the first is to connect with yourself and to be honest and real about what is going on with me and what do I need and asking for support.

The next step is about actually finding a community of people who will keep you accountable and be honest with you while loving you and supporting you. Most people surround themselves with their friends and family who tell them what they want to hear. Which keeps them exactly where they are. So, if they are like oh I have – you know it’s a blame game, the victim game. Oh, this person upset me. Oh yeah, they’re terrible. Like okay, so having – it’s hard to make change when you are the only one doing it in your area, in your family or your friend circle and so when – it’s really important to find a community of people who are doing what you are doing to support your growth; otherwise if you are just like looking and comparing yourself against people around you; A if you are out ahead trying to do something different, the likelihood is you are not being supported probably even threatened by that and then most likely you are going to quit or give up because you don’t feel like – you feel weird and different. Like you are the only person doing it.

So, there are other people on the same path and finding them helps you actually realize what it is you need to do and realize your goals. And not just think about it and talk about it. You know, I’m doing a live event next weekend here in Los Angeles and I have got – I made it so people could come to the live event or by a virtual ticket. It is called Releasing What Weighs You Down and one of my clients asked me who is local, she said are you really going – I’ve been training her for years and she said are you going to say anything different at the event than something I have already heard. And she said it as I was leaving, and I really thought about that and I thought first of all, it’s not about what I’m going to say; because there all four of those speakers and this isn’t a workshop; this is about what you are going to do. Like this is about not an hour-long session. This is about a retreat about you taking a deep dive within yourself and creating the time and space to process, identify and release some of the stuff with tools and things that we are going to provide, other speakers and myself. But it’s not about what I’m saying. People can listen to words, read a book, listen to my podcast, listen to your show, and you are like oh, you have all this information. But are you doing anything with it? Are you actually creating the base to sit with yourself and express your feelings? Or are you just in the rat race and that momentum of crazy, right that we get in and then just thinking that oh, but I know that. Yeah, I get that. Alright, but are you doing it? So, to me, I created the event because people need to actually take the time to do it and if you don’t do an event, how many people are actually going to take a day or two days out of their life to sit with themselves and process their feelings and identify their blocks and really work on this stuff. Most people aren’t and even if you go to therapy or have a coach; you’re going to do what, an hour? Once a week, twice a week? I mean, it’s not the same. So, to finding a community, communing with the community, being accountable in the community is what is going to support the process from start to finish.

Lisa: JJ, tell us how we can sign up. Like I want to do this. It sounds amazing.

JJ: Well, you can go – so jjflizanes.com my website. The first time you are in there, I believe there will be a pop up that comes up about the event. But the event is called Releasing What Weighs You Down and literally that’s the URL. Releasingwhatweighsyoudown.com. There is no T in weighs, it is W-E-I-G-H-S, so releasingwhatweighsyoudown.com. Again, there is a virtual ticket for those that can’t make it to LA that will get it the week after, so you can do like a home study course. And the price will go up after next Friday once we start because it’s just the virtual ticket and I’m going to actually add things and make it into a different product which will be at the higher price point. So, if you are interested in coming, there are seats left. I would love for people to – I really just want the people who are like who get it, who are yeah, oh yeah, I totally have a block, like I know that every year I do the same thing, I gain the weight, I go to the gym, I go on a diet, and then three months later, it doesn’t work, and I’m frustrated again, I’m doing it again. Like you get it. You know there is a cycle and a pattern, and you understand that it’s deeper than just what goes in your mouth and if you are going to the gym or exercising.

So, this will help release those blocks and I’ve got some amazing speakers; one of them Lisa, she’s a healer, energy healer. She actually clears inherited emotional DNA. Like it’s so cool. And she’s so powerful. She’s amazing. But we are going to do all kinds of fun stuff but regardless of whether people come to the event or get a virtual ticket; here’s the bottom line; is that weight loss and dieting and weight loss is not about food and exercise. It’s just really not. Yes, will it make a difference if you help fix your digestion and have your hormones tested and get that balanced and do proper exercise for your body that gets you the results you want? Absolutely. But there’s still the whole side of us that is emotional and that sometimes you use food or other things to numb or self-sabotage and that stuff needs to be cleaned up. And if you are not going to clean it up; you are going to be stuck in your patterns. So, clean it up. Find a way to commune.

Lisa: JJ, you are so incredible. You know I did say that I wanted to touch briefly, we only have a couple of minutes left, but talk to us about the ending body shame which is so huge and so difficult to do and so prevalent, or I find it difficult to do, but tell us a little bit about that and what we will find in the book The Invisible Fitness Formula around this.

JJ: So, all of it still has to do with ending body shame. Right, each piece so for instance digestion and the more you learn about your body, I created a five-month transformation program that goes with the book, it’s literally a five-month every week, you get a lesson and a video, and you go point by point through every one of the secrets we just talked about in the book. And I have some people on it and one of the people who – one of the ladies who signed up kind of right away, we had a call maybe a month after because she had some great feedback for me and I wanted to get her opinion about the program and I’m still tweaking it and making it better as I always do; and she said you know I have been on a lot of programs and the way that you explained it, the food part made it really easy to do. And that was really powerful for me to hear because easy for me to eat the way I eat and live the way I live because I understand the science about what things do to your body. And the more I think you understand; the more respect you have and it’s not a blind. So, that people that don’t have any relationship with food tend to abuse food. But the more you can respect food and understand what it does in your body, you make better choices. Same thing with the exercise and same thing with some of these emotional issues that I said that we also are going to be dealing with at the event.

Body shame has to do with loving yourself and has a lot to do with ideas that are not yours that are projected onto you, ideas of society and the only way to sort of make peace with that is to kind of go within and do some of that work. But it does help to love and respect your body on a new level with information. Not saying information is going to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but it will help you to make a deeper connection and that’s to me important for the ending body shame conversations that when you understand on a deeper level, you have respect and an awareness, and that awareness can help you to love yourself a little bit more.

Lisa: JJ, I think you are fantastic. I’m so glad you came on this show. Again, the book is The Invisible Fitness Formula, Five Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame. Give us your website one more time, JJ and spell it for us as well.

JJ: Yup jjflizanes.com. jj F-L-I-Z as in zebra A-N-E-S as in Sam, jjflizanes.com and if you are interested in the event, releasingwhatweighsyoudown.com.

Lisa: Alright, everyone, thank you so much for listening to Talk Fitness Today. You can find me @healthmediagal1 on Twitter and also @Talk Healthy 2 Fitness. Thank you so much for listening and stay well.

This episode of Talk Fitness was produced by The Vitamin Shoppe where trusted health enthusiasts help you thrive every day. Visit one of 800 stores across the country or head to Vitamin Shoppe.com for all your wellness needs.