While most Americans fight “the battle of the bulge,” very few understand the difference between the types of fats in our body and how they affect our overall health, and our looks.
In this episode, we delve into visceral fat… which is actually an organ and could be causing you health challenges.
Listen in to learn what visceral fat is, a simple test to learn if you have too much, and how to shrink that mid-line!
Michelle is a registered nurse, who spent her career in trauma and ICU. She then became a certified health, wellness, and nutrition coach through the Athletics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA). Her Health and Wellness Coaching certification is through Wellcoaches in association with the American College of Sports Medicine. In addition, she did her nutrition certification through the International Nurse Coach Association. She is also certified in the eating plans of the Institute for Functional Medicine. She has done episodes previously on this show, episodes 25 and 32, both are well worth listening to. You can find her at http://www.michellerlockhart.com
Visceral fat is known as a “deep” fat that is stored further underneath the skin than simple belly fat. It’s a form of gel-like fat that is actually wrapped around major organs, including the liver, pancreas, and kidneys. Visceral fat is especially dangerous because these fat cells do more than simple fat cells do. They actually change the way your body operates.
Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-escape-the-matrix-health-show/id1313550845
Right click here and save as to download this episode to your computer.
Carrying around visceral fat is linked with an increased risk for:
· Coronary heart disease
· Cancer
· Stroke
· Dementia
· Diabetes
· Depression
· Arthritis
· Obesity
· Sexual dysfunction
· Sleep disorders
Fat cells do more than simply store extra calories —the fat tissue itself acts as its own organ by pumping out hormones and inflammatory substances.
How Visceral Fat Develops
Insulin also helps coordinates body fat stores, including the visceral fat, stored deep within our bodies. When there’s too much glucose in our bloodstream and our cells glycogen stores are full, glucose is stored as fat. This happens a lot more quickly and easily when consuming refined processed carbohydrates and sugary foods. Processed starches, like white bread or white rice, along with high-sugar foods, are rapidly converted into simple sugars that enter the bloodstream and trigger a larger release of insulin from the pancreas. The result is usually weight gain, plus even more hunger, which leads to continued overeating and a vicious cycle that makes it hard to stop eating sweets.
Risks of High Levels of Visceral Fat
1. Increased Inflammation
2. Higher Risk of Diabetes
3. Makes It Harder to Lose Weight
4. Higher Risk for Heart Disease and Strokes
5. More Likely to Battle Dementia
6. Higher Likelihood to Have Depression and Mood Problem
Natural Ways to Get Rid of Visceral Fat:
Research suggests that when you diet, you mostly lose white fat, which is different than visceral fat and tends to be lost or gained evenly all over the body. You’re more likely to lose visceral fat when you do a combination of exercising and eating right — which is both important for hormone regulation.
1. Reduce Sugar and Refined Carbohydrates – Cutting back on your sugar is the number one thing you can do to drop fat.
2. Get on a Good Probiotic Regimen – Michelle recommends natural dairy products such as Kiefer, and full-fat greek yogurt (usually the ones you can only find in the organic section, or a health food store.
3. Fill Up on Non-starchy Veggies, Fats, and Proteins – Many fruits spike your insulin, so it’s important to pair them with healthy proteins such as nuts, cheese, tuna, or nut butters. Work with a nutritionist to design an eating regiment that is designed specifically for your body type and health goals.
4. Exercise Regularly – It is important to do exercises that decrease the risk of visceral fat. This is a mix of high-intensity resistance training, and high-intensity interval training; 20 minutes a day goes a long way! Mix in with some cardio, aiming for getting 4-6 days of exercise per week, with some of those being long and slow exercise.
5. Reduce Stress – Techniques like meditation, reading, exercise, sun exposure, social life, spending time outdoors, in the park, etc. Be mindful of it when you are outside. Let nature be your stress reducer.
6. Prioritize Getting Good Sleep – Guided Imagery and planning your sleep schedule both help tremendously if you struggle to get a full night’s rest.
Transcript:
Intro: 00:00:02 Welcome to the Dirobi Health Show! Covering the world of fitness, nutrition, and supplementation, with world class guests, the latest clinical research, and plenty of tips you can use right away to boost your health and wellness. Here’s your houst, Dave Sherwin.
Dave Sherwin: 00:00:20 Hello and welcome to episode 67 of the Dirobi health show a primer on visceral fat loss with expert Michelle Lockhart. Michelle has been on the show before. As a matter of fact her episodes are some of our top most listened to episodes on iTunes episodes 25 and 32. I highly recommend them and I’m so glad that she would come back, and for those of you that haven’t heard those episodes. I’m going to do a quick bio before we bring Michelle on. Michelle is a registered nurse was a registered nurse who spent her career in trauma and ICU but she then became a certified health wellness and nutrition coach through the athletics and Fitness Association of America. Her health and wellness coaching certification is Well Coaches in association with the American College of Sports Medicine. And in addition she did her nutrition certification through the International nurse Coach Association. She is also certified in the eating plans of the Institute for functional medicine. So Michelle thank you so much for taking the time and being back on the show.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:01:20 Well thanks for inviting me again. I appreciate it.
Dave Sherwin: 00:01:24 Yeah your other episodes were so good and you dropped so many really great health nuggets I think we titled you the quote machine after episode 1 that you did. You just had so many great nuggets several of which I’m still using and they’ve really worked well for me. So it’s been great. And I understand that you have had. What is it, three new grandbabies So far this year?
Michelle Lockhart: 00:01:54 Yeah we’re up to we’re up to seven grandkids and five of them are under two. Three of them were born in the last five months. We have one more on the way so rumored to have 6 under two. So it’s been quite a whirlwind but amazingly fun.
Dave Sherwin: 00:02:09 Well that’s outstanding and I’m sure very exciting for your family and and for those of you. You know if you if you are not seeing the episode artwork and the picture of Michelle that’s not an old picture. That’s how she looks right now. She does not look like grandmother of how many do you have Michelle, seven total seven?
Michelle Lockhart: 00:02:31 Yes seven total.
Dave Sherwin: 00:02:33 Well good for you for keeping up your health and fitness the way you have that you’re going to be young with those grandchildren.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:02:40 I hope so. It’s all about energy right.
Dave Sherwin: 00:02:43 Absolutely. Absolutely and enjoying life to the fullest What was yours. Your statement. I don’t remember if it was the first episode you did or the second. It was quite a simple comment about we live our life through our bodies. Do you remember that day.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:02:59 Everything we experience we experience her body and so we view how we experience life based on how our bodies feel and how much energy we have and how involved we can be so the healthier we are the the the more we enjoy and experience and more fulfilling life is because we’re able to experience it through that healthy body.
Dave Sherwin: 00:03:24 Yeah that’s excellent. And and congrats to you for living that not just teaching other people that but you are living that lifestyle and it is. It’s fun to hear from you and that your your family is growing the way it is and your coaching practice. How’s your coaching practice going?
Michelle Lokcart: 00:03:43 Doing really well having a lot of fun I’ve been able to do some programs. I just launched a program called Family where we go in and we take the whole family in and help the younger kids to see how important it is to move into fuel and to rest properly and to help the the parents to know how to give better food choices and how to incorporate fun and exercise into their daily routines. And so that’s been a really good fun challenge that I’ve been working on. And then I’m also working not bringing-doing some camps to bring some kids from China to help them with their health and wellness center. And they’re starting to eat more of a Western diet and they are very much into video games. So we want to get them into the outdoors and show them what a healthy lifestyle looks like. So working on those cup a couple of projects though. Lot of fun yeah.
Dave Sherwin: 00:04:42 When you mentioned that the Chinese kids are adopting Western nutrition. It makes me think of the acronym sad the standard American diet. Right. Like that that is said that other glaciers are eating starting to eat the way we do.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:04:59 AbsolutelyThey need to go back to what they were eating before which was a lot more help.
Dave Sherwin: 00:05:03 Right. Right. Well interesting. And of course at the end of the show I want to make sure and not forget to have you give out all the different ways people can contact you. You also last time we talked you had a Friday coaching call for all your clients. Are you still doing that.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:05:19 I have not been doing that lately because I’ve got so many now that it’s getting a little bit harder to do. But I’m bringing on more employees and so we’re working on being more accessible.
Dave Sherwin: 00:05:33 OK so you’re still doing the remote coaching but it’s all one on one.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:05:37 OK.
Dave Sherwin: 00:05:40 Yes well excellent. Well let’s jump into this topic and for those of you I want to give a little bit of background here. I went through and did a bunch of research on what I thought would be some of the best topics and I did research on what people are currently looking for and what health trends are out there and what things really matter to people. And I came up with I don’t know about 15 topics and I sent in an email to all the health experts that I know and said here’s a list of topics I would like to cover for the Dirobi health show. Do you have expertise in any of these that you’d love to come on and talk about. And Michelle was one of the first responders with excellent information. I mean she just got right back to me and said, “Hey I would love to talk about visceral fat loss.” And she sent me some talking points about it and immediately I found it was very engaging very interesting information.
Dave Sherwin: 00:06:28 And so I’m so glad that she responded to this particular one because this is of concern to most Americans we know statistically that a lot of people just were just dealing with the battle of the bulge is just a reality in our modern society. It’s something that all of us deal with. And so this will be a very meaningful episode. And so Michelle first of all visceral fat. Could you define what that is for us.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:06:53 Sure a lot of people don’t understand fat. As you know fat is fat is fat to most people, but scientists are finding that fat is really quite intriguing that it’s fat is actually an organ and it’s one of the most fascinating organs out there. There’s a lot of different kinds of fat those brown fat white fat there’s subcutaneous fat and then there’s visceral fat. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today a visceral fat is known as the deep fat it’s stored further underneath the skin than simple belly fat in it. Right. And it’s a gel like fat that’s actually wrapped around you need your organs including the liver and the pancreas and the kidney. And so the problem was visceral fat is that it’s linked to an increased risk for all kinds of diseases coronary heart disease cancer stroke dementia diabetes depression arthritis obesity sexual dysfunction sleep disorders all of those things are linked to having increased visceral fat and visceral fat especially dangerous because these fat cells do more than simple fat cells do they actually change the way your body operates.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:08:05 And so visceral if that’s considered toxic and it really it really kind of spells this double trouble in the body because it’s capable of provoking inflammatory pathways and it signals molecules to interfere with the body’s normal hormonal functions. So it acts like this very own organ and it has it has the capability of having this large impact on the body. So that’s a little bit about visceral fat and why it’s important that we pay attention to the visceral fat that we’re carrying around. The interesting thing is is that most people feel like well if I have a protruding belly and a large waist and I’m obese and then it’s just belly fat. But the reality is is that you can have anyone can have visceral fat even without knowing it. And so it’s something that’s really important that we take a look at and that we make sure that you’re doing everything that you can to decrease your visceral fat level and not build it and not continue to build it up.
Dave Sherwin: 00:09:11 OK so maybe you can help me understand I’ve got an Enron scale you know one of those where you you get in their bare feet and you stand on it and you hold a sensor in your hands and it sends a pulse through your body and it determines not only my weight, like any old scale would do, but it also determines my body fat my percent of muscle.
Dave Sherwin: 00:09:33 And one of the other things it does is visceral fat. And I’ve noticed over the years while I have not really understood what visceral fat is which is why I’m excited to be have you on this show and learn about this topic. But I have noticed as I’m healthier and when I’m eating really well it tends to be at about 7. But if I kind of fall off the bandwagon and I’m not eating very well and I have too much junk or sugar or, or don’t exercise enough it will sometimes go up to eight and I can always tell when it hits eight that that’s a warning sign. Just just from history and having this machine but I don’t know what it means. What does it mean that my visceral fat is 7 or 8. Is that a percentage of body fat, do you know?
Michelle Lockhart: 00:10:21 Well there isn’t an actual measure of body fat so you could go to a DEXA body scan and it will give you an arbitrary number. You can do a body scan it would give you an arbitrary number. You can do your scale scanning will give you an arbitrary number and what it does is you will set it up and say you should between be between X and X or below x because there isn’t like, It’s not pounds. It’s not density it’s not. There’s no specific. Most of these machines actually all of these machines are giving you an estimated value. The only way to know your exact percentage of visceral fat or pounds of visceral fat is by a CAT scan. The only 100 percent accurate way to know exactly how much visceral fat you have. But what’s more important than knowing what the what that number is or what the percentages are how they’re measuring it is is it doing all of the things to decrease your risk. And pretty much you can go across the board if you’re a woman and your waist is more than 35 inches and your or you’re a man and your waist is more than 40 inches.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:11:35 You have this drill you have visceral fat. There’s that’s just you just have it. And so having having a lean belly is your number one key indicator of how healthy you are. And so that’s something that you should be concentrating more on. I love that you said that you you know when you’re not feeling well that number starting to go up and you start to not feel well and there’s a really good reason for that. The fat the fat tissue itself is responsible for controlling, it is in part a sorry in part controlling your appetite and energy expended expenditure so your body basically works like an orchestra of chemicals that tell you when to eat when you’re full. And this chemical feedback system is built on communication between the brain and other major organs. Well when your visceral fat becomes when you have so much visceral fat, that becomes like a major organ and it starts to pump out chemicals that tell your brain about your appetite and your mood and your blood sugar levels and your hormone levels and unfortunately your visceral fat not a very good communicator and so it is as you get more visceral fat.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:12:57 It pumps out more chemicals to your brain saying we’re hungry we’re hungry hungry and so you get into this real bad downward spiral as your as your fat’s pumping up this chemical telling your body we’re hungry your body eats more which causes you to store more fat. Fat is stored for a specific reason and your fat is is it has actually two functions the two functions that it has is your fat store your excess calories in a safe way so that you can mobilize the fat stores when you’re hungry and your fat releases hormones that control your metabolism, and so there’s that visceral fat visceral fat especially releases those hormones and as it as it gets bigger and bigger as you get more and more of that fat it gets less and less reliable and it sends out more and more hormones to tell you to to eat more and then it also will mess up your blood insulin levels and so all of those things when you decrease that that visceral fat.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:14:06 All of those things start coming back into check. So those are the things whenever you are looking at those numbers if you’re in the in the range that that machine says you should be in then you know you’re doing well. So if your machine if you look at it get out your little guide or look on the internet and look up that machine it will tell you your visceral fat level fat levels should be between X and x I have an in body scan and I use that for my clients and it has a curve based on their age and their weight and their height and their and their percentage of body fat and then it tells it says you should be below this line and if you’re in the grey then you’re in the iffy area, if you’re above you know you’ve got way too much visceral fat if you’re below that you’re doing okay but my numbers are 100 is the cutoff line and you shouldn’t be above 100 you should be way below 100.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:15:06 And so it just depends on the machine, so it’s best to go by what is the circumference of your waist how much belly fat do you have and how do you feel.
Dave Sherwin: 00:15:31 Yeah that’s a really interesting point about the machines because me being a health geek I’ve always been intrigued by them and I’ve had the bod pod I’ve done DEXA body. I’ve I’ve been to my gym where they have the calipers to measure body fat. One time I took this machine that I have to a local university that has a bod pod and I did the bod pod and then I got out of the bod pod.
Dave Sherwin: 00:15:44 And the Bod Pod said my body fat was 11.5 percent. But I got on the machine and my body fat the machine said was 13 and a half percent. So then what I did is go OK well I trust the bod pod. It’s a lot more accurate and so I’m just going to subtract it two points off of the machine and it should be kind of accurate. And that’s just the geek in me right. But I like what you’re saying about it. Basically what I’m hearing you saying is to people like myself don’t worry so much about that. They’re not that accurate. But compared to themselves you know if you get on the scale and their numbers are one way and then they start going the wrong direction it’s an indicator you’re just going the wrong direction. So it’s not that they’re super accurate but at least they’re giving us their own type of information that we can use right.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:16:41 Absolutely, yeah. And if you’ve got somebody like you where you’re bouncing from machine to machine machine there are going to give you basic numbers for you a good you know if you’re between 10 and 15 percent body fat you’re in a healthy range right. And so it doesn’t matter if you’re 13 percent or if you’re 11 percent or 14 percent if you’re 10 percent you’re still in that healthy range. But when you start seeing that number go 13 14 15 16 17 you know you’re going in the wrong direction. And so it’s just important for it that it’s the same with weight. I I tell people this all the time. Everybody’s what will fluctuate in their weight within five pounds within a week within a day. You can fluctuate you know in and out of five pounds but if you start getting where you’re sitting around say you’re 125, 126 then 125 then 124,
Michelle Lockhart: 00:17:34 That’s OK. You’re all in that range. But we start from the 131 132. You say OK I need to you know I need to just make some some adjustments. But again my biggest thing is how do you feel can you could be at your ideal weight of 125 and not feel well, you don’t have any energy but you weigh 130. You feel great. So it’s really about what when is my body set point where it is my body you want to be. And how can I get it there. And then how can I distribute my fat, my body fat so that in places where it’s hopeful that is actually very good for us it does those healthy things for us. It’s storing those excess calories so that we have the energy and it’s also you know releasing those that that control our metabolism. You talked about the callipers, calipers do subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous fat is not nearly as unhealthy as visceral fat, brown fat is actually very healthy. But we have a very small portion of it. Kids have a lot of brown fat helps them stay warm. Adults don’t have very much brown fat but it helps with the metabolism and there’s things we can do to increase our good fat and decrease the bad fat and visceral fat is the worst of the worst.
Dave Sherwin: 00:18:58 OK. Just for a minute I want to talk about you know you talked about a range of healthy ranges and of course myself yourself.
Dave Sherwin: 00:19:05 Everyone listening we want to be in those healthy ranges and for the most part the difficulty we have is is keeping our body fat down. But just a minute. Let’s talk about going the other way. When I was really at my athletic best, I was at about 10 percent body fat and it was the year that I did the national championships and Olympic distance triathlon. It was this is about five years ago now. My body fat was very lean and light and I felt terrific in terms of running, biking, swimming. I had really good endurance, but I was getting sick more often. When you talked about using how you feel as a as a way of determining your health. I felt good athletically but I honestly didn’t generally feel at my best all the time. I was eating very very well. But when my body fat was really low to be honest I didn’t feel at my best.
Dave Sherwin: 00:20:12 I just finished Shaquille O’Neal’s autobiography which is really a fun book by the way. And for those who are interested and he talks about and for those of you know Shaquille O’Neal you know when he played basketball he was a little chunky. His build was not a lean skinny build. He was robust. And when he went to the Miami Heat he talks about how Pat Riley had fine, he had a fine scale. If you were over a certain percent of body fat and one of the reasons Shaquille O’Neal didn’t last with the Miami Heat is because this just drove him nuts and when he got his body fat down and became lean he got injured more. He wasn’t as athletic. He actually went backwards in his athleticism and he couldn’t win this fight with Pat O’riley in the Miami Heat trainers and whatnot and he finally moved on because it was he felt strongly that it was working against him to get his body fat too low and that for him that wasn’t the best.
Dave Sherwin: 00:21:14 I understand that for women if their body fat gets too low it can mess with their period and they can start having hormonal imbalances and problems and I’m sure there are similar problems hormonally and whatnot for men. So the reason I bring this up Michelle is because we live in a social media society where the people that are really popular on Instagram on YouTube are the hardbodies with six pack abs that are setting standards for our young men and women and for everyone really others as well for how a body should look. Right. And I think some of those bodies are really actually not that healthy. I think of weightlifters as well they get they look muscular and healthy but I don’t believe they’re actually that healthy. So what are your thoughts on that.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:22:05 Well again I think it’s so individual.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:22:09 Because for example I my journey, you know I was overweight and I went on this journey to lose weight. And I went from I lost 50 pounds and I’m 5 foot six and I was at 120. And that’s not a lot of weight for someone who is five foot six and I went in and had a DEXUS scan and I had 36 percent body fat 36 percent body fat and most of it was visceral! And I had a nice flat stomach and I was like what the heck this just rocketed. I can’t be 36 percent body fat. And it was because of that. And I felt like, I felt good because I felt so much better than I had before. But when I went I looked at it and I did all the research I was realizing I wasn’t eating enough calories. Like you said I was getting sick more often.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:23:06 My immune system was really poor my hormone levels were not what they should be. And so I changed my diet increased the number of calories I was eating by decreased amount of cardio I was doing, increased the amount of resistance training that I was doing, and weight lifting and over the course of three months I dropped 6 percent body fat. And I stayed. And I went up to 120 pounds and over the course of six months I dropped another 6 percent body fat and got up another four pounds. So I was much happier and healthier closer to 125 130 with my body fat being lower and my muscle mass being higher. And so that made all of the difference in the world. And then I was not getting sick and I was feeling more energetic I was stronger and I was eating the amount of food that I should be eating instead of not having all of that you know not feeling like I was hungry all the time.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:24:09 And so yeah I felt a lot better with a little more fat with a little less fat but a little muscle mass. And so but yet my scale at my pants size went up a bit. But I felt better and I was more healthy. There are people out there who have a lot of adipose fat, so they’ve just got that subcutaneous fat and subcutaneous fat but the fat that’s down directly into the skin is what’s measured with the skin fold calipers like we were talking about. And in terms of overall health subcutaneous fat and the size of the buttocks for instance may not be bad. And we actually have some potential for some potential benefit. It may cause it may not cause many problems as other types of fat like that deeper visceral fat. But subcutaneous fat cells around the belly on the other hand are not as healthy.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:25:04 So it’s very individual. It develops and I think again it goes back to what are you doing to take care of your body as a whole. Not what am I worried about. What am I you know what am I getting anxious about with all this fat and all this knowledge. But what are the basics. What are those basic things that I need to do to have a healthy lifestyle and do that to take care of this visceral fat. That’s really very bad for me. And and it’s going to help me to have that get to that point where this is where I feel really happy and healthy. There are women out there that are happy and healthy and strong and they have great, their blood work is good. And they are a size 12 or a size 14 and they’re active and they’re healthy because that’s their body set point. There are others who are you know they’re stick’s they’re a hundred and ten pounds and lean and tall and they feel healthy and happy and good at that kids let their bodies set point. It’s about where you feeling healthy where your doctor says you’re helping where your blood pressure good your cholesterol good you’re you know you’re active you’re eating healthy and none of that is measured by pant size, by your scale, by your weight, it’s measured by your blood testing, your measurements of your of your blood pressure and how you feel. And you’re right.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:26:37 We live in the social world where are we. And the magazine covers that are that are airbrushed.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:26:44 And you know digitalize to the point where we feel like we have to look a certain way in order for us to be healthy and that is simply not the case. Healthy looks very different on everybody. So if you are doing the things that you know are healthy then you can’t be rest assured that you are healthy, regardless of what the scale says or your size says, and not to worry about some of the fact that we have is not negative. That however visceral fat is not one of them. And so that’s why I want to talk about what can we do to make sure that we don’t have that access or that visceral fat we’re going to have a little bit because it insulates our organs. But you don’t want that become that big organ that’s micromanaging your metabolism because it doesn’t do a good job doing the OK well let’s jump right into that then.
Dave Sherwin: 00:27:42 So one of the things I picked up from you is that it can be difficult to measure just where our body fat is in terms of you know we can get a body fat test but it may be measuring one type of body fat and so it’s hard to determine between the types of body fat and yet generally speaking. I imagine you’re feeling that quite a few people have too much visceral fat or you wouldn’t be so excited about this topic. And so how would a person tell if they have too much visceral fat over other fat or does it just not matter and we just have to basically follow the right protocol to get rid of it anyway.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:28:22 Well like I said a big belly and a large waist line is a risk and is unhealthy for everybody. Women with a waist circumference that’s more than 35 inches and men with a waist circumference more than 40 inches are at an increased risk of not only the visceral fat but various diseases, and they should try and lower those fat sores stores around their belly. It’s really about belly fat. Getting rid of that belly and visceral fat. When you do the things that it takes to get rid of visceral fat, The natural consequence of that is lowering your body fat as well. But you know as they say the pear shaped woman is a much healthier person than an apple shaped woman and that’s so that’s so the case. Because that subcutaneous fat just isn’t as unhealthy as we think that it is. It’s really about the belly fat and the visceral fat. And unfortunately that’s the easiest fat to gain and the hardest to lose. And so that’s where that if you are managing your belly fat then you are managing your overall health. That’s just really the bottom line.
Dave Sherwin: 00:29:36 OK. Excellent. And that’s something anyone can do anyone can grab a tape measure and stick it around their waist and see how they how they fall in regards to what is at 40 inches from 35 inches for women. So we’ve taken our measures we’ve measured. We’re not happy with what we see. And so what do we do. Where do we start.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:29:58 Well let me start out by saying that the research suggests that when you diet you lose mostly white fat which is different than visceral fat and it tends to be lost or gained evenly all over your whole body when you go on a diet. Say I’m just going to go on you know whatever diet you know fill in the blank here diet where I’m right I’m restricting my my calories and I’m you know eating specific foods or staying away from specific foods. That’s going to give you an overall loss of white fat which is healthy but that, you’re not as likely to lose visceral fat so you’re more likely to lose visceral fat when you do a combination of exercising and eating right which are both really important for your hormone regulation. So the first thing and this is the one that nobody wants to hear but the first thing is you’ve got to cut your sugar.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:30:54 You’ve got to get rid of your sugar and refined carbohydrates. We already know that influence one of the body’s most important hormones and that our diet directly controls our insulin release. So when a cell is normal and healthy it has high levels of receptors for insulin so it has no problems responding to that insulin into that glucose level. But when a cell is exposed to high levels of insulin through an ongoing presence of high sugar you keep giving more and more sugar more and more sugar the cells start to become exposed to that high level of insulin release. And the system starts to break down. Too much insulin means the cells start to do something to adapt they reduce the number of their insulin response to receptors which ultimately ultimately leads to insulin resistance. So when we consume too many refined carbohydrates and sugars that spike or insulin levels, reducing that is the first step to rebalancing our home our hormone levels naturally and to help start reducing that fat. So reducing our sugars in refined carbohydrates is key. You cannot do this without doing that. You can’t reduce that visceral fat you can’t be healthy if you’re eating and consuming a lot of sugar. And so that’s something that that you need to start with number one.
Dave Sherwin: 00:32:18 Before number two I gotta know so I like how at the end there I mean the whole time you’re talking I’m like I’m like, “yeah, I get it.” But if I eat really well all week are you telling me I can’t have my dr pepper and jalapeno cheddar Cheetos while I watch the football game because I want to have my Dr. Pepper and jalepeno cheddar Cheetos.
Dave Sherwin: 00:32:48 Sometimes just sometimes just give me a little bit.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:32:52 OK. Yeah absolutely. It’s said.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:32:54 So like I said when the signal is up is exposed to high levels of insulin on an ongoing basis. So daily every day you know and one of the great examples which everybody hates to hear is soda when you are bathing yourself in sugar coated you know sugar fluid soda all day long then you’re cells are getting that inundation of insulin because your body is pumping out the insulin to take care of that sugar and that sugar with zero nutritional value. And so when you do that on a daily basis your cells. It does that adaptation where it starts to reduce the number of insulin responsive receptors. And so in order to cut that you have to decrease the amount of time that your cells are are exposed to sugar insulin and so by all means have have your nachos and your Dr. Pepper when you’re watching the football game, because that’s a once a week thing, that’s not inundating yourselves with insulin all day every day.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:34:05 And it is so if you can, if you can cut out sugar throughout the day so that you got too much you know you’re just decreasing that amount of time that your body has to release insulin. Then you’re doing yourself a big favor. I’m not saying never eat cake, never eat pie, you know Christmas is coming. Bah humbug. That’s not what I’m saying. What we’re saying is you’ve got to decrease the amount of time that your cells are having to deal with that is the amount of influence level so that it that your sons don’t go into the adaptation mode. So limiting your your sweets and your refined carbs to a couple of times a week is just fine.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:34:47 It gives your body the ability, it gives your body the ability to naturally have those those spurts of influence in the natural way instead of being artificially elevated all the time.
Dave Sherwin: 00:35:02 Yeah I mean as you talk I’m reminded of a good friend of mine who’s probably a hundred pounds overweight and constantly battling that every now and then he’ll he’ll get the urge to diet or whatever and one time he was out here golfing with me and and talk to me about was in some way he was in one of these motivated times where he wanted to cut some pounds.
Dave Sherwin: 00:35:24 And said so what do you think about soda and ice. Oh I like some soda you know. But I don’t drink very much of it. And he said Well I think I ought to cut back. I said How much are you drinking? And he’s a salesman he’s on the road all the time locally does local sales and he he starts his day at 7-Eleven fills up his his massive cup and then later in the day refills it. And I think those things are 64 ounces so we’re talking over 100 ounces of soda. So I was a little bit shocked because I didn’t realize you know but I’ve heard that story more and more. I do think Michelle and you probably see this more than I do. I do think that there’s people out there who drink soda all day long and that that’s kind of the norm for a lot of people so that sounds like what you’re talking about when you talk about inundating yourselves everyday all the time. This is the type of habit that you’re saying has got to be cut out right.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:36:21 Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know the best way to go about it is and I have had my clients do this. I’ve had them say I can’t go to diet soda and I’m not a proponent of diet soda either because I don’t think it’s any healthier. You have you have you know your artificial sweeteners have cons to them just as much as sugar has cons. There are different kind but they’re both unhealthy. And so I suggest that they start watering it down where you you use. You pour your can of soda in the glass and you put a little water and you just keep making that a little bit different and you can even put sparkling water so that it keeps its fizz, because according to a professor that I went to a lecture he said “it’s all about the bubble.” So I recommend that you start writing it down until you get to the point where it just doesn’t taste good anymore.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:37:17 because it’s too watery and then you start switching over to sparkling water and put some lime in there. But some you know that whatever it is in there that will make it make it palatable or start going to water. But you know really honestly I’ve got to decide do I love the sugar in my soda. Do I love my soda more than I love being healthy. You know I see people taking when I worked in the hospital I would bring in people. They would have eight pills and there’d be two for blood pressure and two for their for their cholesterol and they’d have one for their heart disease. And they take it down with a can of soda. And I just you know and they’re diabetic pill they’re taken down with a can of soda.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:38:02 And you know we really go off all the could be put away the sugar and the soda.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:38:08 And so it really is it really is one of those things that you could easily get rid of those calories at 36 36 ounces of soda has 400 calories you can eat a banana an apple twenty five strawberries and 40 grapes for the same amount of sugar as in that 36 ounces of soda. And there’s no nutritional value in that soda. And then all that fruit you’ve got all that new all those nutrients and plus the fact that I don’t know about you I could need that in one sitting. I would be too full. And so it really is about trading. It really is about what do I want to spend my calories on.
Dave Sherwin: 00:38:52 Yeah that’s a good point and one one moral tip I would add and this is this works for me so I just sort out there because I do like soda and I just like a little bit of it now and then I’m not one to drink it all day. It doesn’t. I don’t feel like it most of the time but just now that I just like to have it but I like a can can is 12 ounces.
Dave Sherwin: 00:39:12 And there are a lot less expensive to buy by the can. You can buy buy a 12 pack I put in the pantry at last a while. I don’t have that many of them. I can put it in the fridge it’s cold when I want it. It’s only 12 ounces and and that’s what I’m telling my friends is, is don’t go by the Big Gulp. Why do the big gulp. You can really enjoy your you know a 12 ounce can which is how big they all used to be. If you’re old enough to remember this there was no massive sizes back when we were kids. And so that’s another way is to… just a smaller serving don’t have as many but anyways less you’re right.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:39:51 Absolutely right.
Dave Sherwin: 00:39:53 OK. So cutting back on simple sugars. You hit that number one. And you also gave us a little bit of an out there you’re not talking about making our holidays and birthdays miserable. We’re talking about our general habits throughout the day that we’re mostly eating good healthy foods and we’re cutting down on sugar as much as possible so that it’s a rare treat rather than something we’re doing all the time right.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:40:18 Right. Right. I like to tell people that shoot for 80 percent that 80 percent of what you put in your mouth is really nutritious and healthy and life sustaining and 20 percent is her pleasure.
Dave Sherwin: 00:40:34 Excellent. OK well after that long segue of me cutting you off when you tried to move from point number one to point number two. Let’s go back. Point number two.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:40:42 OK. Number two is to get on a really good probiotic regimen. Studies have shown that if you take care of your gut flora that leads to a lot of really positive health benefits one being the loss of visceral fat. And there’s a really strong correlation between having that healthy gut flora and decreasing visceral fat. And the most effective bacterial strain for the reduction of visceral fat belly fat is lactobacillus Gaster rye and that’s about SS are lactobacillus yesterday this particular bacteria it’s Downing’s fermented milk things like Keiffer and yogurt. So check your labels to make sure these particular bacteria are listed. The level of the bacteria here might not be high enough, so supplementation may be necessary but that’s the most important one to get for your visceral fat reduction.
Dave Sherwin: 00:41:37 OK I’ve got to bring something up that has bugged me for years and I got it from my mother my mother is somewhat of a health not and although she loves chocolate she generally eats a very healthy diet and a lot of vegetables and fruit and she used to make her own yogurt. And as a child I thought this is the most disgusting thing I’d ever tasted my life and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would make something so awful. But she did and she ate it. And we hated it. But of course as we grow mature our tastes change and whatnot and I’ve developed a taste for Kiefer and and end foods like that. But as I go to the grocery store and all the yogurts are no fat, I just, it drives me nuts. I’m like it’s just like screaming Frankenfood to me like a no-fat yogurt is so fake.
Dave Sherwin: 00:42:27 Now I was excited. We have a Smith’s now. I don’t know what that would be I think it’s owned by Kroger for those of you in different markets. But I think Smiths and Kroger are the same anyway. But yet regardless. OK. So I was walking down the yogurt aisle recently and and and I always have looked for this a regular yogurt that doesn’t have the fat removed and finally I found one and they have one now it’s from a dairy in California and it’s just full fat milk yogurt and they haven’t removed it. And so that’s what I’m buying now and, anyways. What are your thoughts on that. I mean we all know fermented foods are good for us but so many of the fermented foods the processed ones anyway. I wonder if it’s kind of like what you said earlier about the difference between regular sugar soda and artificial flavorings. Is it the same argument here that if we’ve got such a you know manipulated food that it’s just not that healthy.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:43:33 There is some truth in that. I mean if you think about people say fermented food so you head over and you’re like oh well you know sauerkraut really good for me because it’s fermented. Well if you get a can of sauerkraut that is cabbage in an vinegar there’s no fermentation whatsoever. You can’t put a fermented food in a can because it would explode. And so if it did again it’s not truly fermented. So if you want sauerkraut that’s fermented you have to get it in the refrigerated section in a bag because that’s true fermented sauerkraut. And so yeah you do have to check the labels and things like that. At Smiths, They have the health food section where there’s a helped where they where they have yogurts and things that are in their health food sections that refrigerated. And there you can find the ones that called Icelandic Skyre. And that is a Greek yogurt. It’s a like a Greek yogurt that’s higher in probiotics and has full milk it’s called Saggis. Yes. And so there they are there but you have to look for them. You have to look really hard for them and go into natural foods store like Sprouts. That would be a great place to go and find these but you can’t just just assume that because it says it’s it’s a yogurt. I mean Yoplay yogurt. It says yogurt on it. It’s basically just melted ice cream.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:45:01 It has to be. You have to be vigilant in looking at the labels and finding those that have a high level of bacterial strains. And another product that I really like for for a probiotic regimen is called Good Belly and they make a juice that has probiotics in it. So it’s like having a water-based Keiffer versus a milk-based Keiffer and they sell it at Wal-Mart they sell it all over. And there’s different things you can get a shot where you don’t have big a glass. And yeah there’s lots of sugar in it. And the reason why there’s a lot to sugar in it is because it’s what the bacteria are for the bacteria to live there needs to be some sugar in there. But for me the tradeoff is great I’m getting good bacteria. It tastes good which will entice me to continue to be on that regimen. And it’s you know it’s for me, it’s a good tradeoff. Yet again it’s about that that tradeoff. So just looking to make sure of course that the good really doesn’t have the lactobacillus Gasteri because that comes from fermented milk products. So he’s got to just look at that.
Dave Sherwin: 00:46:16 OK excellent. That was number two. What’s next three for our visceral reduction plan.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:46:23 So number three is another way that people don’t like to hear fill up on non-starchy veggies, fats, and proteins. So we’ve decreased our carbs but we want to increase our fats in our protein and the best way to do that is with our and to get good carbs with non-starchy vegetables. So the base of your diet should come from natural fat burning food and that is your non-starchy veggies, your healthy fats in your protein. Of course you know everybody is somewhat different. So you have to personalize your diet so that you make it with the Whole Foods but you want it to depend. You know you want that diet to be your own unique combination. And you got to base that on you that it’s in your health status and your activity level and your life circumstances and your goals. You can’t look and say one diet is going to help me but overall we want to aim to eat high nutrient dense real food.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:47:21 We are the most overfed and nourished people on the planet. So we want to have our food the high nutrient you know so that they have their nutrient dense and they’re real. And this means avoiding packaged foods and things that have artificial ingredients toxins and nutrients. We also want to eat plenty of healthy fat things like coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil, and wild caught fish, nuts and seeds. These are real beneficial effects on our insulin balance in our gut bacteria and our hormones in our weight management and additionally we want proteins because they’re important for beating hunger and reducing our insulin spikes. Remember we talked about bathing ourselves in too much influence. Protein will help us to reduce those influence bites. So healthy proteins are things like wild fish and grass that the cage free organic eggs and dairy products. Those are all healthy proteins.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:48:20 And one thing about them about that reducing your insulin spikes whenever you eat a lot of people say I could eat an apple for a healthy snack and Apple a great snack but that’s going to spike your insulin level. But if you pair that Apple with a healthy fat or a healthy protein such as I’m going to have an apple and some almonds or I’m going to have an apple and some cheese or an apple with a little bit of pouch tuna something like that that’s a much better snack because it’s not going to bite your insulin. So your cells aren’t going to be bathed with as much insulin because you have paired it with a fat or a protein that’s going to cause your income level to level off and then decrease slowly so you’ll stay a fuller longer your insulin won’t spike as high.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:49:12 You’ll decrease that glycaemic impact and your cells won’t be bathed in as much influence. So you’re not going to be developing that insulin resistance. So you know adding any kind of non-starchy veggie with or anytime you eat anything that’s sweeter. Add the healthy protein or healthy fat or get that non starchy veggie you know your carrots and your broccoli, cauliflower. The list goes on with your veggies that you can eat and the fibers also going to help improve your health and it’s going to help too. Fiber binds with cholesterol so that’s helpful. And fiber also helps decrease sugar levels when you are eating high fiber food not as much sugar goes into the bloodstream. So again you’re decreasing that insulin back to the cells so that the cells don’t have to make that adaptations. So adding filling up with not starchy veggies the healthy fats and good proteins good lean proteins is going to help you. Those are all natural fat burning foods.
Dave Sherwin: 00:50:19 Awesome, and I love that you included cheese and all of that. That’s just outstanding. Amazing. Yeah well a lot of people agree with you on that though right after a lot of a lot of health experts out there saying we can eat cheese there are there are a lot of help experts out there that say that they also say we should eat low fat or no fat dairy products and I don’t agree with that.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:50:47 I believe that dairy fat is a healthy fat. However it’s like everything else you have to eat it in moderation. And when they eat a pound of cheese a day drinking a gallon milk or having or eight ounces of Milk and having a couple of slices of cheese on our sandwich or whatever. It’s it’s again it’s moderation. Even though avocados are healthy we don’t need to eat six avocados a day. That’s not healthy eating half the avocado. Healthy. You know coconut oil it’s healthy but putting coconut oil on everything or olive oil everything, then it starts to have negative net negative impacts. So it’s all about moderation in moderation. Eggs are very healthy for us. But at half a dozen eggs in a day is not. And so again it’s you know the only thing that I would say to eat as much as you want and there is no possibility of of ever eating too many is non-starchy veggies. For one you can’t eat too many because you in your belly get way too full and you just can’t eat it. They’re low calorie they’re high fiber their high nutrient they’re no fat. There’s no you know relatively small amounts of sugar. So all over they’re Excellent. Go to. So any time that you’re hungry we just don’t know where to go. Not actually vegetable. That is where we go.
Dave Sherwin: 00:52:12 That is excellent. And before we move on to number four I just want to put in a plug and maybe some of you who listen to this show regular you’re going to get sick of me saying this but I’m just going to keep saying it and saying it that it is nothing like buying your meat and your eggs from local farms. I know it sounds like a real pain in the neck and sometimes you don’t even you don’t have to like go to the farm. There’s places that sell really good farm eggs and there’s places that sell really good quality meat and it taste better it’s better in every way, it’s healthier you don’t worry about you know all the different medical procedures or whatever being done. It’s also better animal husbandry. You know I, the thought of how some of these animals are treated. Yes we eat them but you know what. Everything on this planet survives because something else dies. Even these vegetables that Michelle’s talking about that carrot was alive and now you ate it and it’s dead.
Dave Sherwin: 00:53:10 I mean this is the cycle. This is the same case for something to live.
Dave Sherwin: 00:53:16 Something must die and we got to just accept that. It’s the same with battles but we don’t have to give them this unbelievably cruel existence first. Right. So you know, buying meat from local farms and eggs higher quality better animal husbandry not building up the massive artificial food machine that we have in this country that in my opinion is doing a lot of harm and especially doing harm to poor people. This is you know I think that the poorest people in our country are the most hurt by the artificial food system that we all live in. So I’ll get off my high horse on that. But as long as you’re talking about these you know healthy veggies fats and proteins and you’d mentioned this as well in other areas that the quality does matter you got to be a label reader you got to understand the source. And so I’m just kind of saying you know go to that next level with your veggies as well. There are local co-ops there’s ways of buying vegetables that are far superior to ways that a lot of people are are doing it. Any thoughts on that before we move on to number four.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:54:33 No I agree. I think that we do we need to be cognizant of what we’re putting in our bodies but we also need to be cognizant of where the food came from. And so I believe that there are better ways to raise all of these different foods whether it’s vegetables or whether it’s how we get the fat or whether the proteins. You think about extra virgin olive oil if you use just virgin olive oil is being processed more every day. Anything that has more of the processing works steps in the process in the processing of the food that the the less nutritious it is. So steel cut oats are more nutritious than rolled oats, which are more nutritious than instant oats because each one of those is going through one more phase the processing is the same thing when you’re growing foods. If if there are fewer steps or fewer chemicals that could be in fewer adaptations or alterations to what you’re doing then it’s got to be more nutritious because it’s closer to what’s natural.
Dave Sherwin: 00:55:46 Excellent. Well with that then let’s move on to number four.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:55:51 Number four is to exercise regularly and there are loads of documented benefits of integrating physical activity throughout the day and minimizing their sedentary time. Exercise helps us balance that insulin and makes ourselves more prime to use the glucose, so it helps to decrease the adaptations that cells are making with the insulin, and this is crucial considering that as more fat is packed away on our body it interferes with that uptake into a muscle tissue. So while there are different types of exercise that limit our cardiovascular. There are a lot of different types of exercise that can limit our cardiovascular risk.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:56:32 And so what we want to do is we want to do exercise that helps to decrease the risk of obesity and help us stay away from our metabolic syndrome. So the one that has the fastest rate of visceral fat loss is high intensity resistance training. So both both doing the hit the high intensity interval training and then high intensity resistance training are both very very effective to blast that belly fat and that visceral fat. So a combination of both resistance and aerobic and endurance training is helpful. So you really should shoot for exercising five to six days a week. Now that doesn’t mean you have to do an hour or two hours of exercise five to six days a week. 20 minutes is all you really need to be able if you can squeeze in 20 minutes of exercise. And if you can do high intensity workouts where you are, you know you’re running as fast as you can for 90 seconds and then walking for a minute and a stress you can for 90 seconds walking a minute, or even doing even doing 20 seconds and stop or 10 to 20 seconds and stop for anything that you’re really getting your heart rate up and then letting it rest and heart rate up letting it rest and then doing the same with your indoor with your resistance where you know you’re lifting and sets your lifting and you’re getting your heart rate out with with lifting and that 10 to 12 reps and then resting for a minute and then do 10 to 12 reps whether that be lunges or pushups or or sit ups or whether it’s lifting weights or using more resistance bands using using things like ellipticals or bikes, whatever it is when you’re doing it where you’re where you’re going all out for a short period of time and then resting for a short period of time you’re going to anything that you’re doing.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:58:37 I like to burst training where you just do things in a bursts and you and then you pull back and then do things in bursts and then a couple of days a week you do something for endurance. Whether that’s walking for an hour or running for an hour depending on your level going for a hike doing something that going for a long bike ride doing something that’s going to give you a little more endurance where you’re doing something for a little longer doing that a couple of times a week. And if you really if you can incorporate 20 minutes of burst training maybe do one or two days cardio one or two days a resistance and then a couple of endurance days then you really are going to blast that fat but you’ve got to do it in conjunction with the diet. You can’t do one or the other. It’s got to be both
Dave Sherwin: 00:59:22 Excellent and let’s move on to number five reduce stress number five.
Michelle Lockhart: 00:59:29 Yeah reducing your stress. There is a huge importance of pleasure and play and social connection that we overlook so much when I talk Sofia connection. I don’t mean social media connection Face-To-Face connection. And we know that when it comes to that last this is super important but that stress in order to beat that excess that stress triggers cortisol production and that interferes with our appetite control our metabolism our sleep and it makes us crave things that we really shouldn’t eat like salt and sugar. So techniques like healing prayer, or meditation, exercise helps reduce stress, reading is beneficial. Sun Exposure is huge and you get the vitamin D but it’s also found that it is to be exposed to the sun. Spending time outdoors reduces stress. Take a walk in the park make sure that some of that active exercise time that you do is outside and not just the gym or you’re in your house on your treadmill, but get outside and why don’t we go outside to get in our car or we go outside to go to the grocery store we go outside all the time but we don’t, we aren’t mindful of it.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:00:41 We need to stop and say Look how beautiful these trees are. The sky is huge big and beautiful, the mountains that we live around who are just to actually experience the outdoors and let it let it become that stress reducer and let it become part of you. Every single day walk outside and read your book for five minutes ten minutes just outside to get that stress reduction.
Dave Sherwin: 01:01:06 That is awesome and something I’ve really been working on personally since. Since you’re on the show last time I’ve really improved my habit of of meditation I’ve dabbled in meditation over the years but the last few months I’ve been really dedicated and and and meditate every day.
Dave Sherwin: 01:01:26 I’ve got a variety of apps that I use I’ve got a couple of breathing ones I do including one I got from Dr. Joe on a recent episode called The Wim Hof episode. For those of you interested in that but I’ve been meditating somehow everyday. Nothing, nothing bigger serious I’m not like an hour long you know kind of a monk meditator. Some of them are as short as 10 minutes and some of them are 20 to 30. But Michelle it has been phenomenal and I’ve also started attending local Tsongas.
Dave Sherwin: 01:01:57 We have one close to us at a yoga studio on Sundays and another one on Wednesday nights and I’ll go to those two or three times a week where there’s a guided group meditation, I gotta tell you. It has been so huge for me because like I said earlier you know my personality I tend to be of kind of red personality and my mind is often racing I’m an entrepreneur so I got these ideas flowing and and my mind is often going, you know a mile a minute and then a lot of different directions and not always to my benefit. Right. Like that’s cool if you’re really trying to get things done but you also like you said you got a bill to reduce stress. You’ve got to be able to just turn things off and unwind. And for me personally working on this and really being dedicated to it has it’s just been huge and quality of life.
Dave Sherwin: 01:02:50 And I’ll tell you another cool thing my golf game is so much better you know golf is the kind of thing that happens between the ears right. Like if you’re going to take a golf swing and you have like thoughts going through your head. Oh don’t hit it in the water. And how’s your backswing or you going too fast.
Dave Sherwin: 01:03:09 Like there’s all kinds of things you can be thinking that screws up your golf game whereas if you can just go and do it very naturally and mindfully and just hit the ball it’s a lot better. And that’s been the place where I’ve practically noticed the most. This change as I’ve started meditating is on the golf course, I’m golfing better than I ever have in my life. So that one thing makes it really really worth it. But but of course it’s more meaningful than just golfing better. It’s a whole life, it’s everything it’s relationships as be more mindful when you’re with other people. It’s I have less desire to have music on all the time I used to. Every time I walk the dog I had the headphones on I was listening to music that started to really change where, what you mentioned about enjoying your surroundings and whatnot that’s really starting to just kind of the way that’s how things are starting to work for me now.
Dave Sherwin: 01:04:10 I rarely take headphones at all and I go for a walk. We walk for 30 minutes or so and it’s a lot more enjoyable. So that’s just a personal thing I’m going through and I think a lot of people are I think that as we look at society you know Time magazine is a do two major pieces in the last year on mindfulness and meditation. They did one on The Science of Happiness which also was corollary to that and I think mindfulness imitation is a lot more than a buzzword. A TED talks more and more. TED talks are being given about mindfulness and meditation for overcoming addiction, not just for improved quality of life but for those with PTSD, Smokers, drug addicts people with depression. So this is a this is really meaningful stuff.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:05:08 Yeah absolutely I think we’re inundated with information and with noise and with you know we’re in a very. Go go go society it’s like we were our busyness like a badge of honor and we just we get ourselves into this frenzied mind state where we just can’t turn it off. We don’t know how and if we do it we do start decelerating we immediately start to get anxious and want to reamp. And so we get on Facebook we get on our social media we you know check out our Instagram we turn on our music we got the TV on and we do a video game because we aren’t comfortable in that quiet space because that’s not where we live all the time and that’s the problem we need to be comfortable in those quiet spaces. We need to we need to be in those quiet spaces to be able to make a social connection to be able to really understand pleasure and to understand play and to understand you know to really figure out who we are and why we’re here and all of those all of those big universal questions that we need the time to be able to process what we’ve done through the day and so yeah meditation’s huge and it doesn’t have to be like you said the monk type meditation.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:06:24 Sometimes it’s just simply turning it all off just turning everything off and just being, just you know just not having a purpose. You know I’ve got five minutes. So therefore I need to shoot off three e-mails. No, I’ve got five minutes and I’m just going to be for five minutes I’m just going to sit here and be. And that’s something that we have moved way far away from. I went back east this last weekend and I noticed I remembered that when I lived back there that people have porches with chairs on their porches everybody’s got a front porch and my my my late husband was from the Deep South and he said that in the evening they would all set and they were just going to go settin’ and I was like what settin’? And he said it’s where you just sit on the porch and be you just sit there and be.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:07:21 And I was like I want to set I want to be able to set every night. And he said when the sun goes down the people set and it’s actually work. We’re going to we’re setting. And you sit on the porch and you just be with the people that you love being with and you just sit there and be. And so that is what we need to return to to make those connections with ourselves make those connections with those that we love and just have that pleasure bein which brings us to our sixth one which is prioritizing good sleep. We know the benefits of sleeping only seven to eight hours. It’s well documented that when our hormone and our on our hormones are revitalized revamped good rest resets our appetites and our stress hormones that boost our metabolism our metabolism it actually helps us to keep our cravings away.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:08:21 So being able to get sleep but again we go back to that we can’t turn our minds off so relaxing is really hard for us. That’s not part of our vocabulary we’re lazy if we relax. And so some of the things you can do to really get good sleep we know that excessive caffeine can cause problems. Taking passable how essential oils are really great relaxing essential oils. The thing that I found the most helpful is guided imagery to be able to make it so that my mind stops thinking about the things of the day and turns to my body and going through a guided imagery exercise. And there’s a lot of both. You can find online that there sleep guided imagery where you actually can you can either listen to it and they talk you through you know contracting or relaxing your muscles and being aware of your body and where it is in space and how it feels, but it just brings that sense of calm and helps your brain to shut off.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:09:23 So I would recommend that if you have trouble falling asleep that you work on you know get online and find some guided imagery. That’s a great place to start. The second thing is to make sure that you’re going to bed at a decent hour and getting up at a decent hour so that you have that that fluidity and that regularity of going to bed on time getting up on time so that it becomes part of it is it is a huge part of healthy living that we that we so often ignore. We feel like we have so many important things we’ve got to work until you know until one o’clock in the morning and then we’re getting up at 5 to continue that work and it’s just not productive.
Dave Sherwin: 01:10:06 Well Michelle I think I’m going to rename this episode. Michelle Lockhart on life the universe and everything.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:10:13 These six points are like yeah yeah you’ll lose visceral fat but your whole life will be so much better. Like you’ve touched on everything from relationships to you know sleep how and where to buy food. We’ve talked about meditation.
Dave Sherwin: 01:10:35 I mean this has been huge but it is interesting how how a good quality life again back to your comment from an earlier episode about we experience everything through our body and what is that everything. The whole purpose of having good health is so that we can have a really great life right. Like that’s the bottom line is and then you’ve touched on a lot of these things that help people have more than just a loss of belly fat. Well that’s cool and important. But all of these other things that leads to are even more important.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:11:11 Absolutely.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:11:13 The end goal is worth the means.
Dave Sherwin: 01:11:16 Well outstanding and a great place to end. Thank you so much for being on the show. And let’s for people who need more Michelle Lockhart in their lives and coaching how do they contact you.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:11:29 Michelle Well the best way is to get onto my Web site. It’s Michellerlockhart.com and click on the free consult button and we will hook up and I’ll be able to add we’ll do a free concert. Find out what it is that they need and find out what it is that they are. Their goals are and how we can get them there and we can get started that way. That’s the best way to get a hold me. Check out my Facebook page. It remains my company so it’s more energy and my Facebook page pages More Energy. And so you get up there we are always having this discussion there and we’ve got a group that training for to run a marathon in April and we’ve got another group that we’re working with to, we’re getting ready to launch a walk across America campaign where we’re going to do some virtual walking across America. We’re going to really walk but we’re going to virtually do it across America. So a couple of things that you can get involved in with that too.
Dave Sherwin: 01:12:35 So well that sounds fantastic and again thanks for being on the show. I think if I could have you on every episode I would you probably are too busy for that.
Michelle Lockhart: People would get bored of me.
Dave Sherwin: 01:12:45 I don’t think so. Michelle I think that’s impossible.
Dave Sherwin: 01:12:51 You’ve got so much stuff but I definitely would love to have you back in the future though that’s for sure.
Michelle Lockhart: 01:12:59 Absolutely.
Dave Sherwin: 01:13:01 Well thanks again for everyone listening. This is Dave Sherwen on the Dairo health show. Wishing you health and success.
Outro: 01:13:09 Thanks for listening to the Dairo health show make sure and check Dairo B.Com for a free copy of Dave’s excellent health book formula’s 7 and enter to win in our free bottle Friday contest.
Outro: 01:13:19 If you’re enjoying the show leave your view on iTunes. See you next time.
Note that this information is presented as educational in nature and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure or prevent any disease.
