On today’s podcast, I discuss the major reasons why we can’t lose the weight and remain consistent while following the Eat to Live diet. Learn it all here! Then head over to the High Nutrient Lifestyle Group on Facebook for some free support and camaraderie!
Links Mentioned:
YouTube video 4 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight on ETL https://nourishyourlifestyle.com/4-reasons-youre-not-losing-weight-on-the-eat-to-live-nutritarian-diet-youtube/
Free 9-Day Eat to Live Challenge: http://www.nourishyourlifestyle.com
Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman*: https://amzn.to/3BfL1Zs
Eat for Life by Dr. Joel Fuhrman*: (most recent and updated info): https://amzn.to/36EgN4B
*affiliate links
YouTube auto-generated transcript:
so back in 2020 i took on a client and
we will call her andrea
and when she came on with me she wanted
to lose about 70 pounds
and she was interested in using the eat
to live lifestyle to do that so i was
her gal
and we realized that there was something
she came this is what she came to me
with there was something holding her
back from losing more weight
she said to me sherry i really just
don’t know what it is i think there’s
something wrong with me i can’t figure
this out
i’ve been trying for so long she had
been doing it to live for a couple years
the first few months she lost so much
weight it was really great for her
and then she had so much more to lose
but it took her about i mean there was
like a full year where she was really
pretty stagnant she just could not
figure out how to lose more weight so
that’s why she called
me so we started working working
together and i put her through my
private coaching program
and one of the first set of things that
we do in the very beginning of the
program is that we talk about
first of all what are her goals right so
she had a weight loss goal but also what
are your goals with how healthy do you
want to eat
um and then we i need to sort of gauge
where the client is
on certain things so one of the things
that i need to gauge
is how much do they understand of eat to
live
actually and how much they understand
um just the sort of the basics that i
think are important like
um how to tell if a recipe
is eat to live or not right or how to be
and this is sort of the important part
we’re going to get into this in this
podcast
how to be able to create weight loss
on demand when we want it right how to
be able to create the results we’re
looking for
whenever we want them and i could tell
obviously with the way that andrea kind
of like
described her problem in the beginning
that she had no clue
what to do and this is why you hire a
private coach right this is why you hire
someone even to maybe group coach you to
figure out these little issues that you
are a bit stuck on
and so when we started working together
one of the things that we did i
um we started doing all our regular
program stuff but one of them i’ll do
something which is called recipe parsing
and what we’ll do is look at a bunch of
eat to live recipes and i will actually
teach the client how to look at a recipe
and understand
if and how it’s going to create weight
loss or not
if in how it’s going to create satiety
and
what that recipe is going to do for you
and we can even look at
recipes that are not eat to live and
learn how to turn them eat to live and
that sort of a thing
so we do those kinds of things and then
we also look at the mindset right so we
do very practical things and then we
look at the specific
mindset that might be creating some
things that maybe we’re not even
realizing we’re not even aware
of some thoughts and some patterns that
we have going on that are creating our
results and so i
it’s very easy for a coach to be able to
see that because
you know coaches ourselves of course we
need coaching too right
we need to be straightened out as well
but when we’re coaching someone else
oh my gosh it’s so easy to see exactly
what needs to be
flipped there so we’ll kind of go in
there with a you know a
precision instrument like a scalpel and
be like hold on let’s just look at this
part right here and see if we need that
right that kind of thing so i was
working with and with andrea and we
started to go through these things we
went through the practical tools we went
through the mindset tools and i remember
there was one week very specifically
where
some of the things i’m gonna tell you on
this podcast today uh
we went through and next week she had
lost five pounds just like that right
she hadn’t lost any weight for
was like over a year and then within a
week bam five pounds off
forever and so these are the things
we’re gonna go through today to find out
why we can’t lose weight on the eat to
live lifestyle i’m gonna give you all my
secrets
here we go hi
i’m sheri alberts and this is the
watering mouth podcast and i’m going to
teach you to eat to live
lose the weight and love the process for
good
this is episode 2. so i have a youtube
video that talks about a little bit of
this but it was before i really knew a
lot about the mindset stuff i’m going to
add a lot to this right now so go ahead
and look for that youtube video if you
like i’m going to try to put that in the
show notes as well as the description
under youtube
and in the facebook post as well so
feel free to watch that video because it
goes in depth on some of these things
but i’m going to give you the basic
overview to give you the practical
and the mindset tools for how you can
learn how to lose the weight on eat to
live if you ever feel stuck
or maybe if you haven’t even done eat to
live before and you’re beginner this is
going to give you a really good
foundation so you know where to go
if you do ever get stuck or just to make
your journey as
efficient as possible all right so first
of all the one thing i want to tell you
we’re going to talk about practical and
mindset here
the one thing i’m going to tell you to
start off with is a practical tip here
and that is something that i think
people might be skeptical of when they
first start eat to live i know i
certainly was skeptical of it too
when i started eat to live i really
wanted to
test the sort of theories that dr
frerman said in his book i was like i
don’t know if i believe that
i want to believe that i want that to be
my experience
but i want to see if it’s true for me
and so over the years i have found that
all the things he said which it’s like
it’s like when your parents
you’re a teenager and your parents are
telling you all the things that you know
are really good for you and you’re like
ugh i don’t think so right
and then when you’re 30 you finally
start listening to them right that was
exactly my experience with
eat to live and all that i really just
wanted to test it for myself and i found
out that
you know they were all true so number
one most important thing i think you
want to
first understand is that
it is actually really true when dr
fuhrman says
that the lack of nutrients in our
current diet is what’s creating the
imbalance
right so the cravings the overeating all
that kind of stuff
it is actually from and and and further
than that right like
less longevity disease and and these
kinds of things you know
chronic issues etc and acute issues so
many of these things come
from a lack of nutrients a lack of
nutrition
in our current diet all right so the
thing i want you to know
and maybe you don’t know it yet but the
thing i want you to question
and say is probably not true and then
learn later
because you’re like the teenager at this
point right
the thing i want you to understand is
that when you start
giving your body enough nutrients to
make
up for what we have done in the past and
to kind of get ourselves back on track
with nutrients
the brain and the body actually reduce
cravings automatically
when we’re getting the right amount of
these nutrients
the cravings will diminish significantly
to the point where i call it i i sort of
liken it to um
i have this little story about it like a
little monster like a cute little
monster right like maybe one of those
gremlins from the movie or whatever
right you have this little animal it’s
super super cute sitting on your lap
and it has really sharp claws though
right and so every time you have a
craving imagine that that’s that little
monster in your lap kind of scratching
at you like actually drawing blood it’s
not very fun it doesn’t feel very good
he’s cute and everything but like it’s
not fun right this is how we sort of
talk about our food addictions like oh
you know i was overeating whatever you
know oh my gosh i ate so much of that
whatever
oh man i love chocolate cake whatever
that is right so it’s this
cute habit that actually really hurts us
right as we start to take in
more and more nutrients and more fiber
more eat to live type foods it’s as if
you know when we’re starting out it’s as
if we can take that monster and put them
in a little cage and set him right in
front of us right
so now he’s not scratching us and
drawing blood but we
we we’re still very distracted by him
he’s still there and we know
he’s clawing at the cage and wanting to
get out the more and more nutrients we
take in and the longer we do this
the more our body detoxes the further
away that that cage with the monster
gets away right until eventually that
monster is in a cage in another room in
the closet with the door closed now
we know he’s there and we
are aware of his presence but he’s not
bothering us anymore we can totally deal
with it it’s just fine now
understand that he’s still there right
he still has the potential to come out
and move closer and closer to us again
but as we get enough nutrients and as we
eat this way
our cravings become so much more
manageable and this is actually really
really true so the rest of the stuff i’m
going to tell you today
is going to be all about how to actually
get enough nutrients
because we’re going to be talking about
the practical side of it and
the emotional side of it the mindset
side of it as well so
these are the reasons why you can’t lose
weight on eat to live
number one so first of all because
you’re not getting enough
nutrients right that’s that’s the number
one here number two
is that our quantity or our ratios of
certain foods are off
so basically the idea here is that we
are eating too many high calorie
low nutrient foods and not enough
low calorie high nutrient foods i always
get confused when i say that one but
what that means is for instance let’s
say we’re eating an entire
diet of only eat to live foods right
very very healthy foods
but so that’s all we’re eating but the
issue is
when we eat too many higher calorie
foods in that
spectrum right so for instance we’re
eating too many grains and starches or
eating too many nuts and seeds or eating
too many dried fruits or avocados or
things that are lower on the overall
nutrient
um they’re still really healthy foods
right but like they’re lower on the
nutrient
the micronutrient scale meaning fiber
and vitamins and minerals and
antioxidants these things that
like the vitamins and minerals and
antioxidants and in all these little
tiny things
don’t have any calories right so like
that’s what we really want to make our
diet up of
are these foods that have so many of
these micronutrients and
not a ton of calories but usually what
happens when we can’t lose weight is
because we’re just
we’re just our ratios are off right just
the quantities of what we’re eating are
off we’re just having a little bit too
much nuts and seeds or a little bit too
much grain
to the exclusion of the most important
nutritarian foods like
greens right or beans or berries
or onions or mushrooms or you know
non-starchy vegetables
those would be the most important things
that we want to create the bulk of our
diet
up in right of
what i’m trying to say there but you get
what i mean that’s what
we want the bulk of our diet to be but
if we’re if we’re overeating on those
other things
it’s gonna be a little bit tough to lose
weight okay
now so that’s the number one thing we
really want to be having the right
ratio of foods here to um so that we’re
not overeating
those calories now the number two reason
that we might not be losing weight or
actually this is number three i think
where that we’re not losing weight
is because we’re not eating for us
particularly so
um and when we first start out we might
not know
this and what works for our bodies or
not but
i’ll give you a little bit of my
experience to explain this concept here
that when i started out you know i was
using a smoothie and a salad and it was
working really well
but as i went on and tried to experiment
a little bit and get better at this
i realized for me personally since i
hadn’t had the mindset stuff worked out
yet
it was a problem for me to include
starches and grains
in my diet because i would always
overeat on you know oatmeal if i had
prepared oatmeal in the fridge or
whatever
or if we had bread in the house even if
it was a healthy bread or healthy wraps
or anything like that
just for me personally at that time in
my life when i first started out my
addictions were way too much
and i also as i mentioned before in the
first point i needed to detox a little
bit more and i needed to get more
nutrients into my body
so that it was reducing those cravings a
little bit
now that’s the beautiful symphony that
you can create with eat to live is like
once you have increased the amount of
nutrients
in your body and you’ve detoxed some of
that
out some of the you know things that you
need to detox out basically from a
lifetime of the way that we’ve eaten
once we’ve created some of that momentum
so to speak
that’s when those cravings get lower and
it just becomes easier automatically
but the problem is getting to that point
right so that’s where mindset comes in
but
the idea is that we want to really be
real and upfront with ourselves about
what we can
and can’t handle in the beginning and
once we’ve gotten really good at that
rhythm and our body is naturally
increasing those nutrients then we get
some help from the food too
but we need to get to that place first
so for me particularly i just didn’t
even have any oatmeal for the first
long time because you know it’s too
tough for me to deal with and so just
understanding your own
kind of weaknesses so to speak like i
you know there was
periods of time where i would then
overeat so i was good at not having
oatmeal but then i would start to have
too many dates right and i would have
like
dates and almond butter as a snack and
now we just have like 10 of them at a
time right and so these addictions kept
following me and they would they kept
following new foods that i would find
would be like
healthy foods you know quote unquote but
i they were they just didn’t work for me
at the time because i had such a
you know issue um not overeating on them
okay so understanding what works for you
the next one that i think is super
important that people often overlook is
trying to use
exercise to lose weight okay so
what i want you to think of exercise as
it’s super important to do a little bit
later in your journey but in the
beginning
what we’re really trying to do is
getting good what we want to do is get
good at eat to live first we want to get
good at the diet itself
like how much of this to eat and how to
prepare it so that it tastes good and
how to
make enough so that we’re not gaining
weight but that we’re
losing weight and we feel satiated right
and like my
challenges that i put on for folks the
challenges things like that that i’m
showing you exactly
those quantities of food and how to do
that kind of stuff
but when folks try to add an exercise
that’s when it gets really confusing and
my favorite word for this is confounded
or like confounding because
it’s just a super confusing situation
when you
are trying to learn how to eat to live
you’re trying to learn all that stuff i
mean there is a lot to learn in the
beginning like
i’m not mincing words there really is so
much to deal with in the beginning
that if you’re also adding an exercise
the reason that confounds things
is because of course um well so dr
fuhrman
a statement that i really love that he
makes is that
weight is lost in the kitchen and gained
in the gym
okay and what he means by that is that
you can lose all the weight you need to
eat to
to lose just by with the way that you
eat
and then when you want to actually build
muscle when you actually want to build
up your body build your bone strength
build your muscle strength all that
that’s when you start using exercise
okay we never use exercise for weight
loss because that’s
confounding that confuses the whole
situation and why is that
because if your body burns an amount of
calories
because of exercise it’s gonna urge you
to eat to make that up because the
body’s natural tendency is to try to
maintain equilibrium try to maintain
homeostasis so if you’ve burned a bunch
of calories it’s gonna
up the cravings level it’s gonna up the
hunger level and we know this right
we’ve experienced this
from exercising before that if we um if
we exercise really hard one day the next
day
either that night or the next day we are
starved right and we eat so much because
the body’s trying to make up for it
so when we’re using exercise or or
specifically also
could be the same case with trying to
like water fast or fast for a long
period of time to lose the weight i’m
not talking about intermittent fasting
right now we’ll get into that another
time
but i mean trying to do something
unnatural like
not eat in order to lose the weight or
exercise a whole lot in order to lose
the weight
that is totally unnecessary and in fact
it just confounds the situation so my
advice is always
never use exercise for weight loss only
use it for well-being
right only use it for just a few things
well-being
and then a muscle mass and bone
bone strength right and
but with the caveat of don’t do it in
the beginning
when you’re not used to this lifestyle
yet take that first i don’t know however
many months
to just learn the lifestyle first learn
what you like
learn what tastes good learn how to keep
yourself satiated and lose weight at the
same time so that you’re on a roll
and then add in exercise little by
little
so that it doesn’t confound things too
much and you can stay on track okay
and the next thing that i want to talk
about
is the idea that um
this is why folks oftentimes think that
they can’t lose weight is because
they’re on
a quote-unquote plateau okay now plateau
is a dirty word i always say this
and i think people think i’m crazy in
the beginning but
my thought about plateaus and my
experience with private coaching folks
and my experience with my own plateaus
is that they are
almost always emotional
plateaus are almost always an emotional
issue
a feeling issue we’re actually um
we’re actually having an issue in our
mindset right here comes the mindset
stuff again
you’re never going to get away with it
with me right because to me
the mindset part is what fuels
everything so all the things that i told
you the exercise the
quantity and ratios of what you’re
eating you know learning for your own
addictions
getting enough nutrients and all that
it’s literally all informed by our
mindset so for instance
if we are eating too many nuts and seeds
it is because we are
emotionally eating because we feel like
we get something from that type of
heavy food and we sure do right we get a
bunch of calories and the brain
loves that because the the brain and the
body really want to maintain homeostasis
they don’t want to lose weight because
they think something’s
you know really really bad wrong if
we’re losing weight it’s like oh my gosh
food must be scarce right so then it
urges us to eat more
but that is emotional right or the other
thing i told you about
um eating for you right if you have
certain tendencies to overeat on this
food or that food that is also emotional
if you feel like you need exercise and
that’s the only way that you can lose
weight that’s emotional that’s a
that’s a mindset thing that is a thought
pattern and a belief
that can be changed and is not true but
you can get to that point right so
that’s that’s a that’s a mindset thing
that’s an emotional thing
all of these things are actually
emotional and almost all the time when
we’re on a plateau it’s because it’s
emotional i can think of a few
situations where things might change
um because say for instance you changed
your medication
or you actually did you actually are
good at working out and losing weight
and all that
but you maybe changed your workout
routine and now
you can’t lose weight for a moment until
you cut your body and your mind kind of
get
worked around what that new you know
process is or whatever
so there are some legitimate reasons why
we might have plateaus that aren’t
necessarily emotional
but i want you to think and i want you
to just start looking at your own
plateaus and maybe if you’re on a
plateau right now
typically what will happen and i’ll see
this with client after client after
client
is that they’re not writing down what
they’re eating so they’re not really
thinking about everything that they’re
eating they’re not really noticing
everything
the little bite here of this and the
little you know bite here of this and
maybe they put a little bit extra nuts
and seeds this week
or this salad time you know they just
put a little bit of extra dressing
and then and then for dinner they maybe
had some bean pasta as well and they
don’t usually eat
pot bean pasta or whatever and we make
like what will happen is we
we know what our sort of protocol is in
order to lose weight
and then we start to get just a little
bit of lacks on this and that and this
and that before you know it like two
three weeks go by and we haven’t lost
weight we’re like what’s wrong with me
what’s going on there’s
there must be something wrong with me my
body doesn’t work i’m just the kind of
person who can’t lose weight right
we start to create all these stories
about what’s actually happening
when what’s actually happening is just
our thoughts changed
literally that’s exactly what it is and
so we talked about this last week
this model of our thoughts create our
feelings and our feelings for our
actions so
let’s look at the person who you know
has been doing really well for a little
while
and then okay so we’re talking about me
right say
doing it really well for a little while
and then all of a sudden you start to
think like this is something that
happens to me all the time
i start to think to myself like i’ll
just have like a little bit more nuts
and seeds because i really like the nuts
and seeds and it’s going to be fine
right
and maybe it is fine and maybe you
continue to lose weight a little bit but
you don’t notice the little like
micro change of the 0.1 pounds or
something that you didn’t lose
because you were had a little bit extra
nuts and seeds or something like that
right
and then the next day you tend to you
add this or whatever and then let’s say
you have a really tough day and you have
a completely
off day of eating and then you have to
come back from that because maybe you
had some salt and
this other emotional thing happened so
then you had this granola bar or
whatever and before you know it
you’ve done so many different things in
the last week that you can’t even keep
track of everything that happened
but what you’re doing is creating a
story out of
not all that stuff because you’re kind
of ignoring all that but you’re actually
creating a story of what happened on the
scale and that’s the only thing you’re
looking at and you’re creating a whole
story about it because you’re not
looking at reality which is that you
just over ate a little bit right
because of emotional agents or reasons
or whatever which is actually not
dramatic at all it’s just a thing that
happened
but what’s actually happening is you
keep stepping on the scale every morning
and not seeing the weight go down and
then you start like freaking out
right because you’re not getting that
carrot you’re not getting that like
instant gratification of the scale
telling you how to feel and telling you
to have a good day or whatever
so then you start making a story about
how there’s something wrong with you
right day one when that first happens
when you don’t lose weight and you
expect to
you start thinking i’m trying so hard
right like
why even why even eat this way if i
can’t lose weight right and then you
start to get really frustrated
and then the next day same thing happens
and you didn’t lose any weight maybe you
just maintained but then it’s the same
thing it’s like
you really were relying on that number
to go down in order to make you feel
better that day
and so then you feel terrible during the
rest of the day right and then you
probably overeat a little bit and then
that overeating leads to more and more
and more
and now you know you’re totally off but
you’re kind of ignoring it and all that
and then a little while later goes by
and you’re like oh i’m on a plateau
right i can’t lose weight or whatever
i’ve had countless clients who were who
had that same exact story and were
maintaining but then i’ve had countless
clients and myself included who
you know your weight just creeps up it’s
easier for you to gain weight possibly
or
you know you’re just eating a little bit
too much and your weight is creeping up
a bit
either way same kind of an idea like you
just feel stuck and you can’t get out of
it
but then the issue is that we start to
make up a story about it that there’s
actually something wrong with us
right that we actually can’t lose weight
or that this is never going to work or
i’m a failure or i’m so fat or
you know i look so terrible or i can’t
even look at myself in the mirror
anymore this is
never going to work i’m never going to
lose the weight i’ve been doing this for
how long it’s not even worth it anymore
right
we start to create this really strong
story about that
and then that’s what we’re operating
from now remember when i told you
thoughts create feelings feelings great
action so if that’s our thoughts now
that’s our new set of thoughts guess
what our feelings are totally dejected
totally humiliated and annoyed with
ourselves and angry and
frustrated and um disempowered right and
how do we act when we feel that way oh
we overeat
right so it’s just this vicious cycle
it’s this catch-22
we’re just a you know a walking vicious
cycle
walking pattern we just keep doing the
same thing over and over again
and proving ourselves right they’re like
oh i am terrible i’ll never be able to
i’ll never be able to get to my goals
and then those
thoughts create terrible feelings and
those terrible feelings create
actions that we’re not proud of right
and it just keeps going and going and
going like that
and that is actually usually what a
plateau is it’s actually because of our
thoughts
about stepping on the scale so what if
we could learn
how to actually step on the scale and
not judge ourselves
what if we could actually learn to just
use the scale as a piece
of data and we could just not
have a ruined day because of whatever
that number is on the scale
what if we could actually get to that
place where
stepping on the scale and not seeing a
change or seeing that skill go up
actually didn’t ruin our whole day and
it actually
just became so neutral to us that we
used it as a piece of data to
tweak our protocol or or you know we we
really have really detailed notes on
what we do and so we know exactly what
we did and where we went wrong and
and then we also know the mindset stuff
so we can look at our thoughts and
feelings during that situation and see
exactly what happened and we’re doing
all these thought downloads and learning
more about what’s happening in our brain
and then it becomes so obvious to us why
we got off track right
that’s what that’s the work that we do
with our mindset and
when we you know another thing i really
always
find is that these excuses that we have
in our heads about why we can’t eat to
live right we’re so busy we’re so tired
so and so sick or whatever the excuses
that we have
that that’s actually all just mindset
right and those excuses that we have in
our head
definitely i mean they’re usually not
even actually true and i’ll show you a
lot of examples of this in the in future
episodes but
that’s all emotional stuff right this is
all mindset stuff
and when these are our thoughts right
not even just that oh i’m never gonna
get this i’m a failure if these are just
our thoughts like oh i’m just really
tired or
you know i’m so busy i don’t have time
to make a salad or i don’t have time to
do this or whatever if that’s where
we’re operating from of course we’re
going to feel
like it’s impossible and then when we
feel like it’s impossible
then we’re going to make it we’re going
to prove that it’s impossible by not
actually doing it right and so that
pattern that model just keeps playing
itself out
but if we could find ways that the scale
doesn’t make us feel dejected
if we could find ways that we can get
over that story of just being too tired
if we can find ways of becoming
calm and peaceful and empowered about
our journey
rather than constantly frustrated or you
know feeling like we’re never going to
get there if we can
find a place of peace that is where we
actually start to
create the actions that turn into habits
that
create the results we’re looking for but
you know what it all comes down to
our thoughts a hundred percent our
thoughts okay so
let me guide you on this journey i’m so
excited to tell you more about this
in the next four episodes i’m so excited
i’m doing a four part series called the
four basics of eat to live
and weight loss so we are going to dive
in deep into the stuff i just told you
about
and a lot more so stick around for that
series i can’t wait to
give you that one now let’s just recap
real quick why you can’t lose the weight
on eat to live first of all
it’s those nutrients we have to get
those nutrients okay
number two it’s the quantities the
ratios of the food that we’re eating we
don’t want to eat too many high-calorie
ones
you want to eat more low calorie higher
nutrients the next one
is that we’re not eating for ourselves
and our own weaknesses sort of right
we’re overeating on the things that we
feel weak about and we’re not figuring
out how to get over those weaknesses
and be able to introduce those foods
without overeating on them
the next one is maybe that we’re
exercising or fasting too much and
trying to use exercise and fasting in
order to lose weight
instead of using it for what it should
be used for which is
you know strength in the body and
well-being things
okay and then the last one is that the
plateaus when we view plateaus we view
them as
um some sort of enigma that we can’t
figure out and there must be something
wrong with us when really
all it is all it is very simply is just
our thoughts
when we work on that mindset and we
really dial in how to use our thoughts
to create the results that we want
that’s when we can get rid of any
plateau that we want
and i am going to guide you through the
whole process in this podcast
and everywhere else in the challenges in
the eat to live family
are you following me on social media yet
make sure you do so you never miss a
beat
search for Nourish Your Lifestyle on
instagram facebook and youtube
and join my free and totally private
facebook group just search for eat to
live high nutrient lifestyle
we can’t wait to see you there guess
what we put on free eat to live
challenges every so
often and we want you to be a part of
them lately we’ve been doing healthy
five-day eating challenges where you get
free recipes meal plans and grocery
lists
as well as prep instructions and so much
more to help you learn the rhythm of the
eat to live diet in an easy accessible
way and you just might lose some weight
while you’re at it
visit the wateringmouth.com challenge to
learn more
[Music]
okay that’s it for now see you soon bye
[Music]
