Transcript
Speaker: Hey moms, it's Laura Olinger.
Speaker: Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast.
Speaker: Because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
Speaker: Hello everyone.
Speaker: Welcome to today's episode of the Positively Healthy Mom.
Speaker: Today I have Sherry Chabon, who is an osteopath and health and life coach.
Speaker: So Sherry, say hello to everyone.
Speaker: Hi, Laura.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm so excited today.
Speaker: We are going to be talking about a variety of things, but it's all about our relationship to food as moms, but also as an example for our teenagers and our teenage girls and boys who might be, you know, eating maybe in an unhealthy way.
Speaker: So what is your stance on healthy eating and a good relationship with food?
Speaker: Well, thanks so much for asking.
Speaker: And I think this really stems from my story, which I'd like to share really quickly.
Speaker: You know, growing up, I was always super involved in sports.
Speaker: I was a child athlete, and that was something that was a very big part of my identity.
Speaker: But when I was in high school, I was struck by a car, and I ended up having a back surgery and was told that I wasn't going to play sports anymore.
Speaker: And for a very long time, I listened to that advice.
Speaker: And found myself just going down this really big rabbit hole of types of habits that really did not serve me.
Speaker: The type of habits that basically we tell our kids that we don't want them to do while I was doing all these things.
Speaker: And in my early 20s, I kind of just woke up one day just after a night of partying and just
Speaker: not feeling in alignment with myself.
Speaker: And that's when I decided to go back to the gym and really start working on myself again.
Speaker: Even though doctors had said I wasn't allowed to exercise, I was just in so much pain.
Speaker: I was relying on pain medication to get through every single day.
Speaker: And I just couldn't live this way anymore.
Speaker: And so when I signed up at my local gym, at that point, I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker: I was actually doing my master's degree in biochemistry.
Speaker: And so what I ended up doing is just copying everybody around me, whatever exercise and movement they were doing, that's what I did.
Speaker: And I got hooked.
Speaker: After a few months, I was able to come off pain medication.
Speaker: I was feeling amazing.
Speaker: I bought a treadmill.
Speaker: I started running.
Speaker: And that's when I decided to shift careers and then get into health and fitness.
Speaker: And that's where I really got my hands on every single certification I possibly could.
Speaker: And that was anything that had to do with the human body, biomechanics, all kinds of trainings, TRX, CrossFit, you name it, I did it.
Speaker: And that's also when I started learning about nutrition because my goal, even though at that point was not to release weight at all, it was really how could I find the best way to eat?
Speaker: We need to know how to eat healthy and I got to learn how to do this because if I know how to do it, I can help my clients do it too.
Speaker: And so back in the day, everyone was talking about counting calories.
Speaker: And so what did I do?
Speaker: I started counting calories.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, everyone was saying fats are bad.
Speaker: I'm like, what fats are bad?
Speaker: Okay, well, let me go low fat.
Speaker: So I went low fat.
Speaker: It was 0% fat forever.
Speaker: Then all of a sudden, this dude named Atkins said, No, wait a minute, fats are good.
Speaker: And that's what we're supposed to be eating.
Speaker: That's the healthy way to eat.
Speaker: And there's so much science to prove all of that.
Speaker: And so what did I do?
Speaker: I started going Atkins and eventually I opened a CrossFit gym and then I heard that we're supposed to be eating like cavemen.
Speaker: So then I did that and after that that became the zone diet and then the keto diet and then I even became vegan and that's when I started becoming really really confused because that's the whole thing eating healthy according to whatever science book that you read or whatever book that tells you is the right way to eat is going to always be backed by proof and the problem with that is
Speaker: is that when we start to eat this way, we start to polarize foods.
Speaker: And depending on whatever diet you are on, there's gonna be certain foods that are good or certain foods that are bad.
Speaker: And that's what polarity is.
Speaker: You're making this list of foods that are good and this other list that are bad.
Speaker: And now what we do is we start associating emotions with these foods.
Speaker: So if I'm eating,
Speaker: carbohydrates and I just got off the keto diet, I feel super guilty because carbohydrates are bad and they're going to kill me because they're linked to all of these diseases and all these problems.
Speaker: And that's where I start to notice that as I was going through this whole experience of jumping from diet to diet to diet, what I was actually also doing is secretly in the really without even trying it, I was actually developing a disordered relationship with food.
Speaker: And I started
Speaker: experience binge eating.
Speaker: And what I realized is that a lot of clients too, that I was working with those who were struggling with their weight the longest or who were dieting for the longest time were also struggling with food.
Speaker: So even though you'd put them on a meal plan and they would release weight after say six weeks, you'd notice that then they would also start to
Speaker: get a little bit out of control around food because that cheat night suddenly becomes a cheat weekend and what we're actually doing is binge eating.
Speaker: And so to answer your question, the standpoint on understanding what is healthy around food or what it means to even have a healthy diet actually is more of an intuitive process because what might feel right for me might be a little bit different to somebody else and might be maybe even
Speaker: different for me in a few years.
Speaker: And the more that we are intuitive with our bodies, and the more that we really listen to our bodies, and we understand that every single type of quote unquote diet serves a certain person, and that there's not this one size fits all and learn how to eat food in a way that doesn't give it so much meaning that isn't so charging to certain foods, we can then find the right way to eat without the emotional attachments without having to learn to cope with
Speaker: with certain emotions and turn towards food in order to cope with these emotions or that we are struggling with nighttime snacking or any other disordered relationship with food that tends to then drive the weight and drive all of these health effects that we are always trying to avoid in reverse.
Speaker: So it's really interesting.
Speaker: The pattern I heard you say was just how emotions are tied to these foods.
Speaker: And it's funny because if you think of like maybe a robot or something who doesn't have any emotions, like they would be able to choose what would fuel their emotions.
Speaker: system, and they wouldn't have that emotional attachment to it.
Speaker: And so it would be easy for them.
Speaker: But because we are not robots, we are humans.
Speaker: It's not quite so it's not quite so easy.
Speaker: So what is are some ways that you help coach your clients in order to either release those emotions or detach from them?
Speaker: Or what is your process?
Speaker: Yeah, it's, it's all about the nervous system.
Speaker: And the part of the nervous system that I work with is the autonomic nervous system.
Speaker: And the autonomic nervous system, that's, that's the part of the nervous system that controls all the involuntary things like heart rate and heartbeat and blood pressure and temperature and
Speaker: Even hormones, even thoughts and emotions.
Speaker: And depending on which nervous system state you're in, it will drive the hormones, it'll drive the blood pressure, but it'll also drive the thoughts and the emotions.
Speaker: And so the two parts of the autonomic nervous system are sympathetic nervous state, which we've all heard of as maybe fight or fight or freeze.
Speaker: I call it protection mode.
Speaker: And then we also have parasympathetic, which is that rest and digest.
Speaker: That's the natural state that we're supposed to be in most of the time.
Speaker: That's where the body can start to regulate itself, regulate metabolism, regulate hormones, recover and regenerate any tissue and heal itself.
Speaker: And that I call safety mode.
Speaker: But the way that we actually trigger ourselves into protection mode is
Speaker: first of all, is only supposed to be temporary.
Speaker: It's only supposed to be for a short amount of time.
Speaker: Our body does its job.
Speaker: We either get out of a stressful situation, we're able to solve our problems, and then we're supposed to be able to regulate and come back to safety mode.
Speaker: But the way that, first of all, society is set up right now, where it's go, go, go, do more.
Speaker: Why aren't you working seven days a week?
Speaker: And
Speaker: And don't sleep and don't this and sleep is for weak people.
Speaker: And the way that we've actually started to believe all this.
Speaker: And then even when we notice how our kids, for example, are also living this lifestyle.
Speaker: I've got two teenage girls myself and they start school very early in the morning.
Speaker: At the end of the day, they go to sports and then they come back and do homework.
Speaker: And then on the weekends, they've got other sports and activities.
Speaker: And it is nonstop.
Speaker: And we're also conditioning them to the go, go, go.
Speaker: So that's one way that we kick in protection mode.
Speaker: But other ways also could be from trauma.
Speaker: And trauma could be, of course, sexual or it could be physical or it could be emotional.
Speaker: It could be living with someone who is narcissistic.
Speaker: You're in that type of toxic environment all the time, constantly triggering protection mode.
Speaker: constantly in that that need to survive to protect to to do something to save yourself and then of course another form of trauma that we don't oftentimes talk about is food scarcity food scarcity is actually a form of trauma food scarcity could be real so as in i grew up mom could barely put food on the table i went to bed hungry often or it could also be imposed food scarcity which i call diet dieting is an imposed food scarcity when we restrict ourselves
Speaker: we again turn on that nervous system response.
Speaker: That's why Laura, we're so afraid of food and we're so afraid of gaining weight and we're so afraid of getting big and we're so afraid of how we look and we shame ourselves and we hate ourselves through that process.
Speaker: That is another way that we actually kick in that nervous system state.
Speaker: And when we're in that nervous system state, a couple of things happen in the body.
Speaker: First thing, metabolism has to slow down.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because body's job is right now to conserve energy.
Speaker: When we're in that need for survival, she or he who has the most stored body fat is going to survive the longest.
Speaker: And one of the things that happens is we turn that reptilian part of the brain on.
Speaker: There's this there's this inclination for binging that we all actually have that we're able to turn on when we are in prolonged state of protection mode.
Speaker: And that's where now we see the cravings.
Speaker: We see the sugar cravings.
Speaker: We see that need to maybe turn towards food when we have certain emotions such as loneliness or boredom or stress or maybe even when we're sad or even when we're angry or even when we have joy, we turn to food to cope with those emotions.
Speaker: And so we can also nighttime snack.
Speaker: We can start to see that we have, again, this need to feel a little bit out of congruency with what we're wanting to eat and then what we end up eating.
Speaker: And so instead of really focusing on stop eating this and don't eat that, and this has high omega three and all these things, and again, repolarizing food, what we actually do is talk about how can we regulate the nervous system?
Speaker: How can I start to work on thoughts and emotions?
Speaker: Because when we're in protection mode, all of our thoughts are always on worst case scenarios, they're projected into the future, things that bring us uncertainty, anxiety, fear, doubt, all of this helplessness.
Speaker: And then we are also projected on events that have happened in the past, which bring up those feelings of regret or remorse or of something that is lost, maybe so a lot of sadness and maybe even depression.
Speaker: And when we regulate the nervous system so that we know how every single time we trigger this, we can control thoughts, control emotions to bring it back into safety mode.
Speaker: The cravings are gone.
Speaker: All of a sudden, the self sabotaging behavior is gone.
Speaker: And today I'm talking about food and I just want to say that food is one vehicle, but alcohol could be another vehicle and cannabis can be another vehicle over shopping could be another vehicle.
Speaker: And so can actually porn watching porn or having, let's say, extra marital sex, sexual events, things like that.
Speaker: All of these are coping mechanisms that really stem from a dysregulated nervous system.
Speaker: And so then is to really work on the internal environment.
Speaker: And because one thing I always share and teach is our outer environment, our physical body is a direct reflection of what's going on inside.
Speaker: And so by understanding how to stay more centered in emotions, more centered around choices, then all of a sudden things start to be more in our control than out.
Speaker: Wow, that was amazing and a lot and such a great explanation and gives an understanding to either our own behaviors or our teenagers behavior.
Speaker: So we wonder why sometimes they do things right.
Speaker: In fact,
Speaker: We wonder that a lot.
Speaker: And we're like, why the heck did they do this?
Speaker: And there's a good chance that it's because they're dysregulated, right?
Speaker: They're out, they're not in that.
Speaker: So when I talk about, you know, you and I are talking about the same thing, but the autonomic nervous system being the, you know, the on or off kind of, you know, I almost say it's like the gas pedal or the brake of the car, right?
Speaker: And it's like when you're very dysregulated, it's kind of like if you were to drive your car and be like, gas brake, gas brake, brake.
Speaker: It's like a total waste of,
Speaker: of energy and it's really damaging to your car because your car is designed to go nice and easy, gas or brake, right?
Speaker: Not this kind of switching back and forth.
Speaker: And so when you're very dysregulated and your body doesn't know what to do, it kind of gets out of control.
Speaker: And an illustration I like to use is from the polyvagal theory, which is, you know, it sounds fancy, but it's very, very easy.
Speaker: It's just like green is calm and relaxed.
Speaker: You know, that's that parasympathetic nervous system where maybe we're going to relax and go to sleep.
Speaker: But it's also the time that we socially connect.
Speaker: It's when we feel empathy.
Speaker: It's when we feel kind of love and belonging, like those positive feelings.
Speaker: And that is when we are the most regulated.
Speaker: And then you go up into the yellow zone, which is kind of like warning, just like a stoplight.
Speaker: And that's when we're like a little bit anxious or we're a little bit stressed and we're kind of starting to get into that fight or flight feelings.
Speaker: And then the very top of this chart is red, where that's where we start to shut down.
Speaker: And that's when we start to feel really sad or very depressed.
Speaker: And that's when because the yellow is so overwhelming that our body has to go somewhere.
Speaker: And so it can either go down to green or up to red and kind of shut down.
Speaker: And so what I'm picturing here when you describe this dysregulated state and the sympathetic nervous system being like really amped up is sorry, my dog is moving the camera is the yellow is just kind of like on overdrive.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That that anxious, overwhelmed state.
Speaker: And we don't know how to get ourselves back down into the green.
Speaker: And even if we were able to, then we would better able to make the choices that are in alignment, right?
Speaker: I think this is what I'm hearing you say with what our vision is, right?
Speaker: We have these goals and we have a vision of like, this is what we should eat.
Speaker: And then there's the what we actually eat.
Speaker: And those two lists are not always matching.
Speaker: In fact, they probably aren't most of the time.
Speaker: And on top of that, not only as moms are we that way, but our teenagers, like bringing it back to the teenagers, are even more dysregulated because, A, they don't have that frontal cortex fully developed to help them regulate.
Speaker: But B, their lives are very stressful and they don't have the coping skills set in place.
Speaker: They haven't learned a lot of these skills to be able to.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: What do you do with that?
Speaker: Like, right?
Speaker: Like we can explain this to our clients.
Speaker: We can teach it to our clients.
Speaker: And I know things I do with my clients to help bring them back down into a balanced state.
Speaker: But what are some things that you do?
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: These are things we can do with clients.
Speaker: And these are also things we can do with our kids.
Speaker: And even as teenagers, they're beginning to sit in their body.
Speaker: They're beginning to connect with their body.
Speaker: They're beginning to really sit into who they are.
Speaker: And so one thing that we can always do is bring it back to the body because the body keeps the score.
Speaker: And you may have already heard this.
Speaker: And it's a very, very powerful statement.
Speaker: But all emotions and all these things that I shared with you, traumas, or even just stimulating that sympathetic nervous state, all of that is energy.
Speaker: And it all is sitting somewhere in the body.
Speaker: And so one thing that we can all do, and maybe if you're listening in, this could be a little technique that you can try on yourself.
Speaker: And so just sitting really still with yourself and taking a few deep breaths and then scanning the body, maybe for areas of tension and finding areas of tension, starting really from the top of the head, bringing it all the way down to the face and to the shoulders.
Speaker: And just without even questioning too much, just really sitting more in the body, less in the mind.
Speaker: finding an area that has tension.
Speaker: And when you find that area that has tension, you can just even ask that area, what emotion are you holding on to?
Speaker: And the emotion that may come up might be fear.
Speaker: The emotion that may come up might be worry.
Speaker: It might be something that you're not even aware of.
Speaker: And even just, again, without the mind thinking so much, I want this to really be the first thing that comes to your mind.
Speaker: Because the first thing that comes to your mind is what the body is saying.
Speaker: The more we try to interfere and rationalize, that's more our mind that's rationalizing.
Speaker: And whatever emotion comes up, it will stem from four main emotions.
Speaker: We only have four main emotions or feelings.
Speaker: We've got fear.
Speaker: We have sadness.
Speaker: We have anger.
Speaker: And we have joy.
Speaker: And these emotions generally, especially when we feel something like fear, these are emotions that we tend to want to escape or sadness because they're low vibration emotions.
Speaker: It does feel uncomfortable.
Speaker: And we've actually conditioned ourselves anytime we feel these emotions that we need to escape them because they're going to harm us in some way.
Speaker: And that's the thing is they are a part of that sympathetic nervous system response and they're there for a purpose.
Speaker: They actually serve a purpose.
Speaker: So for example, let's say,
Speaker: You're scanning the body and you find jealousy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What is my emotion?
Speaker: Jealousy.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because someone just got the job title that I wanted and I didn't get it today.
Speaker: Well, jealousy still has a root or roots from one of these or two or more of these four, depending on the person, every single person.
Speaker: Jealousy for me might be anger and fear.
Speaker: Jealousy for someone else might be maybe sadness and fear.
Speaker: So what is it for you now that you've identified?
Speaker: Okay, which of the four?
Speaker: Brute four are there.
Speaker: Now let's break that up.
Speaker: So if, for example, you're noticing that there's fear, well, fear is a very important emotion.
Speaker: Fear is that emotion that basically serves as our blind spots.
Speaker: Fear tells us what to be aware of.
Speaker: Fear tells us and shows us maybe what we don't notice.
Speaker: Fear gives us an opportunity to take action from it.
Speaker: And it's also there again so that we can find a way to protect ourselves.
Speaker: So if we're feeling fear, we shouldn't try to escape it.
Speaker: We should maybe try to understand, okay, fear, what you're trying to tell me?
Speaker: What is it that I don't see?
Speaker: What is it I'm not aware of?
Speaker: And if, for example, I feel anger.
Speaker: Well, anger is also another one of those emotions that sometimes we're embarrassed to express and we shouldn't be angry and anger is a bad thing.
Speaker: But anger is actually how we draw boundaries.
Speaker: It's how we take action.
Speaker: The only way that we can take action is through anger.
Speaker: So if I'm feeling angry, okay, what kind of boundaries do I need to place here?
Speaker: And a higher vibration and fear.
Speaker: So think about it.
Speaker: If let's say I, there was a, I was in the woods and a bear came out and it was attacking my kids.
Speaker: I'd first be afraid.
Speaker: And then if I were to take action to protect my kids, I wouldn't need anger to take action.
Speaker: So it's actually a very useful emotion.
Speaker: Again, part of that protection mode.
Speaker: And then sadness is one of those emotions.
Speaker: Again, that's a heavy one.
Speaker: That sits at the lowest vibration.
Speaker: Actually, lowest, lowest, lowest is shame and guilt.
Speaker: But then above that is sadness.
Speaker: But it's a heavy feeling.
Speaker: You actually feel heaviness in the body because literally your body's vibrating a lot slower.
Speaker: You are actually heavier.
Speaker: And sadness is an important emotion.
Speaker: Sadness shows you that
Speaker: There's something coming to an end and something else is beginning.
Speaker: And that's the law of the universe, that something will end and something else will begin.
Speaker: So that's your opportunity to also reflect on what was going on in my life that's making me sad right now.
Speaker: What is ending and what is beginning?
Speaker: And joy is another important one because a lot of us eat when we have joy or a lot of us maybe tend to turn towards certain substances when we have joy.
Speaker: So what is it?
Speaker: Actually, we're trying to escape from that feeling of joy.
Speaker: And sometimes what could be behind that is that feeling of not enoughness or not deservingness because we have joy.
Speaker: And maybe we're feeling a little bit even guilty that we have a particular sense of joy when maybe someone else is suffering around us.
Speaker: So by allowing yourself just to get curious and really feeling it through your body and starting to breathe into that, you're already going to notice that things are starting to shift.
Speaker: But what we tend to do instead, Laura, is we tend to feel this emotion.
Speaker: There's a trigger.
Speaker: I need a glass of wine.
Speaker: There's a trigger.
Speaker: I need to eat.
Speaker: I need a cookie.
Speaker: And so we don't even give ourselves that opportunity.
Speaker: And so we learn to just condition ourselves and download that pattern.
Speaker: Every time I feel fear, every time I feel worry, or every time I feel this, I'm going to turn to that.
Speaker: And without actually trying to understand that these emotions are there, they're serving a purpose, and they are getting us to really take action in some way.
Speaker: Now, what we can do also, especially, and it's never, ever, ever too late, even if you never maybe held space for your kids growing up and had them express their emotions, or even for yourself, if you grew up in an environment where, let's say, emotions weren't validated, that every time you felt a particular emotion, have a cookie, or if something great happened, have a cookie, and you didn't have that connection with being able to express your emotions,
Speaker: It's never too late.
Speaker: And this is something that you can teach your kids.
Speaker: It's okay to be angry.
Speaker: It's okay to have fear.
Speaker: It's okay to have joy.
Speaker: It's okay to have sadness.
Speaker: And these are not emotions that we need to numb.
Speaker: Boys can cry.
Speaker: And that's okay.
Speaker: Also, whereas again, we're learning that we're not allowed to do that.
Speaker: So giving yourself full permission to express that and express it does not revolve around trying to numb it, trying to escape it, trying to avoid it is so incredibly powerful.
Speaker: And
Speaker: This is a process that obviously takes practice.
Speaker: So I showed you today how to get into your body.
Speaker: And that's one tool that I use.
Speaker: But there's many other tools.
Speaker: But yeah, it's a process and it could be a hit and miss.
Speaker: So as you get started, don't get frustrated with yourself, have a lot of grace, because these have been patterns you've been probably playing out for years and years and years, if not decades.
Speaker: And so allow yourself to get into that.
Speaker: And you'll start to notice that that there are certain emotions, once you break them up, of
Speaker: into those four that I shared, that will drive you to certain behavior.
Speaker: So might always be fear for you.
Speaker: And it could also stem from your childhood.
Speaker: So again, connecting with the body, trying to remember, okay, when was the first time I felt that?
Speaker: What was the circumstance?
Speaker: Well, I was an eight year old girl.
Speaker: So this belief system came from an eight year old girl.
Speaker: It was the eight year old part of me.
Speaker: And now we can start doing some inner child work also around that just to really start to explore what meanings, what does that eight year old girl need to help her maybe
Speaker: change that memory or to give her exactly what is missing in that moment.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That was so powerful.
Speaker: Just what you described, because you're right.
Speaker: I think we do feel uncomfortable with uncomfortable emotions and we suppress them or we push them away.
Speaker: And we have a hard time just as humans tolerating these uncomfortable things.
Speaker: And even the joy one, I thought that was so great that you said that because it's true.
Speaker: That's what people, you know, do self-sabotage when they feel joyful or, you know, they have a fear of success.
Speaker: That's some things that I deal with with certain clients.
Speaker: And so, yeah, just giving those pieces space and allow them to process and feel them and kind of accept them instead of resist them.
Speaker: So I want to turn the conversation into a different direction before we wind down.
Speaker: Everybody's talking about the injectables for weight loss, the semi-glutides, and I don't know all the proper terms for them, but it's a big thing.
Speaker: It's going on.
Speaker: I know a lot of people that are doing it, and I know a lot of people that have lost a lot of weight.
Speaker: They look amazing.
Speaker: What are your thoughts about that?
Speaker: So my thoughts are to do the research first.
Speaker: first and foremost, and to also start looking up people who are coming forward who are talking about the negative side effects that are not being spoken about.
Speaker: And the issue right now is that, of course, there are a lot of celebrities and big names right now standing behind these medications.
Speaker: But what I'll also say is do the research and find out the other side of the story.
Speaker: If it's too good to be true, most often it is too good to be true.
Speaker: These medications are generally given for people with
Speaker: diabetes, and now they're being prescribed to anybody who's wanting to release weight rapidly.
Speaker: And some of the side effects that I'm seeing with my clients, so things like gastric paralysis, there's, you know, constipation, and it's taking ozempic and semiglutides gives the body the same effect as taking laxatives for a long time.
Speaker: So if you know the effects of what happens when you take laxatives for a long time,
Speaker: you then lose the ability to have that natural, smooth muscle contraction of the colon so that you can eliminate.
Speaker: And so taking Osempic gives you the exact same effects.
Speaker: It also starts to tamper with the body's natural ability to regulate its insulin and its glucose metabolism.
Speaker: And what I always tend to see is that people are successful while they're on these medications.
Speaker: And of course, the idea is to continue to be on them.
Speaker: There's other side effects that include vomiting and diarrhea and vomiting, violent vomiting, like not just feeling sick, but actually like, you know, uncontrollable.
Speaker: So a lot of side effects and a lot of experts also are coming forward to talk about it.
Speaker: But basically, when you take Osempic, you do release weight, yes.
Speaker: And the majority of that weight loss that you actually tend to experience is muscle mass.
Speaker: And so what we end up seeing is anyone who comes off this medication regains that weight back.
Speaker: And so you have to learn how to make certain shifts in your life first, in my opinion, and before you take any other medication that's going to assist you to do that.
Speaker: If you haven't done that yet, if you have not done that yet, what I would recommend is start there.
Speaker: There's so many ways that you can shift certain habits around your nutrition.
Speaker: And I'm anti-diet.
Speaker: And when I say this, it's really habits around
Speaker: maybe when you're eating or bringing in certain certain habits before removing and other habits, but there's certain things that you can do around your nutrition, and around your movement that could fit your lifestyle, that can be sustainable for you, and that can give you the result that you want.
Speaker: But it's our society now has and just kind of what we're talking about the nervous system, it has focus on instant gratification, and an instant
Speaker: I mean, reward, it's an instant reward, I want to do this, and I want to be finished in a month, and I want to see results yesterday.
Speaker: And we're no longer patient around how, how to actually continue to put in that work to see that long term effect.
Speaker: But again, do the research and don't take my word for it.
Speaker: There's so much stuff out there right now.
Speaker: So many people also advocating against this right now.
Speaker: And just be mindful.
Speaker: Again, if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.
Speaker: And there's always that rule when it comes to releasing weight, the faster it's off, the faster it comes back.
Speaker: So if you've made lifestyle changes that over a few months, you're now starting to see the effect of, well, those are permanent.
Speaker: But if you make certain changes around your diet that have given you instant and fast results very, very quickly, then it's just as fast to come back to.
Speaker: Yeah, that's...
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker: The other part that, you know, I'm not sure a lot of people are putting a lot of focus or energy into what I think of is the brain health.
Speaker: So, you know, exercise.
Speaker: I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Daniel Eamon.
Speaker: He's I'm certified through him and he's a big, you know, very well-known psychiatrist who does brain scans.
Speaker: And he talks about how
Speaker: Exercise is the WD-40 of the brain, for the brain.
Speaker: So you're really keeping your brain healthy when you exercise.
Speaker: And when you don't exercise, your brain actually loses mass and it loses lots of things and it doesn't have what it needs to really be.
Speaker: You know, a lot of us moms at some point have had brain fog.
Speaker: You know, a lot of times it's like...
Speaker: either after we've had the babies or we're really stressed out and we're really tired or at any point, we've all kind of had it at one point or another.
Speaker: And in order to eliminate brain fog, to have great brain function, to have healthy thoughts and feelings like we're talking about, in order to have that prefrontal cortex, everything working properly, we need the good diet, we need the good exercise, we need the good stress management, we need good sleep, like all those modifiable lifestyle factors.
Speaker: are not just about weight and looks and appearance, but it's actually about you being your best self, being able to think clearly is like, I can't think of anything.
Speaker: I wouldn't want to give up more like my ability to think clearly.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Yeah, so well said. 100%.
Speaker: And that's the thing too, is, you know, we misunderstand that word diet, right?
Speaker: Or, or even just that focus on wellness and, and diet most often times for us is what we're eating, what we're consuming through our mouth.
Speaker: But diet is exactly all the things that you just said, Laura, my diet is the air I breathe.
Speaker: It's the people I hang out with.
Speaker: It's what I watch on TV.
Speaker: It's the books I read.
Speaker: It's the conversations I'm sitting in.
Speaker: And it's,
Speaker: It's all of that that's changing my body's chemistry.
Speaker: That's triggering the nervous system.
Speaker: All of that is my diet.
Speaker: And once you start to look at things differently in that way, and especially when you start to live in a way where everything is about an energetic exchange, everything is about, okay, how is this going to trigger my nervous system?
Speaker: And how is it going to really impact my body?
Speaker: Instead of how is this going to help me lose weight?
Speaker: And is this going to help me gain weight?
Speaker: And so instead of that being the exchange of currency,
Speaker: what if it's now, well, what's that going to do to my hormones?
Speaker: What is that going to do to my nervous system?
Speaker: And sleep is one of those important things that is oftentimes overlooked, you know, just like movement, just like, and when I say movement, I'm not talking about high intensity interval training.
Speaker: I'm really talking about just walking, just getting outside and connecting with nature, which is something again, that we do less and less of, well, not just as we age, but even just seeing our kids now, I, all my kids have cell phones and they've got iPads and they're, you know,
Speaker: And we didn't have that growing up.
Speaker: We played with boxes and we played in parks and it was very different.
Speaker: So even just remembering how simple that can be, just even incorporating that movement into our lifestyle, even that is just part of our diet.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker: Well, this has been an amazing conversation.
Speaker: Is there anything that you feel like is extremely important that maybe we didn't cover, but that would just add to a mom's understanding of her nervous system or her teenager's nervous system as far as that regulation, that emotional regulation and the relationship with food?
Speaker: Well, so many things that we can add, but I think I would like to leave it off with just breath work and breathing.
Speaker: And this is, again, just part of what we were talking about before, breath being a part of diet.
Speaker: How we breathe is very much, again, dependent on which nervous system state we're in.
Speaker: So imagine, you know, somebody jumps in the room and you're like, and you get startled.
Speaker: And all of a sudden you're breathing through your chest and everything in the day is stressful.
Speaker: And you're just, come on, kids.
Speaker: and everything is always up here in your chest, you're in protection mode.
Speaker: And a really, really quick way to regulate nervous system is just by changing breath.
Speaker: And one thing that we can do, all of us sitting here, putting one hand on the chest, one hand on the belly, taking deep breaths, where as we inhale, we expand first through the belly button.
Speaker: And then lastly, through the top of the chest.
Speaker: And as we exhale, releasing the top of the chest and then the belly button last and just really doing those deep belly breathing.
Speaker: And taking a moment in our days.
Speaker: And again, as busy moms are trying to work and keep the house clean and make sure dinner's there and the kids are well served and my God, they're teenagers and they're teenage problems.
Speaker: Like I could tell you, I can relate with those.
Speaker: It's so important to make that time.
Speaker: And it takes a couple of minutes and we don't do it.
Speaker: We always think that we don't have time.
Speaker: We don't do it.
Speaker: And we make time for everyone else.
Speaker: We make time for our kids.
Speaker: That's non-negotiable, but taking time for ourselves.
Speaker: And I'll tell you now,
Speaker: as the mom, you are the center of the universe of the household.
Speaker: And if you are regulated and if you are calm, and if you are taking care of you and filling your own cup first and putting that oxygen mask on first, like they always say, you're going to impact your kids in the most positive way.
Speaker: Sometimes we think it's, we have to do things for them so that they're good, but it's actually the opposite.
Speaker: We have to do things for us so that they're good.
Speaker: And when we can do that, when we prioritize ourselves, when we really take those moments for ourselves where,
Speaker: It's not my moment for myself is to go eat ice cream.
Speaker: My moment for myself is to go breathe.
Speaker: My moment for myself is to go to connect with nature, go do art, go do that thing that I always want to do.
Speaker: That's a great way also to really regulate the system.
Speaker: And so if you're listening to this and you're resonating with this, take that time, put it in your schedule, make that you time, and then see how that's going to start to impact everyone else around you.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I could not agree more.
Speaker: So Sherry, where can people find you?
Speaker: Well, Instagram is the easiest way at Sherry Chaban Fitness is my handle.
Speaker: And then also, I'd love to offer you a little something if you're finding that you have some dysregulated emotions, or you're tending to turn towards food to cope with them.
Speaker: If you go to my website, makepeacewithfood.com, I have a free little download for you, where we'll go through some of the things I shared today, but even more, and you've got a couple of exercises as well to do and some self reflection to get you started on your journey.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: And that's a great offer.
Speaker: I hope everybody goes and gets the download and follows you on Instagram.
Speaker: So I appreciate it.
Speaker: Have a great day.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: I really love this conversation.
Speaker: You're really great at what you do.
Speaker: Keep it up.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Take care.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
Speaker: Don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends.
