That Time We Talked About Dieting

It's New Year's Eve, and this is episode number 69 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and Happy New Year and good tidings and Auld Lang Syne. And how do you say that? I don't even know how it goes.

Well, that was Christmas.

Is that Christmas?

Yeah.

Should old acquaintance be forgot?

OK. New Year's.

Kind of wishing that about you right now.

Don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about.

We'll make up in 2020. It'll be fine.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Everything good, Kev?

Everything's good.

Good, because we would usually have something to talk about at the beginning of the show.

But we don't.

Well, we do, but I don't think any of it could be as interesting as what our guest has to talk about, because she's here to actually talk about something very specific that's pretty thematic with the New Year's time.

Sure.

However, our guest Lisa had a very interesting— well, interesting is probably like the politically correct way to describe what happened to you.

Yeah, there's other words I could think of.

Traumatic would be—

Stressful.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Horrible, awful.

So just—

Expensive.

Yeah.

So like maybe if there's somebody out there that's like, I didn't have a great 2019. You're like, listen, my, my 2018 and my— what years did this happen to you?

Uh, it actually happened twice, right? It happened Memorial Day 2016, that first flood, and then it happened again, uh, for Harvey.

For Harvey, which was '17.

Yeah.

Yep.

So, and then, yeah, so, so go ahead, go ahead, let everybody know what happened.

So we flooded.

Oh gosh.

And, um, the first flood we rebuilt, we had flood insurance, we rebuilt and Then we took some landscaping precautions and we built the berm around the house.

Okay.

And we put in sump pumps on the inside of the berm so when it rains, it'll flush the water out.

Kind of making it like Disneyland.

Yeah.

All right. And it was sodded and we had— it was intricate and it would've worked had Harvey not sat over us for the extent of time that it did. So when Harvey came, yeah, just right over the berm. Sump pumps stopped. House flooded again.

And I mean, we're not talking— The pumps quit.

The pumps gave up.

Oh my gosh. Did they burn out or?

They were just pumping back into the water.

There was nowhere for it to go.

Yeah. The whole property just completely was enveloped. We have 5 acres. And whoever built the house did not build it above the elevation of the floodplain. And we came from Jersey. All right? Don't know what a floodplain is. We live on a mountain.

Yeah. Don't know what a plane is.

So we didn't know to ask for elevation certifications and whatnot. So now we're dealing with this house is flooded for the second time.

To be fair to you, most people around here until then didn't know to ask for it either. Right.

So we're very knowledgeable Jersey people now.

Yeah.

So yeah, so the water went over the berm. Oh, sump pumps gave up, came into the house, flooded again. So, um, yeah, so I swore this was not gonna happen a third time. And so we lifted our house.

Nice. Wow.

Foundation and all.

Okay.

So we have a 2,500 square foot ranch. And when you lift the house, it goes by the square footage of the foundation.

Okay.

Okay. So, you know, 2-story home, smaller foundation, easier, less, you know, money and all that.

Right.

So this was a project.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was a very interesting, long process. We were out of the house for 9 months between Yeah, between building it back from the flooding and then it was another 4 months for the lift.

Oh man.

So did you restore the house first and then lift it or did you lift it and then restore it?

The intention was restore the house, get a refinance or some kind of money because we've re— except we realized that we can't completely rebuild the house Because we have to lift it.

Right.

So we can't reattach a lot of the plumbing, electrical. It can't be a working house. We have to lift it. Mortgage company wouldn't give us any kind of refinance or anything because it wasn't a livable house at the point we needed the money.

So it's a process.

Yeah.

So we basically told them, I'm doing hand gestures.

If you're not watching this on YouTube, the bank was told to go do some things.

And we said, fine, we're going to do this. And so my husband did some research, found some funding, and we fortunately were in a financial position we could do this. And so we started the ball rolling on lifting the house. And it was 3 months of them digging and preparing the house to lift. And then it was 2 days of lifting.

Oh, wow.

That was it. 2 days and it was up. We lifted it 3.5 feet.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And then it was another month after that of building back because now you have this house that's up in the air. How do you get in it?

Yeah.

And it was the garage was lifted too.

So how do you get your cars in the garage?

Oh, it's attached garage. Yeah, it's all one. Everything that was on the original pour of the foundation had to go up. Couldn't cut away anything. Yeah.

So did y'all just end up making the garage taller?

No, no, because the whole concrete foundation went up.

Oh my gosh.

So we had—

You got to ramp it or—

Yeah.

Exactly.

So you just put a lift on your vehicle.

That probably would've been cheaper actually. But yeah, no, we built a concrete ramp.

Okay.

And to go up and, and the, uh, the whole house is now skirted with, uh, cedar. And actually it looks gorgeous now. It looks 10 times better than it did before.

There you go.

But yeah, it was an amazing process. They, they dig trenches underneath the house in a crosswise pattern by hand.

Yeah.

The guys with buckets and—

Buckets.

Literally, one guy would go under and another guy would come out with a bucket, dump the Dump the dirt, go back under.

You can't really get under there with an excavator.

No, no. It was literally hands and knees, and you could not pay me enough to do this. No way. Those guys, I hope they make lots of money.

They probably don't.

I don't know, but man. And then after all that's dug, they take these cement columns and they vibrate them down to the point of refusal. where it's different. Some areas are 8 feet deep, some are 22 feet deep, whatever the ground stops. And that's the piers. So we have 140 or 150 piers under our foundation, under the concrete foundation.

Wow.

All done by an engineer, you know, figured it all out so it doesn't fall down.

Sure.

And, um, yeah. And then 2 days, the house gets lifted with this truck that has all these hydraulics on it. They come in and they do jacks, I guess like a foundation leveling, but on steroids. And so Yep, they lift it all in nine-inch increments, and then they eventually take the jacks away, and you cross your fingers and go, "Please don't fall." You know, I just kept saying, "Don't break my house. Don't break my house." Yeah. So yeah, we have a portico over the garage part, and you could see that it didn't go up as much, and you could see it kind of bowed. So at the end, they had to like go doot doot doot and do like a little bit more little adjustments. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was house chiropractors.

Yeah, exactly. It was fascinating, and. And then it was another month of us being able to access the house, building everything back that we needed to get back in because you couldn't live in it until that. And then I think not until just recently did we finally finish the last piece of the puzzle. The staining, was that the last thing? I think the staining of all the cedar and all that stuff.

Which cedar's beautiful, but a lot of people don't realize that cedar doesn't warp. It doesn't— it's very water resilient.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so we stained it. We have a metal roof, so it's kind of the same color as the roof now. And it's nice. And it's finally after, in essence, 3 years from the first flood to that rebuilding, we were only in the house 11 months and then it flooded again. And then we were out for the 9 months and then all these contractors coming, contractors coming, contractors coming. We finally have peace.

You must really love where you live.

Yes.

And you must love the house.

Yes.

Because some people would just either move.

Yeah.

Or they would level the house and start over.

And that's the thing. We were looking at that and we love the neighborhood. We would never leave the neighborhood. So that was not an option. So the question was level it and rebuild or lift it. And dollars was about the same.

Oh, okay.

And yeah, it was actually probably gonna be faster to lift it.

To lift it, yeah. I was gonna say, I mean, like demo and then completely—

Because we could move back in as soon as it was lifted and we had access. Yeah, all the other pretty stuff, you know, could—

You leave your furniture in and everything?

Well, we lost it all in the flood, so there was nothing.

You know, you know, Craig, some people have what they, you know, call a pier and beam house, right? Sounds like they've got a pier and slab house. Yeah, exactly, which I've never heard of. And you may be one of the only people in the world that have a pier and slab house.

Quite possible. And you can actually My husband did a time-lapse video of the whole thing.

I need to see that.

It's on the company that did our house raise. It's trustjericho.com. It's right on the homepage and you can see it. I mean, it's quick because it was only the 2 days and it was 9-inch increments. And I think it was 5 increments of 9 or something like that.

Well, I know this is something I, there was a news story not too long ago about a lot of houses down on Buffalo Bayou having to have this done because, and like insurance companies were actually willing to kick in for it. Yeah, because they were tired of all these houses flooding all the time.

If you have flood insurance, there is a program called the ICC, which you then— there's like an application process and all this stuff that they will contribute X amount of dollars towards mitigation of your flooding. Okay. And for the most part, that's lift your house.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, so that was a small, very small portion of the cost of lifting the house that we did get covered.

So, um, but yeah, better than nothing, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, no, it was definitely— and, and I'm just glad, praise God, that we are not in debt. And we, you know, we were in the right position because if any, any other circumstance, we may have had to walk away.

Man.

Yeah, but yeah, we love our neighborhood and that's why we did it. We didn't want to move.

Yeah, so that's, that's an amazing story.

Yeah.

Wow.

And when you see the video, you'll be like, whoop.

Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, let's stop this right now and go watch the video.

Pause.

Wow, that, that truly is amazing. Um, so, uh, thanks for sharing for sure.

Um, did anyone else in your neighborhood end up doing the same, same kind of thing?

No one else flooded.

Oh really? Whoa. Yeah, you guys are the only ones?

Yeah, and it's because when they built the house originally, it was below the floodplain. So it, it could have been avoided had they brought dirt in and just had Foundation high enough.

Which would've been a fairly inexpensive process to bring more dirt.

Yeah. Yep.

Oh man.

So I mean, our neighborhood is acreage lots, so we're set back. So nobody could really see what was going on, which was beneficial because it was a war zone.

I bet.

But the after is beautiful. So it was well worth it, but it was extremely stressful and we were displaced. We were living in a 500-square-foot guest house of a friend with 8— our 8 dogs.

Oh my God.

So, you know, and the segue is, you know, what I do now for a living is nutritional coaching. And if I was successful in not gaining weight during that extremely stressful time, anybody can do it.

Okay. Well, that's a perfect segue.

Yeah.

Thanks for segueing.

Well, and this is the reason why we wanted to have you in is because like it's New Year's.

That's right.

You know, and this is the time of year when people start, you know, either making resolutions, making goals, making plans, and like the number one goal that most people set at New Year's is to lose weight. And which, you know, if that's the number one goal, you gotta imagine that most people recognize that that's a problem for most everybody, is that they're not at the weight they wanna be. And so we wanted to talk to you and see, you know, what are some good strategies and helpful tips? And we even had some questions from Facebook that we'll throw at you later. But just to get us started, how did you even get into this business?

Oh boy. Okay. So I lost my own weight first.

Okay.

So I lost 120 pounds.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And it was a lifetime of enjoying food. I didn't eat for stress. I didn't eat for emotions. I've always lived a good life and we are happy. But I was a dancer, not a stripper, a professional dancer. And at that time I ate. I mean, I was dancing 5, 6 hours a day, 6, 7 days a week.

You could eat whatever you want.

I could eat whatever I want.

Right.

And I did. I mean, good, bad, indifferent. I burned out in my mid-20s and I stopped dancing and I've never danced since. But at that time I kept eating like I was dancing. And I realized—

That's probably hard because I would expect that you didn't know how not to eat that way.

Right. Absolutely.

That was just— I mean, at some point normal becomes everyday, right? Instead of the other way around. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and it was not healthy food either. I mean, it wasn't even like salad and chicken. It was McDonald's.

Who eats salad and chicken?

I do now.

Oh, okay.

Just checking.

Okay. So yeah, so I burned out. I stopped dancing and I just kept eating. And then I realized I was gaining weight and I went to start get active again, but not dance. And, you know, 1 or 2 hours a week doing taekwondo and still eating like I was dancing for 5 or 6 hours, it doesn't— it's not equivalent.

Right.

So kept gaining, kept gaining. Met my husband, got married, built a house, went back to college, got a new career. I became a dental hygienist. Very sedentary. You sit on your butt all day and you talk to people. I'm not up and about. Gained weight, topped out at 275. So I'm only 5— well, only— I'm 5'8. So 275 pounds is a lot of weight to be lugging around for somebody who's 5'8 and a female. And tried to lose weight here and there, yo-yo, Weight Watchers, bars and shakes, all that stuff. It would work a little, it would come back. It wasn't sustainable.

Uh-huh.

Then I had to have— and I always share this and some guys are like, oh, I don't want to know that. But I share this because a lot of clients can understand it. I had to have a hysterectomy.

Okay.

And that jacks with your hormones. And then if you're on HRT, hormone replacement therapy, or not, it's never the same as it was before. And so even harder to control my weight.

Yeah.

And at that point, my doctor Actually, I had a personal trainer at that point who mentioned the word ketogenic diet. I had no idea what it was. I've still, at this point, even gaining all this weight, didn't educate myself about nutrition.

And what year was that?

The surgery was 2012 and it took me 2 years to find a ketogenic diet.

Yeah, and I mean, there have been keto diets around for a very long time.

Yes.

necessarily going out and finding that term is difficult to do at that point, right? I mean, we didn't hit that until— when did keto, quote unquote keto diet, when did that really hit?

Oh, I think it's still only really hitting in the correct way.

So I can understand my point there. I can understand why it was difficult for you to find a way to get there whenever he mentioned it.

And I think the only reason And he knew about it because he was a personal trainer, but in the bodybuilding sphere, they do keto before a show because they need to really lose a lot of water weight and stuff.

Right.

So that's probably the only reason he knew of it. He probably recommended it not knowing really nutritional ketogenic diet or whatever, but I went to my doctor and I asked, hey, is this something? She said, yes. Okay. Didn't give me any info really. I went and started doing my homework and I found a great group online called Keto Gains and it's a nutritional ketogenic diet with a focus on weight training and resistance training.

Okay.

And so how to follow a ketogenic diet and build muscle, lose fat, burn fat whether it's from your body because you're overweight or from food because you're trying to gain and then build muscle. And Luis Villaseñor, he is the owner and now with Tyler Cartwright and they were fantastic. And in 2014, November 20th, 2014 is when I found it, when I started and it clicked, it worked. Now it works for me and I know it works for many other people as well.

Right.

But it's not necessarily for everybody.

Right.

So I lost my weight, joined some boot camps they offer. there, started adminning and modding for them, and now I'm actually a coach for them.

Okay.

So I work for Keto Gains. And at the same time, I started my own business because that is group coaching that they do in their boot camps. I started my own business for one-on-one for the local area here because I found that while group coaching is fantastic, that a lot of people, especially mothers or corporate people, need more one-on-one. They need more accountability and more support. The macros, the calorie counting, the tracking food and all, that's the easy part. It's the accountability and the support keeping you on track for what your personal goal is, is the hard part.

Uh-huh.

And that's really where New Year's Eve comes in, you know, people in general, they just have to eat less if they want to lose weight.

Sure.

But it's eating less in a healthy way so they're not going to lose muscle because a lot of times keto especially, they don't eat enough protein if they're following the medical keto for fat loss. It's eat lots of fat, it's butter chuggers, it's fat bombs, it's, you know, high-calorie coffee and meal replacements and things like that. They're not getting enough whole food proteins. So yeah, Keto Gains, and then just started educating myself about nutrition. I started getting certifications on nutrition, and all the while I was still doing dental hygiene, and it tied together so well because it's science and it's nutrition with your teeth.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's the same, the same kind of diet that benefits your teeth benefits your body. So So that's kind of— and I started it and that's kind of where we're at now. It's been over a year that I've been the owner of Your Lean Life and very successful with the clients that have gone through.

Awesome.

Losing lots of body fat.

Real quick, you mentioned a term when you were talking about— when you were saying some things about nutrition, you said macros. That is something I've heard come up quite a bit when I've heard other people talk about nutrition. I don't even know what that is.

Macro is short for macronutrient. So it's protein, carbs, and fat.

Okay.

So when you track macros or you're— if it fits your macros, it's basically how much protein you need, how much carbs you need, how much fat you need.

Okay.

And the protein I base on your personal stats. So, you know, you may have one set of protein, you may have another set of protein. It's going to be based on age, height, weight, body fat percent. It's not just about the scale.

Okay.

It's the overall body composition, but those macros are kind of formulated on a person-by-person basis.

Right. Which is why you might need someone to actually guide you.

Guide you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I mean, what— how do you even determine that?

I mean, that's the thing. There's lots of calculators online you can try and find whether they're going to be personal enough for you or even close to correct. It's questionable, you know, and like Keto Gains is fantastic. They have a free calculator, pretty much only for keto though.

Okay.

With Your Lean Life, I kind of COVID low-carb and even— I've even had some clients who just can't give up some certain things and so they're kind of like in this standard American diet, but let's get it a little healthier. I have a focus on whole foods. I don't like bars, I don't like shakes unless it's a pre-workout. And, you know, there's a lot of little details and it's a person-by-person thing.

So there's another term that you used that we've echoed, keto, a couple of times. Keto is short for ketosis.

Or ketogenic.

Or ketogens.

And so can you explain what that is?

That's deep.

Okay.

Can you give a flyover?

Yes, I'll give you the short version. The human body, their main fuel source is carbohydrates. And so anytime you eat carbohydrates, it's using that for fuel. If you have excess body fat, wouldn't it be great if you could utilize your body fat as your fuel? So by following a ketogenic diet, you are kind of forcing your body by restricting your carb— your carbohydrate intake, you're forcing your body to find another fuel source instead of that carbohydrate that you eat. And so it looks to the fat. And so it helps you burn your body fat quicker. Maybe not quicker, but more efficiently. And there's also less inflammation held, so you hold less water. And it works

as long as it's done correctly.

Yeah, because I think a lot of people they hear that and they hear, oh, people are losing beaucoup of weight doing this, and many times they're doing it very quickly.

Uh-huh.

And there's a reason for that. Just what you said. I mean, you're talking about inflammation. You're talking about water weight. Water weight, yep. You're talking about switching over pretty quickly to a different type of fuel and your body only knows to begin with to burn what it knows to burn.

Uh-huh.

And so it's gonna start with those carbs and it's gonna burn those first and then it's gonna go to the other stuff and so— As your body is doing this whole thing, you can lose weight very, very quickly.

And the key word is weight. What I like to stress and my tagline is lose fat, because you can lose weight by losing muscle. You could dismember an arm. You can cut your long hair.

There are faster ways.

Yeah, but you don't— and a lot of my clients, I have them I have them track their weight daily, but I don't want them focusing on the scale.

Yeah.

Because we take measurements, we take pictures, there's body composition changes that are more beneficial than just what the scale says, especially if I can get them into some resistance training. I myself weightlift and building that muscle, especially as we age and women, bone health is so much tied with resistance training. And so by feeding yourself what you need, A, to burn fat, B, to provide the protein and amino acids to your body. And then if you're also building muscle, then your scale weight, it's not going to be necessarily downward every single day. The trend will go down, but you're going to build muscle, you're going to lose fat, water weight switches as you inflame from lifting, and then you take 2 days off, your weight may go down a little bit. So it's an ebb and a flow.

Sure.

So yeah, the key is I try to get them not to focus on scale weight, it's let's lose the body fat and change the body composition.

Which you said a word just a minute ago, it reduces inflammation, which that's a big one right now going around in a lot of health circles is like things that reduce inflammation in your body. I think that's exactly what you're talking about right there, right? Because I mean like—

Processed carbohydrates really do a lot of inflammation and if that's what your normal diet is, you don't realize And then once you cut it out, you naturally start to lose a lot of the water and that's because you're cutting down on the inflammation.

For those that don't know, what is inflammation? I mean, what are we talking about when we say that?

Inflammation is your body's reaction to an irritant, I guess that's the best kind of way to put it. But that can come from good sources as well, like lifting weight. You're breaking down muscle, it's inflaming the muscle a little bit, but there's also Negative inflammations of your joints and things like that. So any inflammation will retain water. We just would rather it not be from a poor diet.

Right.

Yeah. I would rather it be from go lift some weight.

Yeah. And inflammation can also reduce blood flow and different things like that?

It's not so much. I mean, yes and no. That starts bordering into medical stuff.

Medical stuff.

Yeah. So there's a lot of reasons There can be health issues going on that have nothing to do with diet that cause inflammation— arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, other things like that too. So always want to get yourself checked by a doctor first. But nutrition-wise, a keto diet can reduce inflammation.

Yeah, and one of the things you mentioned was the difference between weight and muscle and fat and these sorts of things. And one of the things that really came into my brain, Yeah, I've always— growing up, I was always just the little dude. I mean, when I graduated high school, I graduated at 125 pounds, 18 years old. So I was a little dude. I'm 5'7. I was 5'7 at that point. I think maybe 5'6 at that point. Pretty short, still am pretty short. But when I graduated college, I was at 155. But I spent a good amount of my college years lifting weights.

Mm-hmm.

And did so with a buddy that was very into it. into that and we did it in a very healthy and efficient way. But then a few years after that, I continued doing that. I got married and I still weighed that 155, 158, somewhere around in there. And then at one point, I mean, I was up to 180 and I realized like the thing is, first of all, that's overweight for me.

Yeah.

I really needed to be at 155 to 160. It's where my body needs to be, but I got there by building muscle.

Right.

I didn't get that by building fat. I gained that 125 to 155 in a healthy way, but I need— I needed to get back down to that.

Yeah.

A lot of people— and what's— what's— and here's something that I find really, really interesting is most people don't know what their ideal body weight is.

Mm-hmm.

I think that most people, whenever, whenever I would tell someone I need to be down to 155, they're like, holy cow, you'd be like skin and bones. I'm like, no, I really wouldn't be. Yeah. I'd be healthy though. And I think that a lot of people would be shocked to look at an obese— a quote-unquote American obesity chart to see that for me at 5'7, I think 175 is obese. And now we use that word very flippantly.

Loosely. Yeah.

And obesity is something that That is not far off from your ideal body weight.

It's a norm now, unfortunately.

It is, yeah.

And so that's one of the things that I find so fascinating about this whole topic is the amount of— well, just the lack of education that is out there. And, you know, I think we have a hard time because we live such a fast-paced life that we eat what we can find when we can find it as quickly as we can get it down our body. And a lot of us that have families, it's like, my kids like chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes and they like stuff that's not very healthy for you, mac and cheese, those sorts of things. And so, what do we do? We wind up eating the things that our kids eat. And so, all of a sudden, you look

back and—

You can see.

You can see how quickly this happens. So, I guess another question that I've got for you is, what do you see as some of the major barriers that people come across whenever it comes to, I need to lose weight, I found you or someone who can help me figure out how to do this? What are the major barriers you see?

Forming— excuse me— forming new habits. Like breaking the old habits that they're reluctant to break for whatever reason and forming ones that are going to get them moving in the direction they need to move in. And one of the hardest ones for people to start with is planning. And you hit on it with, oh, I'm busy. Oh, I've got the kids and whatnot. I practice what I preach. Every Sunday, I am meal prepping for 5 days. I don't think about food Monday through Friday. I just grab a Tupperware.

Yeah.

If like next week, I'm not prepping because it's the holidays, I've got family coming in, they're not going to want to see me eat out of a Tupperware, I am still planning what I'm going to eat. So I use Cronometer, which is an app. There's a free version and a paid version, and I will literally put in my whole day's worth of meals based on my macros, my protein, carbs, and fat, so that I know even if we go out, I know what I can choose.

Okay.

Because every restaurant has chicken breast, every restaurant has a steak that tells you how many ounces it is or whatnot.

Yeah.

And I've learned, and I teach my clients how to eyeball things if they don't have a food scale, but I will when I do prep, everything gets weighed and everything gets packaged in an eating portion and I eat off of my plan. Now, that did not happen overnight. That took a lot of discipline and then that discipline became habit and the habit became autopilot.

Right.

And so now that's what I try and impart on my clients. So that's probably the hardest thing for people to really click on is getting that The discipline to form the habits to get the autopilot, because then life is much easier when you're not thinking about the food that you have to be eating next. And you can do that with your kids, too.

Sure. That makes a lot of sense to me because I think it's easy for someone to say, you know what, I like ice cream too much, so I'm going to stop eating ice cream, or I like Cokes, or I'm just going to stop drinking anything but water. And those things are all very good. But at the end of the day, that in and of itself is not going to get you anywhere and you wind up becoming frustrated and then you're just like, well, screw it, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to eat that ice cream, I'm going to drink that Coke, I'm going to do whatever. And I think what you're saying is this is a complete

lifestyle change because it is the reason, in my opinion, that people get 2 weeks into a diet after New Year's and then they're done.

Yeah.

Because it's hard.

Yeah.

And it is hard. And they don't have enough people behind them helping them. And there's a lot of things that go into the psyche of eating.

It's retraining the brain. And it really takes about 8 weeks to form a new habit. And so that's one of the reasons why I have my program is 8 weeks. And then they're part of a group that current and former clients are part of. So if they need continued support, but I have plenty of clients who will renew another 8 weeks 'cause they're not where they wanna be yet. But it takes 8 weeks to form a habit. So when somebody's frustrated after 2 weeks, I'm like, oh, honey, we all been there. Just keep going.

We got 6 weeks.

Pick yourself up, shake yourself off.

Don't look back.

You're not going that way. You're going forward. Keep going. Just start fresh. And it's funny when you had said New Year's, everybody wants to start a new resolution. Now is when you start the resolution. You got 2 weeks. You're going to screw yourself if you have an intention of doing something in the future, take small steps now. You don't have to go full in, but like you said, the soda or whatever, if that's something—

It's called Coke down here, by the way.

Coke. Oh, I'm from Jersey. It's a Jersey thing.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

So where is Jersey on this? Is it pop? Is it soda?

Soda?

Okay. All right.

I want to be able to blend in if I ever go outside. It's like if you come over to my house and say, hey, you want a Coke? And you say, sure. And I'm going to say, OK, what kind?

Coke.

OK, we have that. Or, you know, we've got Dr Pepper, we've got Sprite, whatever. Anyway, sorry to derail you, but the point there that you were trying to make is drink water through the holidays.

Yeah, or give yourself limits. I like SMART goals where I have my clients come up with lists of things they need to do to get themselves to the end goal. We talk a lot about SMART goals, both in Your Lean Life as well as in the Keto Gains Boot Camps. But then in Your Lean Life, I also like to do stop, start, and change. So I have them pick something they want to stop, something they want to start, something they want to change. And it's not going to be something that's going to happen immediately, but it's something that they just have on their radar and they're going to work towards. I have one client right now, her

start was she wanted to maybe start journaling. And her stop— what was it? Her other one was she wanted to stop procrastinating.

Mm-hmm.

And I said, well, those 2 go really hand in hand. So if you start journaling, you're gonna put your intentions down and probably ease up on the procrastinating. So honestly, diet and reforming your thought patterns and all that around diet reach out to so much more than just what you're eating. Because it's setting all those new habits and whatnot that you don't really realize tie in with food. And especially around this holiday season, holy moly, everything is food-related and it shouldn't be. Social events should be about family, food— family, friends, and fun, and leave the food as just nutrition. You know, pick one meal that you're going to enjoy and then the rest, just eat like a human being.

Yeah, I think a lot of people do use the holidays as an excuse to overindulge. Yeah, for sure.

And you used a term there that we just— you just flew right over: eat like a human being. Okay, so one of the things that I love about, for instance, the Atkins diet, which has been around forever, it seems like, but one of the things I love, if you go read the book, the first iteration of that book, there's a chapter in there that talks about the way the world began and what did people eat. Well, they ate a lot of things that they rummaged and foraged for. Yeah, eventually, you know, they started eating meat, right? They didn't eat bread.

No, there's nothing processed.

There's nothing processed. They didn't have flour, they didn't have sugar unless they got it from a food product. And so, you know, they were talking about when did, when did man and women first eat When were they eating sugary foods like fruit? Well, they were eating it in the summertime whenever it was available.

When it was growing.

When it was growing, and most of the time they're working harder and they're sweating differently. Their body's doing different things during those months. Then you get back into the winter, fall, whatever, whenever those things aren't available. Eat what was first invented. And I say invented, created. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And Paleo is a great option for that type of lifestyle. And so when you really kind of break it down to that, you start— to me, that's where things started clicking.

Yeah.

When I heard that for the first time, I thought, oh, so God didn't create bread, but man did, right? And maybe I should eat the things that God created. And that changed my mindset quite a bit.

Yeah. And things are so overprocessed now and hyperpalatable where it's It's addicting and I don't want to use that word to lessen its importance as far as other things that can be addicting, but you know, you get addicted to wanting a certain type of food at a certain time of day or you know, oh, I've got to have my Starbucks whatever that's 400 calories when you break it down.

Right.

You know, and so if you just go back to whole foods and you're eating the 2 or 3 times a day, you're going to be much more satiated, whether it's keto or low-carb or paleo or whatever. It's going to be whole foods and it's going to be nutrient-dense and you're going to be feeding your body what it needs, not tying it to emotion or stress or holidays or crazy family or whatever. And so that's why I— don't wait till New Year's to start. Start addressing some of the things in your brain now.

Mm-hmm.

That maybe you know in your gut aren't really connected with food the way they should be or are connected with food the way they shouldn't be.

When you say whole foods, you're not talking about the supermarket?

Not the store.

And my iPhone always corrects it to the store. Every time I type whole foods, I have to leave the S off, otherwise it capitalizes it.

So one of the things that I know, you mentioned the addiction side of it, people definitely get addicted to sugar. I mean, there's no doubt about that. the same as an alcohol addiction, but it's still there, right? The same synapses that are firing, they're doing the same things, right? But I'm just curious, like most people crave sugar. If you're heavy into sugar, you crave sugar on one level or the other, right? Whether it's ice cream or whatever it is, right? Do you find that you still— I mean, how long have you been doing the keto lifestyle now?

5 years.

5 years. Okay, that's incredible. First of all, congratulations.

Thank you.

And so 5 years, do you find yourself still craving things, but maybe even on a healthy level, or you just don't crave food anymore?

No, I mean, there's times where I'd be like, ooh, I could go for a such and such, but it doesn't fit in with my goals. So if I wanted to, you know, throw aside my goal for a moment, then it's not a craving the same way that you're Asking it, you sure? You know, for me, it's more of like, oh, I haven't had such and such in a while. But to me, it's not important enough to to go for because I haven't had it in so long. And when we're talking about New Jersey, the joke is you know pizza and bagels down here. Sorry, you guys don't even.

Yeah, not the same. Not in the same league.

And it used to be that every time we'd go back up to Jersey, I'd get pizza and I'd get bagels and you know. Even when I was trying to be good.

Right.

And I don't do that anymore. And I'll go up and see my sister and they'll have bagels and I'll just be like, you know what? It's not my thing anymore. I don't need that mental comfort. And I think that's what it was. It was hearkening of, oh, this was my memories of Jersey is pizza and bagels. Well, I like the memories of my thinner hips now than I do of the pizza and the bagels. I like when I see in pictures and on the scale and in my measurements way better than kind of going for something that wouldn't be ideal.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that I could see what you're saying, like maybe it's a steak that you crave.

Yeah, oh, I crave red meat all the time.

Yeah, and I think that's— but again, that can be very, very healthy for you. And so I can see like, oh, I haven't had that steak at that restaurant, or I haven't had that I really like the way they prepare that chicken at that location. And so, I could see how that kind of shifts from time to time. But your cravings wind up being different than what you were experiencing before.

Totally. And even if— I'm a proponent of changing a recipe. So, I had a craving, pizza. You think about, okay, well, what am I craving? You're craving garlic, you're craving oregano, you're craving maybe some cheese. You're not craving Dough. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's the flavors, something that hearkens back to that flavor or the textures or the something along those lines. Like, I haven't eaten rice in 5, probably even more than 5 years actually, but cauliflower rice I have now instead. And I love cauliflower rice.

Sure. You make some good, uh, fried rice with cauliflower rice. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and I'll plug my website. There's recipes on there.

There you go.

That I want to see.

You can go check out all those Those recipes, they're all keto-friendly and I think one is low-carb friendly, but I love using cauliflower rice now way better than I would have rice.

Right.

And you can make things like oatmeal. You know, if you've got a sweet craving, I make a sweet frittata or a sweet oatmeal with cauliflower rice and almond milk. And, you know, it's things like that. You just— I always have clients stop, think, what are you actually craving? You're not actually craving, you know, the pizza. You're craving the flavors that the pizza creates.

Right.

figure something out.

Yeah, that, that's, that's awesome. I just want to give Craig a little thumbs up for something. When I came over, he made— what was it that you made that one day that was chicken? It was, it was, uh, was it chicken marsala that you made?

Yeah.

Yeah. So Craig, for my, for my wife's birthday and another one of our friends Micah, for, for their birthdays, he made— invited us over, made chicken marsala, and he made what I thought was just mashed potatoes, but it was cauliflower And it was— I, I didn't— first of all, I need people to know I was not on a diet at the time, and I didn't know they weren't mashed potatoes. And they were— they're the best quote-unquote mashed potatoes I've ever had in my life. Um, so I, I know that there are people listening to this right now, Lisa, that are going, yeah, it's not the same, it doesn't taste the same. It's better.

But, but I promise you, it can It can absolutely be better.

It's all in how you prepare it. It's all in the time that you take to make it.

That sauce was not low carb though.

Dude, that was an incredible meal. We got to do that again, Greg.

But that's one of those, it's just worth it.

And that's the thing, you can eat anything. It's just if you have a goal, you've got to rein it in a little bit. The recipes that you make or the meals that you make, doesn't even have to be a recipe, But if you have a goal of losing body fat, you're going to have to limit some protein, some carbs, some fats within that. And then you make it work. Like I do make a cauliflower mash. It's got a load of cheese in it.

Heck yeah.

It's not something I eat on the norm because it's fattening. And if I eat it, it's going to exceed my macros. So it's a holiday thing or I'll make it for my husband. But anything can be made deliciously.

Mm-hmm.

Whether it's keto or low-carb or paleo, and it's just if you're using whole foods and if the ingredients within that recipe are nutrient-dense.

And one of the things I wanted to ask you, because you were kind of dancing around this earlier, is how do you feel about people sort of doing odd replacement for other foods?

And what—

so let me tell you what I mean. Sometimes I see people when they're doing these kinds of diets, they're like, well, I really like such-and-such, so I'm gonna figure out a way to have that, but not the way I used to have it. So they use like sugar substitutes, or they'll use cauliflower— I mean, not cauliflower, coconut flour or something like that, in order to be able to bake or in order to be able to do something like that. How do you feel about that kind of stuff?

So we call that in the keto, if you're keto, we call that ketofying something. So you can do it, I do it. It's in my book, it's a special occasion thing.

Okay.

Like I do have, I have a recipe on the website that's a chocolate peanut butter pie and it's made with PB2, which is peanut butter powder and cocoa powder and almond milk and cauliflower rice and things like that and it's good. It tastes like a soft brownie or a soft cake or something like that, but that's not gonna be made every weekend.

Right.

You know, that's made for a holiday and you know—

And you're not eating that after every meal.

Right. Yeah, it's a special occasion and that's it. When it's done, it's done. You don't make it again. And then if there's something that is like that that you're incorporating into your daily food, I would strongly recommend you kind of chill from that a little bit because honestly, meat, vegetables, and healthy starches where you don't necessarily need to be keto-fying or low-carb-fying a recipe, where you can find the replacement flavors in a whole nutritious, nutrient-dense way.

Would you say the reason for that rests a lot into the psyche of the habit?

Yes, probably initially, yes. Yeah, break the habits of craving something that you maybe shouldn't be having. I don't like snacking either. Like I have my clients try and cut out snacking. So for the most part, there isn't usually a place for things things like that. It's eat a meal that's going to satisfy you.

Right.

So that it's going to carry you to the next meal type thing. But once you have gotten past the habit, you're in the habit of not making that, then do you really need it? Is it an expectation of somebody else? And honestly, if you're craving a peanut butter pie, keto-fying it or low-carb-fying it is going to If you are already on the diet and you've been successful and you can rein yourself in and you know what you need to do, have the piece of peanut butter pie, get it over with, and move on. You know, eating the one piece of pie one day, one holiday, whatever, is not going to throw off your entire diet, but it can't happen again and

again and again.

To speak to that, one of the crazy things for me, because I'm a big fan of the keto diet, So whenever I did get up to 180 pounds and I needed to lose that weight, I did it on the Atkins diet. I followed it very closely because I knew too many people that did it in a way that was unhealthy for them and they did it too quickly or they did it in a bad way. So I wanted to do something that was tried and true, so I did it that way.

Uh-huh.

About week 6, I was in the point where I was adding some things back in. And for breakfast one morning, I would always either eat bacon and eggs or sausage and eggs every morning for that 6 weeks. And that morning, I decided I'm not gonna drink water, I'm gonna drink milk. I took a sip of that milk and I never in my life— I've liked milk, but it's not something that was just like, oh, I need this milk. I never thought of it as sweet.

I knew you were going there with that.

I never—

Your taste buds totally changed.

I had no idea that milk was sweet.

Yeah.

And I took the— and I understand now why my son wants milk over water, because that's— those are the options we give him. We give him milk or we give him water. He doesn't really get much else, and he wants milk all the time. Now I understand why.

Yeah.

Because I drank that milk and I was blown over. In fact, I had— I couldn't drink all of it. I went back and I finished my meal with water because I was like, it's too sweet.

It is.

And my wife was like, what are you talking about? Did you put chocolate in there? And I was like, no, it's just regular white milk. And it's whole milk because that's what Atkins calls for, is whole milk if you're gonna drink it, which is probably more sweet than other, than other milks. But it's unbelievable. You said it's gonna be unsatisfactory until you get off of it. And I think that's one of the huge things I really want to just kind of circle around for a moment, is once you get some of those things out of your system and you get to a healthier place, when you get a little bit of it, it's enough.

Yeah.

It doesn't take much for you to be satisfied. Um, but I'm concerned sometimes that, like, for me, I kept— I, you know, after a while I'm like, eh, I'm gonna kind of relax a little bit on this.

The slippery slope. Yeah.

And it doesn't take long to where it's like, okay, now I really— I feel like I want this enough that I'm not really caring how I'm doing it anymore. And all of a sudden I've 10 pounds back. And so I think that it really— it's what you're talking about that really, I think our listeners, I hope they're keying in on, is the mindset is the bigger part of the dieting process than anything else.

Absolutely. Once you've gotten the science down, meaning you've gotten your macros, whether you've gotten them from me or you've gotten them, you know, somewhere else, and they're solid, and you know that they're gonna get you to your goal, then you just ride that. And the riding it is the hard part because that's the habit, that's the sticking to it, that's the following through, that's the committing to it every single morning when you wake up saying, I'm not gonna eat the ice cream. And Danica had asked about the peanut butter and whatnot. Right, yeah, no, we can get into that if you want, yeah. And it all comes down 2 habits. And that's how you break a craving is you take the

steps to stop doing the negative habit, replace it with a positive habit. And something like peanut butter, if you cannot control yourself around peanut butter, get it out of the house. And if it's your kids, A, do they need it? And if they do, don't steal your kids' food.

It's their peanut butter.

It's not your peanut butter. That's a different mindset.

Put your name on it if you have to.

Yeah, put your name on it, put it in a different cabinet. I have clients who have, you know, the kids' cabinet, the snack cabinet. They don't go in there. The kids go in there. Funny story about peanut butter. I cannot be around nuts. Like, there are no nuts in my house. No nuts are allowed in my house. I have no self-restraint, and I will admit I'm dairy-free and nut-free as well.

Oh, okay.

So nuts in the house.

Are you dairy-free and nut-free just by choice?

By choice. Yeah, um, it's because I can't handle myself around cheese and nuts.

Oh wow.

It's ugly. So we had to get peanut butter in the house because one of the dogs needed medication. Well, I made sure that only a clean spoon went in that peanut butter to give to the dog because I would sneak the peanut butter. So what I had to do was put kibble in the peanut butter.

Oh wow.

I am not touching the peanut butter. Because that's how— and now the dogs— sorry, dogs, you're not getting peanut butter for your pills.

You kamikaze the peanut butter.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, because that's, that's the mind games. And even me, after doing this for so long, I can still slip back into something that's really, you know, important to my brain but not to my body. And so yeah, kibble in the, in the peanut butter. And the cheese is another thing. There can't be cheese in the house. I'm constantly sneaking it. My husband gets cheese. So what I do is we buy the big block, I chop it up, freezer, suck it up, put it in the freezer in individual things, and we take out one block of cheese for him for the whole week. And he knows I, I know I can't touch it because it's counted for him.

Yeah.

And if I sneak something, he'll be short. So it's those mind games that even somebody who's doing it a long time and knows all the tips and tricks, yeah, I still got to play games with my own mind.

Are you familiar with a book called The Power of Habit?

Yes.

Charles Duhigg. Have you read that?

And I've seen his TED Talk too.

Yeah. I mean, that guy's incredible. I mean, he's a journalist, but like that book, I mean, really opened my eyes to the way just how powerful the brain is. And I mean, like when you start talking about guys that like go into complete and full memory loss, that their bodies can still operate in some of those habits.

That's autopilot.

Yeah. You know, but like then just like learning about like how the cue works and how that whole process—

You break the cycle.

Yeah. And, and I think for me, one of the big takeaways from that, and you've mentioned this several times, is it's not enough just to say like, that's a bad habit. I'm going to stop doing that. He, what he will, he'll, his book will tell you is like, you can't just stop a bad habit. You have to replace it with something else.

That's the fun of it.

Yeah. And otherwise you're just going to keep coming back to it.

Yep. And that's why those SMART goals are so important too, because those goals are not the end goals. They're the GPS system. They're the path you're going to take, the map you're going to use to get to to your eventual end goal. So when I have my clients do their SMART goals, both in the Keto Gains Boot Camps as well as for Your Lean Life, it's the steps that they need to take on a day-to-day basis. It's not, I want to lose 10 pounds. It's, okay, well, what do you need to do to lose 10 pounds? And that is how you break that cycle, break the habits and change the habits. It's all a mind game.

And since you mentioned the Facebook question that we got, thank you Danica for that question. I had another one from Chelsea that I know you wanted to address. And her question was, what is the best diet for someone with PCOS?

So in Texas, only licensed dietitians can talk about diet for health purposes. Nutritional coaches can talk about it for body composition. That being said, there are studies out there that Chelsea, you can look up if you go to the NCBI, NCDBI website, I may have gotten those letters wrong. It's studies that you can search terms and if you search term PCOS and ketogenic diet, you will find references there.

Okay.

There are definite benefits to a ketogenic diet and PCOS may be one of them, maybe not. But yeah, I, I can't directly speak for medical purpose for any diet. Yeah. But I would encourage you to look up some ketogenic and low-carb references.

So, so basically for legal reasons, you can't actually give advice on that because it's a medical issue.

Right.

So, but there's research out there that's available.

Correct.

And if you, we'll put the link up on the show notes. Yeah. Even if you got the acronym. Yeah.

I'll get the right acronym.

Yeah.

We'll, we'll find the right one. We'll put it up there for you.

Yeah, and I think one of the things that you certainly should do if you feel like you've got one of those things is find a doctor that's gonna be supportive of those things.

Yes.

And that leads me kind of into another thing. And one of the things we've kind of danced around a little bit is the importance of having the support system.

Absolutely.

And so, you know, one of the things that I can tell you was a huge benefit to me was having this conversation with my wife before I started this diet. Now, she was totally in favor for it because she had me at 155 and lean when we got married. And she knew what that looked like and she knew what that was like to be near me, right? So whenever I became plush after that, she was like, I liked you less plush. And so she was helpful and she He didn't necessarily need to be on the diet, but we wound up being on the diet together even though— because we were eating healthy for me, right? And so I think one of the big things that I would tell

people that was hugely helpful for me is stay away from people that are gonna shame you for doing the right thing.

Yup.

Like don't— don't be around people that are shameful to you. You know, if you tell them, listen, I can't eat that and they're going to shame you for it—

No food pushers. Yeah.

You need to find a way to stop eating with that person or don't talk to them about what you're eating. Find a way— I mean, if that's one of your good friends, maybe you need to sit down and talk with them. Look, this is really important to me and whenever you're doing that to me, it throws me off and I need you to not do that. And so, I think sometimes having those conversations are difficult, but at the end of the day, if your goals are such that you want to be on that right track, you can't have other people in your life that are going to throw you off, especially if you're living with them.

Yeah.

You know, and they're going to throw, oh, look at this ice cream I'm eating. Bet you wish you could have some.

Yeah.

You don't want somebody sabotaging.

That's the thing.

You want to surround yourself with people who will support you. But I actually will tell clients that don't necessarily expect your spouse or the people closest to you to be your support system, because that can damage relationships as well. You'll harbor, you know, how come you didn't stop me from eating that? And, you know— But I love you. You wanted to. I'm not going to stop you. You know, so having a support system is very important, but don't put the responsibility of you following your goals Well, the only person that you can change is you, right? Right, exactly.

And nobody else can do that for you.

And my husband, I love him to death. We've been together a long time. But when I was overweight, 275 pounds, he never said a freaking word. And I remember I would ask him, oh, can you help me? Can you help? Well, he's too nice. He loves me for whatever I look like. He doesn't care. But that didn't help me at all. So my support system came from the group that understood the way I needed to eat and that, you know, you learn then and you can stand on your own feet then. Now he's keto by default because he's going to eat what I'm cooking.

Yeah.

So sorry, buddy, that's it. And he's okay with that, but there are other relationships that doesn't work so good. You know, if one spouse is trying to lose weight and the other one doesn't have to, yeah, they're going to eat ice cream, they're going to eat chips, and you have to learn the tools to be strong around those people you can't get away from. And then the people you can get away from, the first step is avoid Avoid the event, avoid the human, avoid circumstance, and then as you become stronger, then you can start incorporating those things and you can be faced with them and still say no. No is very powerful.

I imagine one of the big minefields of diet failure is the home. Yeah, failure to plan.

And buying the things at the grocery store that you shouldn't buy.

Yeah. So if you don't mind, walk us through some of the biggest mistakes that you see people making in their homes that are really detrimental to achieving their goals.

Having excuses for something in the house that doesn't need to be there. Going back to the example of peanut butter, the jar of peanut butter sitting in the pantry and you keep dipping into it. Well, if you're the only person eating the peanut butter, it doesn't need to be there. Throw it away.

Right.

You know, don't blame it on the kids. Kids aren't eating it. You're the only one eating it. So a pantry clean out, okay, you know, not doing that pantry clean out, not doing that freezer or fridge clean out, really evaluating what foods need to be there, what foods don't need to be there, and not setting boundaries for the foods that you can't get rid of, you know, because if your spouse or your kids are actually eating something that triggers you, you have to figure out a way to remind yourself that's not your food. Don't steal other people's food. And there was a point after the first flood that we were living with my parents in a tiny— they live in a guest house on our property. And it was the 4 of us adults. They

had no furniture. They had just moved in and they had a dog and we had 8 dogs. So there was 9 dogs in the house and stress was high.

Yeah.

I was literally putting putting notes in their pantry because they had nuts and they had cheese and they had cake and they had, you know, they're like carboholics. I had notes in the fridge. I had notes in the pantry. I had to keep reminding myself because nobody else was going to do it. They weren't going to get rid of the food.

No.

Yeah.

So that's one of the biggest hurdles people have is what they're faced with in their own house and control what they can and then kind of got to breathe through the rest and figure What coping mechanisms, and I help my clients figure out the best way to go about that, and everyone's different. Some people can relegate their foods to just a specific corner so they don't have to even look at other things, or they have a second fridge, or whatever. But yeah, not addressing what's actually in the house and getting rid of what doesn't have to be there.

And thinking that you're strong enough to actually withstand the temptation. Yeah, you're not.

No, you're not. with addictive types of things.

Yeah.

Right?

And until you're into the habit, you know, you got to get through the discipline first. And starting with that discipline is the hard part.

Yeah.

And then when once the habits are formed, it makes it a little easier. And then comes the autopilot. And then it's like, okay, you can have peanut butter in the house.

Yeah.

Some people can. I can't. But yeah, it's, it's baby steps and taking those steps to go forward.

And I think one of the things that really helped us is curbside pickup at the grocery store. Not going in the grocery store was really helpful for us because, well, first of all, I got to avoid the crowds, okay? But I was forced to put, you know, to eat what I put in my cart, virtual cart.

Yeah.

And then they brought it out to me. I didn't have the impulse buy option. Right? So that really helped. The other thing that helped me, and again, this goes back to, it's one thing to have, to have a spouse that's, um, keeping you on track. It's another thing to have a spouse that's, that's willing to be supportive of you. Those are 2 different things.

Yeah.

Like them being responsible for it versus them being supportive. So one of the things that my wife would do is say, hey, um, I just need you to put something on the list if you need it. You know, if, if you're running out of lettuce, I, I would rather you— I don't, I don't want to be responsible for knowing that. Just put it on the list and I'll buy it for you. So if you're not the one making the list, communicate well was really helpful.

Yeah.

For me. And, you know, there was one other thing that I wanted to circle back to before I forgot. And, um, you were talking about spouses and, and how, you know, they're— they may still eat the ice cream, they may still eat the whatever. There comes a point, and it's pretty quick within within 2 or 3 weeks that doesn't bother you anymore.

Yeah, exactly.

I promise you people, it really doesn't bother you anymore. It's not even— it's not attractive to you like it used to be.

Yep.

And, you know, especially with the holidays, you're gonna go to somebody's house and they're gonna have a spread of desserts and you know that that's not on your plan. And, you know, but if you plan ahead, you can allow yourself some within reason, within control. Or you can choose to, no, I'm just gonna eat my normal food. You know, there's always the fork in the road. And you can, you can, as long as you can control whichever way you go, it's an okay decision. It's when you go one way and you just go crazy. Yeah. You know, that's where the problems come in. And some spouses are not support— like you said, supportive versus, you know, being responsible.

Responsible.

Yeah.

And there are some who will actively try and sabotage you because there are relationships lost when people start losing massive amounts of weight because there's maybe an aspect of control that's lost. There's more independence gained from the party that's more in control. So there's a lot. And again, it goes right back to the mental stuff.

Yeah.

Right back to It all plays together. It has nothing to do with food. Most of the time it has zero to do with food. It's the social interactions, it's the emotional connections, the stress, all that stuff that we use food as the funnel for or that makes us complacent.

Well, yeah, anytime you assert control over something, you are in a sense adjusting the hierarchy of the relationships around you because you have asserted a dominance over something that maybe the people around you haven't been able to do yet. And so like to them, it's not that you're eating healthier or you're doing this, you're asserting your dominance. And even though you're not consciously doing that, but like to them it's perceived as that way because you're bettering yourself. And for some people that's threatening.

And really in essence, the only thing you can truly control is what you put in your mouth. what anybody else does or says or how they react to you. You can control what you put in your mouth and how you respond to circumstances.

Hmm.

So that's where the focus needs to be for whatever the diet is and whatever your goal is, is you are the only person that should be controlling what's put in your mouth and then control how you respond to the circumstances you're put in in relation Yeah.

And I think one of the things you just said that just rang true in my brain was you mentioned the diet. And I think too many people see a diet as temporary.

Oh, yeah.

No, diet's what you eat, period. Yeah.

And they think about, oh, I'm going to go on a diet and I'm going to lose this weight if I can. And then, eh, I'm going to quit the diet.

Yeah.

And at the end of the day—

Never work.

Yeah. So you're going to be in a repetitive cycle.

Mm-hmm.

And that's what I find myself in. So, uh, yeah.

Get off the hamster wheel.

Yeah, I think, I think finding a way to change your lifestyle, if, if that's what you need to do, then do it. And, you know, my, my hope for those that are listening today, um, is that you do choose, if you need to, choose to make the lifestyle change and it doesn't end after 2 weeks because it gets too hard.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, stick to it, make a plan. And, and at the end of the day, also, I think it's worth hiring someone to help you if you are not strong enough to do it on your own. And the likelihood of you being able to do it on your own is a lot harder than I think a lot of people realize.

Yeah, and what I do and what other nutritional coaches do, it's guiding. It's not doing it for you. I'm like the guide dog. You tell me where you want to go and I will help you get there.

Yeah.

But if you deviate, I can only do so much to bring you back.

Yeah. Yeah. You're a coach. I mean, a quarterback coach can't throw the ball for someone.

Right.

But they can teach you the motions in order to do it correctly.

Right.

So that, yeah.

Well, and I think that raises a good question is, say someone doesn't live here and have access to someone like you, how do they find somebody? Say they live in a weird state, like, I don't know, New Jersey. And they— How do they find some— how can they begin the process of finding someone to give them some coaching, some help?

Well, I actually work with people all over. So I have clients I've never met in person. I do one-on-one virtual where we'll FaceTime or we'll Skype or we'll Zoom, and it's still a one-on-one.

The internet is a beautiful thing.

Isn't it?

Yeah. So you have access to a lot of people across the country then? Yeah. Yeah. So they can find you.

They can find me, yes. And a lot of how I track what they do is, I mentioned it before, I use Chronometer and I log into their Chronometer so I can actually see as long as they're actually truthful.

Right.

'Cause you can lie.

Yes.

Everybody lies. We all learned that from House.

He wasn't wrong.

Yeah.

But I can see what's on their Chronometer. I can steer them in to improve. We can write notes back and forth. I have them write, but yeah, it's not a, it doesn't have to be an in-person touch one-on-one thing. It can be a virtual thing. But then if they need that one-on-one touch, really look for people with certifications in the nutrition world. Like ISA, Specialist in Fitness Nutrition, is one I have. Precision Nutrition is another certification. My most recent one is Menohensel. Personal training, which incorporates more than 50% of the course, is on nutrition. So you know, don't go for the Instagram model that wants to send you macros and then you're never going to hear from again.

Yeah.

You know, there's there's there's ways to ferret out reliable help, and you'll see you'll you'll kind of see a pattern if you're following somebody. what's accurate and what's not accurate. And if they're honest and open, I mean, for the most part, I don't use a filter. When I'm posting on Instagram, you're going to see the rolls and the this and that and whatnot. And the communication is huge. If you're not in communication, meaning if I'm not in communication with my clients, they will falter a little bit. Some can be very independent, others need a little bit more coaching.

Yeah.

But me personally, I can do it virtually. But yeah, if you're gonna find somebody that you want one-on-one, make sure they have some kind of actual education knowledge background. Doesn't have to be college education, but some kind of background that's not bro science.

Certifications as well?

Certifications help, yes. I mean, it definitely means that they took the time to learn. It's not just what they heard or what they read on YouTube, or I guess you'd watch on YouTube. But yeah, I mean there's a lot of hokey things out there, and you know some of them work even though they're bro science. But are they actually the most nutrient dense?

I learned a new word.

I learned a new word too.

Bro science? No, no.

I'm gonna be using it pretty regular now.

That's good. Glad I could educate you a little bit.

Yeah. Oh man, that's good. Well, uh, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you were hoping to talk about?

I think we covered. Okay.

Yeah, everybody, everybody's ready to kick rear on these, uh, New Year's goals and resolutions.

Yeah, it's possible.

Absolutely.

I mean, it really is possible. I mean, yeah, goodness. I mean, if, if Craig can do it, anybody can do it. And just brag on him, he was just telling us before Before the show, he's lost 40 pounds over the past 75 days. So, yeah, that's awesome.

Now the key is keeping it.

Tomorrow's the last day of his diet.

That's my tagline. Lose fat, learn to lose fat and maintain for your life. That's the whole important part.

That is the key. I mean, because it— I mean, like, for me, it's been a— I'd gotten to the point where I was at over a long period of time, you know, and so like it wasn't going It wasn't going to come off quick. This one was specific 75 days in order to do some personal habits and development stuff. It wasn't really a diet. But because of that, I did lose the weight. But my big takeaway from it was no matter what— if you set aside a certain amount of time to do something, whether it be a diet or a fitness goal or an educational goal or anything, if you're really focused on it, it's going to be inconvenient at some point in time. You know, there's going— and like, so for me, Thanksgiving was a

big inconvenience because there's lots of good tasty food that didn't fall in line with what I was trying to accomplish. Um, and I had to forego those things.

Yeah.

Um, and, and not necessarily— I wasn't necessarily happy about it, you know, but it Yeah. Just because I wanted to get here. Yeah.

And that goes back to the mindset where Thanksgiving is, although it seems like it's about a meal, it's not. It's about being thankful for the people around you.

Right.

So by focusing on the family and the friends and the fun, you can just, the food is just there if need be. It's there to feed you. And there's different ways you can approach holidays and events and things like that. I learned when we came here from Jersey that the Super Bowl is not about a football game.

It is not.

It's about wings. Wings and pizza. Yeah, exactly. So, I had to get out of that mindset and be like, no, I'm here for the people and for the football game and the commercials. Honestly, I'm there for the commercials, but it's not the food. I eat before I go and enjoy. And that's a big thing too with social events. Eat before you go. Going to the movies doesn't mean you have to eat popcorn. You're there for the movie.

Yeah.

You're not there for the popcorn. So, eat before you go and watch the 2 hours. You don't have to stuff your face in 2 That's right. So, it's even Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

It's be there for the social.

Absolutely. So, it's not— the reason for the season is not turkey.

Right.

So, even though you can have turkey. Yeah.

Turkey's great. Actually, that's one of the easier holidays.

Well, you know, that's probably a good— I mean, like, by the time people are listening to this episode, they're probably going to be coming down off of some Christmas guilt.

Yeah.

And not because they spent too much, which that may be a totally different episode.

I can't help with that.

Yeah. Well, listen, it's probably getting down to the nitty-gritty on this episode.

All right.

It's time for the final 4. The final 4. That's right. The most important part of the—

The most serious part.

The thing that all of our listeners What our listeners look forward to more than any part of our show is the Final Four.

The Final Four, absolutely.

I mean, maybe they just cut it off right here, I don't know. But same 4 questions we ask all our guests. First question is this: what's the must-have tool you won't leave your house without?

All right, so my initial answer was going to be my phone.

Okay.

But that's probably everybody. But honestly, it's my bug-out bag.

Ooh, your bug-out bag.

Yeah. back of both of our cars.

Nice.

And it's got everything in it that I could possibly need.

Yeah.

So it's kind of cheating because it's a lot.

It's the bag.

It's the bag.

It just happens to have things in it.

Lots of stuff in it.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

All right.

That's my real one.

Cool.

I'm a fan. I like, I like a good bug-out bag. Yeah.

Anything? Yeah. What's in your bug-out bag?

Oh, there's med kits and, and plastic forks and a can opener and the break glass thing that has the seatbelt cutter and there's gloves and— Is it food?

Yeah, there's food.

There's MREs in there.

Okay.

I think it hearkens back from living in Jersey and being stuck in blizzards.

Ah.

So you're in your car, you're stuck on the side of the road.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah. Yeah, there's even one of the foil blankets in there.

Nice.

Probably don't need it in Texas, but you never know.

Yeah.

You know?

People use foil here to cover their food.

Yeah.

Because in Houston, We don't use blankets.

No.

We don't need blankets down here.

That's in my bug-out bag.

Alright, cool. Second question, what's a job you've walked away from?

Okay, so my transition into full-time nutritional coaching was when I officially retired from dental hygiene.

Okay.

And that was— it was the dentist I worked for retired And I tried to go with the new company. It just didn't work out. And I said, this is closing the door.

Yeah.

I'm sure that was tough. I mean, you went through a lot of schooling in order to—

Yes.

I was a hygienist for 20 years.

Wow.

Yeah. That's tough to walk away from when you have all that experience.

I've temped like 3 or 4 times since then and reminded me why I don't want to do it again. I mean, it's good money. I like the people. I mean, I made great friends, great patients and whatnot, but I like doing this.

Yeah.

Okay. And it's on your own schedule?

Yeah.

And from home.

Yeah.

Cool.

I love it. All right.

Third question.

How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

We watch House Hunters.

Oh, do you like—

I think every night.

Do you like the stateside one or the international one better? Do you have a certain version you like?

I think I like the stateside one better.

Okay.

Yeah, just because I have no interest in travel.

Okay.

We— when we vacation, we go one place and that's it. So I like, I like especially ones that are Texas-related.

Yeah.

And Jersey-related.

Yeah.

But, uh, because you recognize something. Yeah.

Okay, it makes sense.

Yeah.

All right, now, now I'm curious.

Yeah, we gotta know about this vacation.

Aruba.

Aruba.

Nice.

Bacuti, that's the resort. Aruba's the island.

I mean, the Beach Boys liked it.

They liked a whole slew of places.

Yes, they did. But Aruba was one of them.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Bahama.

Montego.

Okay.

Yeah.

Ooh, I want to take you. All right.

Okay.

Aruba.

Cool. I apologize, internet, for Kevin.

Yeah, you take the good with the bad. It's mostly bad. So, well, I was hoping it was gonna be Disney. That's—

we were— I was—

It used to be when my parents lived there.

Okay.

On the cheap.

Yeah.

But now if we have to pay for a hotel and—

oh yeah, not worth it. Very expensive.

It is.

Well, Craig and I have a special place in our heart for—

that's right, for Disney.

But it's okay, Aruba's probably— I mean, it's up there.

I'd go.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would go. All right, next question. Last question.

Last question.

What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

I think it's going to be probably overall, it's going to be do the thing.

Do the thing.

Yep.

What does that mean to you?

Basically, if you have a goal or if there's something you want to achieve, do what it takes to get there. Stop farting around, stop playing games, just do the thing.

Do the thing.

Do what you need to do to get you where you want to be.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Speaking of doing the thing, I think I did the thing wrong. Did the thing wrong? I think I missed the third thing.

You did miss the third thing.

What am I doing?

I don't know.

I think I'm fired. I'm fired.

Well, you're fired from this episode.

Okay, okay. So yeah, because he's not gonna remember the questions. Uh, third question we just completely missed.

I thought we got 3.

Okay, go ahead.

No. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

No, it was House Hunters.

House Hunters.

was the one. That was the thing.

That was—

so you got them all.

Yeah, you got them all. I'm an idiot.

At least you're not fired.

You need some nutrients.

Anybody got some snacks laying around?

I was like, I thought I counted.

Well, we do.

Since Kevin got all the questions, we do have the secret 5th question.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

You didn't warn me about that one.

All right. How do people get ahold of you if they want to find you?

Oh, well, they can, uh, probably the easiest because it has all the information on it is my website, which is, uh, YourLeanLife.com. And there's also a Facebook page, but YourLeanLife.com has got my phone number on there, it's got email.

It'll connect you to Facebook, to everything else.

Instagram. I have 2 different Instagrams depending on if you want to follow. I've got the one for Your Lean Life LLC and then I've got my own one for the lifting and the resistance training and weightlifting, that's Keto Lifting Chick.

Okay.

You can find— they kind of intermix.

All right, awesome. That's impressive that you got that, that handle.

You know, the lifting chip.

Yeah, I mean, like, I would, I would imagine that one was like—

I've had that one for years.

Early days on Instagram. So do you, do you sell these bad boys on your, uh, on your website?

No, no, those are giveaway.

These are just for special people. Those are for special people.

Yeah, yeah.