Podcast: The Mediterranean Reboot: Transform Your Health in 14 Days

Introduction

Ever wonder why some healthy eating plans stick while others fail?

Dr. Orlena reveals the science behind the perfect reset timeline - and it's not what you think. 

In this game-changing episode, discover why two weeks is the magic number for transforming your relationship with food (hint: it's all about your taste buds!). 

Learn how to break free from sugar cravings without feeling deprived, and why you don't need to overhaul your entire recipe collection to succeed. 

Whether you're tired of yo-yo dieting or simply looking to refresh your health habits, this episode delivers practical wisdom you can implement today. 

You'll learn:
1. The two-week timeframe is scientifically significant because taste buds regenerate during this period, allowing for a natural recalibration of taste preferences away from processed foods and sugar.
2. Success comes from building strong systems and routines rather than relying on willpower, with emphasis on adapting existing meals rather than starting from scratch.
3. The reboot eliminates sugar cravings through both physiological changes (stabilized blood sugar) and systematic changes (new routines), making it easier to maintain healthy habits long-term.

Hit play to learn the doctor-approved method that's helping people rediscover their natural taste for healthy foods! 🍎✨ #HealthReset #WellnessJourney #HealthyHabits"

Want Dr Orlena's help in doing a Reboot? Book a free chat here: https://calendly.com/orlenakerek/breakthrough-call-pod

Grab your healthy recipes here:
https://www.drorlena.com/recipes

Transcription of Podcast

Dr Orlena (00:01.708)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena Today, I am doing something different. I am gonna explain to you how to do a reboot. Well, first of all, I'm gonna explain to you what a reboot is, why you want to know what a reboot is, and exactly how to do a reboot so that you can go off and do your own reboot. Now, question number one, what is a reboot? Why do you want a reboot in your life? Okay, a reboot is the tool that I use

to help my clients get started on their journey to healthy, amazing you. And it is two weeks of doing it all perfectly. Now, why two weeks? There are so many reasons to do things for two weeks. The first reason really is that I see so many people standing where they're standing and they think, my goodness.

This sounds really scary. Dr. Olena is asking me to give up sugar, to eat lots of fruit and vegetables, to change my life entirely, and I don't think I can do it. And I say to you, you can do it. You can do it for two weeks. Give it a try for two weeks. And as people go through this process, they come out and they go, my goodness, that was actually fine. It was easy to create the food. I enjoyed the food. I didn't feel deprived. I really enjoyed it.

Now, on top of that, there are some physiological changes that happen within two weeks. Number one, did you know that your taste buds regrow every two weeks? So if you are eating a diet of processed foods or a diet that's high in sugar and high in salt, then your taste buds get used to that and you need to keep hitting that level of sugar and salt for your taste buds to be able to taste that sugar and salt.

As opposed to, if you stop eating sugar and salt, your taste buds recalibrate and then fresh fruit and vegetables is just bursting with flavor. And actually when you go back and you start eating those processed foods, which might be pop or it might be whatever your favorite processed food is right now, you try it and you think, my goodness, that is so sweet. It's actually quite unpleasant for me to eat it. Why? Because I've calibrated, recalibrated my taste buds.

Dr Orlena (02:18.592)
Now the other physiological change that we really see is it's partly physiological and it's partly mental and it's idea that when we're hungry we need to eat food to fill us up. And I think perhaps hunger isn't the right word here. It's more this idea of being hungry and thinking, my goodness, I think I'm hungry, therefore I need to eat. Obviously when you're really hungry your body is saying, yep, it's time to fill up, it's time to fill up, remember that you need to fill up. But there are times

And I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about when you kind of think, hmm, I could do with a snack. Am I hungry or am I not hungry? And the thing that happens is when you're eating a lot of processed sugar, your sugar levels are going up and down and up and down. And that is not a good place to be in. And basically our bodies get used to this idea of high sugar levels and not using that sugar basically. So you get high sugar levels, you fill up. High sugar levels, you fill up. As opposed to,

where you want to be is filling up, using that fuel and allowing yourself to use the fuel that you have and emptying those storages and then filling up again so that you are using the energy that you're putting in. And this is much, much easier to do if your glucose levels aren't constantly spiking up and down and up and down. And when you're on a reboot, because you're eating healthy sources of

carbohydrates, you are eating carbohydrates, but you're eating carbohydrates that are wrapped up in fibre and carbohydrates that are slow release carbohydrates. You don't get such a big spike in your glucose levels, you get like a shallow curve and that makes it much easier for you to go, okay, I actually, I don't need the food right now. Yes, I can eat, but I perhaps don't want to eat. So that basically,

being drawn to sugar, those sugar cravings essentially just disappear. Your cravings no longer are there, partly because you're just enjoying healthy foods. So many different reasons to do a reboot. So how do you start doing a reboot? Well, number one, you kind of get to grips with, what is a reboot? What does it look like? What am I going to eat? So in a nutshell, what you want to be doing is not eating

Dr Orlena (04:41.686)
white refined carbohydrates, aka sugar and flour, and processed foods. So these are the things that you're not eating, and I'm gonna include alcohol and obviously sugary drinks in that. Remember, it's only two weeks. What are you gonna be eating? You're gonna be eating lots of fruits and vegetables, which is where you're getting your carbohydrates and your fiber. You're gonna be eating lentils and legumes, which are some good sources of plant fiber and also plant protein. You're gonna be eating...

Protein, which could be animal protein if you eat meat. It could be plant protein. Personally, I recommend a combination of the two of them, unless of course you are totally vegetarian, in which case you're looking at plant-based entirely. But you do want to be making sure you're getting protein. Another source of protein beyond meat and fish and dairy is nuts and seeds, are a great source of protein. So if you're looking at plant-based proteins, you're looking at nuts and seeds.

You're looking at lentils and legumes and things like chia is another really helpful plant protein and things like soya and tofu. You also want to be looking at fat. Now, I personally teach the Mediterranean style diet and I recommend extra virgin olive oil as your main source of fat because it is full of antioxidants. And there's been studies that show that eating extra virgin olive oil is

beneficial and it's easy to lose weight if we look at the Predimed study for example. And if you want to know more about the Predimed study, the first podcast that I ever did years and years and years ago really dives into that Predimed study and looks at the benefits of the Mediterranean style diet. And it's one of the very, very few randomized control trials that has been done in the nutritious world because it is very difficult to do randomized control trials in nutrition and most nutrition studies are not randomized control trials.

Okay, so just to recap, we've got vegetables, we've got fruit, we've got lentils, we've got legumes, we've got nuts, we've got seeds, we've got protein, which may be plants, it may be animals, it may be a bit of both. We've got fat, which we're mostly looking at extra virgin olive oil, and then obviously fiber, which we're getting from our fruits and our vegetables. We're getting a balanced diet. We're getting all of the macronutrients. The macronutrients are protein. Yes, we need protein.

Dr Orlena (07:04.982)
Fat, yes we need fat. Carbohydrates, yes we need carbohydrates, but we're getting those carbohydrates in the form of fruit and vegetables and lentils and legumes, which are a combination of carbs and protein. And fiber is protein. Sorry, fiber is not protein. Fiber is carbohydrates. Okay, so now that you've got...

an idea of what it is you're aiming for, the next step really is to have a look at your day and go through your day step by step and think, okay, what are my meals gonna be like? How am I gonna plan my meals? What am I gonna have for breakfast? What am I gonna have for lunch? What am I gonna have for dinner? And what about snacks as well? And you really need to just plan your day and think, okay, this is what my day is gonna look like. I'm gonna have this, this, this, and this.

Now, you might find as well that you need two different days. It might be that you work part time or that you do different things at the weekend. So some people need to have two different routines to cover their week or if you do shift work or something like that. Most people will do the same thing day after day after day. So this is where you have to do a little bit of planning and then you want to set a date. When am I going to start this?

But you know, if you've got a wedding coming up at the weekend, just go to the wedding and start your reboot on Monday. Don't start your reboot the day that you want to go out and celebrate and do things like this. So really try and pick a time when you've got two weeks that you think it's gonna be an easy two weeks for me. And as you go through, your aim that you're doing is yes, to familiarize yourself with healthy eating, to...

really walk through two weeks of doing it perfectly. Side note, nobody ever does it perfectly, but to attempt to do it perfectly and to see that actually living like this is fun, it's enjoyable. But the other part of the puzzle that you're doing is really building up your system and your routine. And so many people that I talk to tell me that the reason that they don't eat healthily is not because they don't know what healthy is, they do know what healthy is, but life gets busy and...

Dr Orlena (09:17.62)
they stop doing it. They take their eye off their ball, they're stressed, and they stop doing it. And basically this is just a system failure. What it really means is you don't have a strong system to keep you going. You don't have this system of creating food and a routine of eating this healthy food such that even when life is busy, life, even when things are stressful, you're still doing it because you're still having to think about it.

So the aim of the reboot is really to help you strengthen your system so that you can see, okay, actually, do you know what? I don't know, having my breakfast at seven o'clock doesn't work for me because my kids are here and it's just too stressful and I'm busy doing other stuff. Actually, I want to have my breakfast at eight o'clock. That's fine, that's absolutely fine, but part of going through those two weeks is ironing out any problems and thinking, okay, this really works well.

Great, I'm sticking with this meal, I love this meal, this meal not so much. Okay, another side note about meals is when I work with people, I'm happy to give people loads and loads of recipes. In fact, I actually have a free PDF worth of recipes, which I will leave and you can sign up for that. But what I actually really say to most people is what you want to be doing is taking the recipes that you're already using and tweaking them a little bit to make them closer to healthy.

take what is already working, what you already know, and change it as opposed to starting from scratch. Now, obviously that's a conversation that I have with my clients, and some people are really keen to try new recipes, and they want to do things differently, and that's perfectly fine. But, warning, trying new recipes takes time and energy. And it's not one of those things that you want to do when you're exhausted, when you come back from work.

and think, my goodness, what am gonna do today? I'm gonna try a new recipe. Unless you've set it up, unless you've got the ingredients and the recipe there, it's going to be difficult for you to do that. So mostly, most people introduce a new recipe one at a time. So they might try one recipe one week, preferably at the weekend when they've got time and energy to try it, and then slot it in during their weeks. But obviously that depends, everybody is different, but it's easier to take what is already working than to start from scratch.

Dr Orlena (11:37.696)
And that's basically it. You set your date and you get going and you enjoy it. And as you go through those two weeks, you are going to get what I call golden learning opportunities. What are golden learning opportunities? Well, they may be what other people call obstacles. And so you might, for example, have a habit of eating chocolate or cakes or something else at three to four o'clock in the afternoon. You know, that slump that so many people have. I feel tired. I haven't got energy.

goodness, okay, I'm gonna eat something different. And then you find yourself eating the cake that you normally eat. And the temptation is to beat yourself up and go, my goodness, I failed, I didn't do this right, I can't do anything right. But that's not helpful. What you really want to do is look with curiosity and think, okay, so what is going on here? What's happening at three o'clock such that I am finding myself eating this cake that I don't really want to eat?

It might be that you're feeling tired, you're overwhelmed. It might be that you need to actually change the beginning of your routine in the morning to set yourself up to have more energy at three o'clock. But it might be that actually you've got what I call a system failure. So you are genuinely hungry, you want something to eat, but the only thing you've got is cake. You haven't provided yourself.

the opportunity to create a healthy snack. And that is a system failure. So there's two basic failures that I see. A system failure, you haven't set up your system so you're not prepared. So for example, I'm in the middle of nowhere and all I've got is a packet of chocolate biscuits. It's lunchtime, I'm gonna eat the chocolate biscuits. That's a system failure. The other type of failure is what I call an emotional failure. Well, I don't call it an emotional failure, but it's really to do with emotions. And it's about

turning to food for comfort. So actually I can eat whatever I want to eat. I'm in my kitchen, but at three o'clock I'm feeling exhausted. I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling like I want a reward and I could easily help myself to a healthy snack. But actually I've got this sugar craving and I want to eat my chocolate cookies or chocolate biscuits or whatever it is. And that is really that turning to food for comfort.

Dr Orlena (13:55.54)
and you can unpack that and figure out what is going on and why you are turning to food for comfort, what's going on underneath emotionally. Now, as you go through the two weeks and you turn down the sugar, you will find it easier to stop turning to food for comfort. When I talk to people about how to overcome emotional eating, there are two pieces of the puzzle. There is understanding the emotion that's going on underneath and making sure that you have tools to deal with your emotions. And there is...

healthy eating as well. And this key that we're talking about today, this is the healthy eating piece. If you cut out sugar from your diet, sugar no longer has a hold over you. If you move towards, love healthy eating, I have energy, I feel great, it's easy for me to have, to eat healthily, then you don't have sugar cravings. I don't have sugar cravings. I don't think, my goodness, I have to eat sugar. I have nut cravings from time to time, but I think that's fine.

But because I hardly ever eat white refined sugar, then it doesn't have a hold over me. I'm perfectly happy to sit and watch my kids eat bread or cake or whatever it is and me not do that. Now sometimes I will. It was my twins birthday this weekend and we went out for burgers which include buns and crisps and things like this. And I ate that without worrying about it. I didn't think, my goodness, I failed. I just thought, hey, this is part of the celebration. And it's like once.

this week, I'm not gonna do it again soon. It's perfectly fine. It doesn't really matter. It's just, you know, a small pebble in a big beach. So, just to recap, this is how you do a reboot. Understand what you're aiming for. Plan it. Have a think about how this is gonna work exactly for you. What meals are you gonna eat at exactly each time and each place? Now you don't need to have the exact

recipe for every single meal, you need to know roughly what you're going to be able to do. And what I suggest people do is write out two weeks of the two weeks, write out the two weeks, and then if you want to change it, you can change it. But if you've got it written down for two weeks, then it's easy for you to forget about it think, okay, this is what is for breakfast, lunch and dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And then just do it. Just get on with it. And then if you make a mistake, don't beat yourself up. See it as a golden learning opportunity.

Dr Orlena (16:21.196)
So this is an amazing tool that I teach my clients and they use time and time again and they use it to start and then they use it to get back on track. It is an amazing tool and if you would like me to help you, support you, walk you through a reboot, then please book a call with me and I will tell you how I can support you. Actually the program is 12 weeks because you do the two week reboot and then you get support for another 10 weeks afterwards. So if you're interested in finding out about my program, then please book a call.

and we will chat. Have a fabulous day and I will see you next week. Bye bye!