In episode 143, Jill and Chris talk with Diane Allen, a member of the Becoming Elli private Facebook group. She’s often posting very motivational things about all of the great workouts and adventures she’s doing.
Like many of us, Diane had that mid-life weight gain and corresponding health issues. When her doctor suggested bariatric surgery, Diane’s daughter intervened and found them a gym and set Diane on the road to activity and health.
Diane says, “In the last four years I’ve tried many new activities; despite setbacks, physical exercise has greatly improved my mental health, my blood sugar and my confidence.”
Diane Allen holds her Certificate of Top Challenger – Becoming Fit and Strong Using a Movement Practice – episode 143
She lives in North Carolina with her husband. She has four grandchildren and takes them on adventures now that she’s able to do so.
In this episode we discussed:
Indian club routines
How she relaxes using Non-Sleep Deep Rest protocol
The improvements she has seen in her life
Some of the new activities she enjoys
The importance of core strength
How her gym helped her to gain confidence
What she did to get to a stronger healthier weight
How she maintains her weight loss
Links we mentioned during the Becoming Fit and Strong Using a Movement Practice with Diane Allen episode:
In episode 135, Jill and Chris speak about using spices and greens for a healthy weight with Joanna Wen.
Joanna Wen is a weight loss coach who helps her clients lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way. Her unique approach helps her clients love their food and lose weight without deprivation.
Joanna also helps her clients get to the true root cause of their overeating and remove those blocks so that they keep the weight off once and for all., Joanna specializes in online nutrition and weight loss coaching through her website, Spices & Greens.
Joanna has studied and experimented extensively with the healing powers of food to de-stress, gain energy, and lose weight. When she contacted us, she said that she enjoys learning about nutrition for longevity because she is approaching her 50th birthday.
Joanna Wen uses spices and greens to help control cravings and aid in weight loss.
We discuss:
Why it is so difficult to be a healthy weight
How she helps her clients with food cravings
Special tips for losing weight for women over 50
Strategies to stay on track with healthy eating
Advice for dealing with hormonal changes and eating
Her top food hacks for reducing stress and emotional sweets cravings
What tweaks she made in her morning smoother to gain energy
Three spices she likes recommends for helping with weight loss and why
What type of exercise she recommends for losing weight
Why fiber in food helps and how juicing doesn’t work as well
Links:
The Juiceman was mentioned in the podcast (but juicing didn’t help her that much)
Spices help me to maintain a healthy weight because foods that I normally don’t particularly like, taste very appealing.
During the winter months this can be particularly important to me as it seems like I feel more hunger, even when I’m not really hungry. Perhaps it is the cold… or boredom… or longer nights. I’m not sure why.
Adding spices to my recipes and food prep has really helped me to stay on track.
I thought I’d share some of these in case it might help someone else as well.
Spices that help to Maintain a Healthy Weight
Garlic and Cayenne Pepper – Two spices that add a lot of flavor without adding any calories… Garlic is great for starting many recipes (like when you’re sauteing minced onion, celery and green peppers.) Cayenne Pepper gives a kick to bland foods. My problem is that I don’t really like the flavor of each of these, so I go very sparingly if at all. I only start with these two because they are GO-TO spices for many people and I think most people like them.
Dill – I often use dill in my salads and it reminds me of spring and summer. It tastes great with vinegar based dressings. I often use it in my veggie potluck salads. And I love to add dill to jazz up boiled cauliflower. The small green herb adds color to the otherwise white dish.
Pumpkin Spice – In the fall, it seems like half the world turns to pumpkin spice. Roasted acorn squash or roasted butternut squash is amazing with this spice added to it. For a dessert treat, I blend frozen bananas with a little bit of this and sometimes I even add a bit of a can of pumpkin for added fiber. I like to make my own with just some ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground allspice, and ground cloves. Here’s a link to a recipe for pumpkin pie spice and you’ll end up saving some money when you make your own. Jill makes her own pumpkin pie spice.
Salt/Pepper – This seems so basic, it barely requires mentioning, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t. I try to limit my salt, even though my blood pressure is almost always more low than high. I think too much salt masks the flavor of food, so I don’t add it while I’m cooking, but generally a small shake just before I eat the food helps to bring out the flavor.
Oregano and/or Basil – I love to add these to most things with tomato in the recipe. Sometimes I’ll pair them together, sometimes just oregano. I usually smell each of these spices to see if that’s the flavor I want. It’s funny, when I’m cooking I can’t remember these two flavors unless I smell them first. Most of the other spices, I can see the name and almost taste it in my mouth, just by reading the name. For some reason I struggle with mixing up oregano and basil. We often grow basil plants in the summer and bring them inside in the winter. You’d figure I would know and remember this spice better!
Turmeric – I like to add these to my scrambled eggs. The favor isn’t very strong, but supposedly turmeric helps with inflammation in joints. Be careful with this one, yellow stains will appear on fingers or clothes if you get too wild with the turmeric.
So how do these spices help with weight maintenance?
When I use spices, I’m cooking from scratch. I’m not opening a box of something that is pre made. Just that alone, by using real whole foods more and using processed foods less (or not at all) really really helps me to maintain a healthy weight. So many premade foods have fructose corn syrup or other things that I really need to avoid.
By focusing on the favor of the spice, I happily anticipate more homemade recipes and foods that have dense nutritional value.
Are you interested in making more of your own spices? Check out this handy downloadable PDF to make your own spice mixes from the NDSU Extension – Nutrition site. (Thanks Brenna!)
How about you? Do you use spices to enhance your foods? Which spices did I miss and how do you use them? Leave a message below or send me an email at Chris@becomingelli.com.
In episode #52, Dawn Maloney is interviewed about sustaining her weight loss. Dawn is wife, mother, realtor, and mostly vegan intermittent faster.
With 130 pounds fluctuation between her highest adult weights, Dawn needed to find a sustainable eating and movement lifestyle to help her consistently live a healthy life.
Through intermittent fasting, plus a nearly 100% vegan lifestyle, she has finally found the balance she wanted.
Topics and resources we discussed:
Lifetime of dieting started right after high school.
She started a vegan way of eating in 2016-early 2017. She lost weight but stalled after a while. After starting intermittent fasting in November 2019, she is doing well with that.
Feels better with a plant-based diet.
Changing her diet and losing weight helped to eliminate her problems with prediabetes.
4 cups of rice and lentils (or the grains you want to use)
5 cups of water
Cook for 15 minutes in the instant pot. This makes enough for several meals so good for meal prep days. She likes to put the rice or grains over greens and eat with with salsa and beans
“Love Yourself more. Love yourself more to take care of yourself before others.”
“My mother’s death scared me into weight loss research.”
“Forgive yourself when you make mistakes and start over. Every day is a new day. Move past it.”
In Episode # 10 of the Becoming Elli Podcast, Jill and Chris interviewed Nancy Jasperse about:
Her struggles with weight
Yo Yo dieting as a teen, into college and gaining weight through 3 pregnancies
How she cleaned up her lifestyle
What she eats now to maintain the weight loss
Where she gets her exercise inspiration
How she navigates restaurant meals
Her Sunday meal prep routine
In the tips sections, Jill and Chris share their thoughts about restaurant eating to maintain a weight loss.
Nancy’s Story
Nancy said she has always struggled with her weight. This is her story:
“As far back as elementary school, I was always the biggest and sometimes tallest kid in the class. I think my love of food started around 4th grade or so. My father was in the Navy and was out to sea often. When he was gone my mother used food as both a reward and a coping mechanism when things didn’t go as planned for me. I don’t fault her for this, she was raised the same way.”
By high school, I was maxed out on clothing options. Lane Bryant was the only clothing store where I could buy pants. So I decided to diet! I didn’t know one thing about nutrition, so I basically starved myself, eating handfuls of raw vegetables and spoonfuls of peanut butter. The weight came off, but of course that wasn’t manageable long term.
College brought on more yo-yo dieting. With each year, I’d go up and down in weight. Right around my senior year of college, I found myself engaged and excited to plan a wedding. So dieting kicked into high gear.
Shortly after getting married, I got pregnant with my first child. It was during this extremely stressful first year of motherhood, my weight gain exploded! Instead of bouncing back, I gained 100lbs. It was the first time I’d see the 300lb number on the scale.
As scary as seeing that number was, it didn’t stop me from getting pregnant two addition times — High risk from start to finish each time. Just as before, each baby brought on a stressful year. I gained 72 more pounds. My highest weight was a whopping 372 lbs. When I saw this number, I was terrified.
I didn’t know where to start. I knew nothing about weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight. But I decided the best thing I could do was try and reduce what I was eating and take a small walk each day with my children. Within the first few days, I’d lost 20lbs. Looking back, I know this was a lot of water weight and my body telling me it was so happy to have some water and a walk!
Sadly, what happened next in my life changed everything. My mother died unexpected. One day I was playing Scrabble at my dining room table with her and the next day she had a massive stroke. She was 54. I was 29 with three children.
Her death scared me into weight loss research. I knew I needed to clean up my lifestyle if I intended to watch my children grow up. I wanted to be more active with them, run after them, not be exhausted from simply hauling them out of car seats and walking them into school! Simple tasks at 350+ lbs were so very tiring.
I researched Weight Watchers, Atkins, Keto, SlimFast, calorie counting, liquid diets, salad only diets, every fad diet you can imagine. I settled on calorie counting. Added MyFitnessPal to my smartphone and started tracking all the food I ate. I continued walking around my neighborhood. And in just a couple of months, I had lost 50lbs. Then the dreaded plateau hit. I was stuck! The research started again. I decided to add lifting a few weights at home and walking. After a few weeks, I broke the plateau.
The evolution from 372lbs to just under 200lbs took just over three years. There were several rounds of plateaus and calorie adjustments. I changed up my diet a few times, around every 7 or 8 months to shake up my metabolism. I believe long term weight loss is possible if you’re willing to branch out and try new things, both nutritionally and physically.
I’ve maintained my weight loss for just over two years. Lately, I’ve used the Keto (ketosis) method to keep myself in check. Every now and then I’ll check a keto calculator to make sure I’m eating the correct amount of macros/calories. You can find a keto calculator by simply googling “keto calculator” and entering in a few basic pieces of information such as height, weight and age. Such a helpful free tool to use!
Just recently I’ve decided to try to get to 185lbs. Let’s cross out fingers and hope I can get there!
Listen to Episode #10 of Becoming Elli to find out how Nancy lost over 150 pounds and kept it off for more than two years!
