Podcast: Here's How You're Finally Going to Lose Weight and Keep it Off

Transcript of Podcast

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena I hope that you are feeling amazing today and happy St. Jordi's Day, St. George's Day. Here in Catalonia, 23rd of April, we celebrate St. George's Day, the day, or St. Jordi, as he is known in Catalonia. He is the patron saint of Catalonia and it is the day when St.

George went and slayed that dragon. So, everybody, obviously, in Catalonia celebrates by either, if you're a female, you give your partner a book and if you're male you give your partner a rose with a piece of wheat on it and I think the rose is supposed to symbolize the blood of the dragon and the wheat I think is new growth.

I have no idea what the book is about but anyhow everybody in town is selling books and roses and it's exciting although very windy. Okay, moving on, I want to talk to you today about what you need to do to lose weight and keep it off in 2024. Little whisper. Habits, habits, habits. Okay, let's take a big step back and have a look at the big picture and think okay what is it that you need to do to lose weight and keep it off?

Now you may have heard me say this before so apologies if I sound like a broken record but there is strength in a broken record because you need to hear this again and again and again and again. what are the two things that you need to do to lose weight? Number one is you need to have a healthy lifestyle that you enjoy, that you can keep doing, that that you can keep doing, not just do something for a short period of time and then stop.

And the second thing is you need to keep doing it. Now I know this is really basic, it sounds really basic, but you know what? Harvard Medical School wrote a whole paper about this and I'm summarizing it for you. And this is basically what they said. How do you lose weight and keep it off? You find the thing that works for you, that you can enjoy doing, that you can keep doing, and essentially you keep doing it.

And those two points can be, we can dive into them all a little bit, those are just the tip of the iceberg, but in simple terms, that is what you need to do. Let's have a think about the first one, creating a healthy lifestyle that you enjoy And let's talk about habits in this because habits are really the key to keeping doing things without thinking about it.

So many people say to me, I want to lose weight and I want to be healthy without thinking about it. And I'm like, aha, I know that without thinking about it, that without thinking about it bit is habits. Now habits can be big things. I go swimming. I have the habit of swimming five times a week. It takes me, well, a round trip takes me an hour and a half, sometimes longer.

That's a big habit, yes? But, habits can also be small things, and we talked about this last week. Like, what are some of the small habits, that, really have a big impact on your life. Things like brushing your teeth. Brushing your teeth takes two minutes twice a day but has a huge impact. It stops your teeth turning black and falling out.

And I promise you if you stop brushing your teeth you are going to end up with huge dental bills or a very painful mouth and your teeth will fall out as is evidenced by lots of people who don't brush their teeth. Now there are lots of other things that you can do that are small habits. And the other thing to say about habits as well is habits are not just actions.

We have habits in everything we do, so the way we think about things and our emotions. Start having a think about how you can see habits really impacting your life. Here's an example. I recently googled how much sugar was in honey. Surprisingly, a teaspoon of sugar has four milligrams of sugar in it. A teaspoon of honey has 16 milligrams in it.

Yep, you heard me right. It's four times as much, which actually shouldn't be surprising because essentially it's a syrup so the sugar is dissolved and it's going to be more concentrated. However, I was talking to a fellow physician in a physician's cooking group and we were talking about honey and I was saying, you know what, I'm really beginning to rethink this whole honey thing, having seen how much sugar is in it.

And she said to me, well, I just have this, this idea that honey is better for you than granulated sugar. And I'm like, really? Why is that? Because the sugar bit is exactly the same. And I know that there are some honeys that are supposed to have good properties, but personally, I buy my honey from the supermarket.

It is pasteurized, which means it goes, you know, heat it to really high temperature. And I suspect that any sort of Benefits that were in that honey have disappeared in that pasteurizing process And so essentially i'm paying five to ten times more for my granulated sugar because i'm buying honey Which I think has some Better benefits for me now.

I'm open to being persuaded but I suspect that this lady's idea came from the habit of how she thinks about it. You know, we have this idea that honey is more healthy for us, but when we really unpack it, it is just basically sugar. Habits come in the way we think about things and emotions as well.

Emotions, we have habits of emotions. Emotions think about The way you feel about certain things. There are certain things that just trigger you to feel either happy or sad. So for example, I think about swimming and beaches and I feel calm and relaxed. I think of things about, here's a strange one, French cars driving around, tourists, and it makes me just want to go, oh my goodness, stop going so slowly.

And those are just like habits that I have. Associations inside my brain. So thinking and also emotions. Now, here's the thing about habits. Why do we have habits? Why are habits the key to healthy living? We all have habits, right? Well, yes, of course we all have habits. But habits are a double edged sword.

Think about it as your brain being a massive computer and your, the habit is just a program that is running over and over again. Brush teeth, brush teeth, brush teeth, brush teeth. Imagine somebody came along and said, Hey, there's a really, there's a much better way of cleaning your teeth. It is doing this.

You have to, I don't know, do something totally different. It's not brushing your teeth. Your habit brain is going to carry on doing brushing teeth because that is what it's used to doing. It's super efficient and it just goes and it goes and it goes. Your habit brain doesn't care whether it is impacting your health or not.

Your habit could be a not so healthy habit, sitting down, being sedentary, turning to food for comfort. It could be just eating more than you want a little bit of time, or your habit could be something that has a powerful impact on your health and your wellness and your weight loss goals, if that's what you want it to be.

But, here's the big but, the thing about habits is there is a learning process, or another question that people ask is this, how do I create a new habit? And the answer is, in simple terms, you just rinse and repeat. You keep doing it, you keep doing it, you keep doing it, you keep doing it. Now, there are lots of reasons, lots of things that you can do to make it easy for you to repeat and repeat and repeat, but the bottom line is, the repeating it process is the thing that builds up the habit.

But there is a tricky bit in between, that bit whilst you're building it up, which I call an acorn habit. You're growing a habit and you think, okay, I've done this, I've created this habit, but you are still thinking about this habit. It's still on your mind. You're still reminding yourself to do it. And the answer is, excuse me, when, when you're in that space, what happens is you get distracted and life happens.

And when life happens and your habit is only an acorn habit, ping, it disappears and your old habits come back. What I call oak tree habits. And when that happens, nothing happens at the time, you don't even notice. And it's only a little bit of time down the line that you think, Oh my goodness, I totally forgot about that habit.

Now the honest truth is, it wasn't a proper habit. A habit is something that you do without thinking about it when life happens. This is the thing that you turn to. So for example, When COVID hit, what were the habits that you did then? Now some people changed habits, that's a different topic. But, there is a little bit of time, what I call the rickety bridge, when you're building up a habit and you do have to pay attention to it.

Now the question is, well, When have I created a habit? And the answer is when you take your mind off it and you're still doing it. You don't notice that you're still doing it. Most of the time you don't notice, unless you're in a coaching program and you are thinking about it every single week. You're being questioned about it every single week.

Normally what happens is you take your eye off the ball and then you carry on doing it. And then a period of time later, you look back and you think, Oh my goodness, I did create that habit. Yay me! So I just want to go back and just revisit this idea of habits are also the way we think about things. And the beauty of this is a lot of people say to me, Oh my goodness, I am just not disciplined enough to be able to lead a healthy life.

And this is the reason why habits are the key and discipline isn't the key. So we have habits in the way that we think about things. Our human brain does not like making decisions. Making decisions is basically having the decision. We like to have a framework inside our brain. So let me give you an example.

After Covid, so we'd finished the, you know, the big lockdown and we're beginning to come out of lockdown, but none of us here are vaccinated and there's still a little bit of fear about going out and meeting people. And my children were being invited to birthday parties. Now normally, when it's not, when it's not Covid, my brain is just like, yeah, of course, if we can make it, you can go to the birthday party.

And all I have to think about is what present to buy. But, at that time my brain is like coming up with a whole load, a whole host of different what ifs. What if, is it safe for my children to go? Is it inside? Is it outside? Are they going to come away with Covid? Are they going to give people? Just like loads and loads of things going on.

Because it is unknown for my brain. Now I got to the stage where I was like, okay, if the birthday party is outside, which most of them were, you can go to this birthday party. And then I have a framework. The next parties, I just have this habit way of thinking about it. I've made my decision about that.

I only have to make my decision once. I don't have to make it every single time. The first time I make it, it is difficult. It's a bit like finding a new route. When you're going to a new place, it all feels different and you're busy looking at your GPS or your sat nav or whatever it is or figuring out how to get there.

And after you've done it a few times, you're like, Oh my goodness, I know this. It's so familiar. I just do this on autopilot. And that's when your habit starts to come in. Interestingly, when you're driving, driving is one of those funny things, which is part habit, part not habit. So, normally when you're driving, particularly in familiar surroundings, You are actually on habit, on autopilot, and then something may happen, someone steps out in front of you or a car does something that you're not expecting, and you sort of wake up and start using your thinking brain rather than your habit brain.

But a lot of what we do, even thinking, is part of our habit. And this is why it's really, really useful to use our habit brain in order to help ourselves do healthy living so that we don't have to rely on discipline. Discipline is when you put yourself in a difficult situation and expect yourself to make the right decision.

Now, you can do that a bit of times. You can, you know, white knuckle it on, on willpower, but eventually you're going to get to the stage where you make the quote wrong decision. You're tired, you're stressed, and Yeah, you just, you have no willpower left and so you make a decision that you wish you hadn't made.

Now, if you set your life up right, if you have those habits, if you have the right way of thinking, then those decisions don't actually occur. But you do have to change some of the ways that you think a little bit. Okay, enough about habits. I hope that you can see that habits are really a big key of the puzzle.

If you want to lose weight, get healthy, increase energy, you really have to change some of your habits. Some of the habits in the things that you do, the way that you think, and even your emotions. Habits. Habits are the thing. , let me tell you a little bit about my new program, which is called Radiate and Renew.

Exciting, exciting. It is four weeks, and we are going to be focusing on four small habits. And these are small habits. I'm not asking you to go and swim for an hour and a half. These are tiny, little habits that are going to be easy for you to build up into your life. , your routine. , at the end of four weeks, you have four, what I'm going to call acorn habits.

They're going to be baby habits because four weeks isn't really enough to, like, really solidify those habits. The first one, perhaps, but not the other three. And you're going to keep going, you're going to keep going because it's going to be so easy. So, a few details. When does it start? Okay, it's April the 23rd today.

Doors open tomorrow, April the 24th, and we are kicking off on May the 14th, and we're gonna be doing four weeks of these small habits. Now. I have come up with four habits. If you already do these four habits, then that's fine. We can find different habits for you to do. There is always room for improvement.

The four habits I have picked in no particular order. are healthy breakfast. Why? Healthy breakfast. Breakfast is a really important meal of the day and if you can set yourself up for a good start, a good breakfast, such that it keeps you going till lunchtime. You may want, you know, a small snack, like a handful of nuts, but you're not starving, starving hungry.

You've got energy. What happens in the morning is we're much more susceptible to glucose and if we're having a sugary breakfast, Then we're going to want more sugar later on. If you can have a satisfying, good breakfast, you've set yourself up for success. Breakfast is one of them. Movement, doing a little bit of movement, just a small amount of movement.

Did you know that even two minutes of movement after a meal can help you decrease your glucose spikes? That's going to be number two. Well, as I say, not in any particular order. Drinking vinegar. Woo hoo! Vinegar is a really exciting thing. It actually helps you reduce your blood sugar. blood spikes.

We're going to be introducing some vinegar. It's not as bad as you think. You can actually have it on salad dressing if you want, but you can also drink it and it's actually quite tasty. I have apple cider vinegar and that's really lovely. That's going to be number three. And number four is going to be a veggie starter or adding more vegetables into your day.

As I say, that isn't the order that I have them in. And if you already have one of those, then, well, we will chat because it's a group program. It's a group session. We chat and decide between us, okay, actually you're doing this super, super well. You don't need to do more. Yeah. Or, do you know what? There is room for improvement.

, as I say, by the end of the four weeks, you're going to have four small habits that are really going to line you up to either make more changes or keep going and potentially lose weight. Now, what else do you need to do? No, what else is included? Okay, so we're going to be having four group sessions.

They are going to be happening on Tuesdays At 1pm UK time, which is 8am Eastern Time. They will be recorded so that if you can't make them, you can still see them. And obviously if you have any questions, you can access me. Access me and ask me questions. There will also be two recipe collections. The recipe collections are breakfasts to get you going in the morning and one that I call simple salads and vegetables.

Those are the two recipe collections. There is also an upsell that if you want to buy more recipes you can do that and it will ask you to do that at the checkout if you want to. You can either say yes please or no thank you. I am super super excited about this. new program radiate and renew it's going to be super exciting today you can sign up and be put on the wait list tomorrow the doors will open and you can sign up and you can actually join the program the cost is 199 uk pounds and the upsell for the extra recipes and you get the meal garden app which is an entire app where you can make meal plans and things like that is 20 British pounds.

So my friends, I hope you join. I'm really, really looking forward to this. We kick off May the 14th. Have a fabulous day and I look forward to chatting to you next week. Bye bye.

Radiate and Renew

Find out details: https://www.drorlena.com/radiate-renew-dr-orlena