Speaker 1: Oh Hello and happy summer. Yes to celebrate this season,
Speaker 1: the Healthy Ish team are out of office and we
Speaker 1: are dropping our most listen episodes for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I am the host of Felicity Hallie and joining us
Speaker 1: well is a friend of the pod Susie Burrow. She
Speaker 1: also is a dietitian and author, and she joined us
Speaker 1: Well a few months ago to discuss why it's hard
Speaker 1: to lose weight, plus her five habits for healthy weight
Speaker 1: loss and health success. Now listening to Extra Healthy Ish,
Speaker 1: where she discusses her principles for long term weight control.
Speaker 1: If that interests you, you can search for Extra Healthy
Speaker 1: Ish wherever you get your podcasts. Susie, how are you?
Speaker 2: It's always so nice to be here in the studio.
Speaker 2: We could chat all day, record all.
Speaker 1: Day record and congratulations on your book.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Leanne and I are very proud. This has
Speaker 2: been a work in progress for quite some time off
Speaker 2: the back of our Nutrition Couch podcast, but we really
Speaker 2: wanted to develop something that was practical for busy women
Speaker 2: and able to target whatever their focus was, whether it
Speaker 2: was getting their mindset right, whether it was learning how
Speaker 2: to nourish their body, or whether they had the goal
Speaker 2: of losing fat, but in a sustainable way, so hopefully
Speaker 2: there's something in there for everyone.
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard for people to lose fat?
Speaker 1: I mean, what sort of factors are at play?
Speaker 3: How is the billion dollar question?
Speaker 2: There is so much food around all the time, and
Speaker 2: we love to eat, and we're.
Speaker 3: Less likely to move and burn it all off.
Speaker 2: So I think we just are in a world where
Speaker 2: we celebrate over food, we comfort with food, and metabolically,
Speaker 2: particularly as we get older as women, it just becomes
Speaker 2: harder metabolically to burn. You know, the human body likes
Speaker 2: to store, so you really have to constantly be out
Speaker 2: smarting it and learn to have a balance between enjoying
Speaker 2: your favorite foods but they're being able to keep your
Speaker 2: calories under control. So about that balance, you know in
Speaker 2: life where it's nice to go to a restaurant and
Speaker 2: eat out or have a few drinks on the weekend,
Speaker 2: but that means in the week we probably have to
Speaker 2: buffer it a little bit. And there's some of the
Speaker 2: strategies we really focus on because we work with real
Speaker 2: people every day.
Speaker 3: We like to eat ourselves and we.
Speaker 2: Know it's not about constant restriction or cutting back because
Speaker 2: that only feels the diet.
Speaker 1: Cycle, you know, the first thing you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look from an evolutionary standpoint, where were designed
Speaker 1: to feast and famine in so many ways, won't we
Speaker 1: and then suddenly we've got we're in this built food environment.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really important that it's really not
Speaker 1: our fault. And often we self blame when it's about
Speaker 1: of that healthy weight range, and I think that for
Speaker 1: me is just really important it's actually not your fault.
Speaker 2: No, And I think there's a lot of blaming activity
Speaker 2: with women that goes on. But basically, as human beings,
Speaker 2: if food is available, we will eat.
Speaker 3: You're not weak, you don't like self control. You're human.
Speaker 2: So it's about structuring the environment to be more conducive
Speaker 2: to weight control. It's about developing some of those clear
Speaker 2: rules and structures that work for you. It is about
Speaker 2: I think, if going back to evolution, like going back
Speaker 2: in from an evolutionary perspective, like even say the nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty sixty seventies, you would eat three meals a day,
Speaker 2: have you breakfast at home, probably a small bottle of cereal,
Speaker 2: plain sandwich at lunch, and then wait till six o'clock
Speaker 2: dinner was on the table. Fast forward, you know, thirty
Speaker 2: forty fifty years now, we have breakfast that runs over
Speaker 2: two or three hours with milk based coffee. Then we
Speaker 2: all love to have snacks, so there's morning tea, lunch,
Speaker 2: you know, goes later in the day one or two o'clock.
Speaker 2: Then we graze all afternoon on the kid's food or
Speaker 2: the pep ups to get us through the afternoon at work.
Speaker 2: And then we get home after a long day and
Speaker 2: we're starving because we haven't eaten well, and then we snack,
Speaker 2: and then we have dinner as well, and then again
Speaker 2: we've got through a stressful long day in modern life,
Speaker 2: and we reward ourselves with wine and chocolate and treats.
Speaker 2: So it's really not hard to see. We just eat
Speaker 2: way too much for the amount of activity that we
Speaker 2: do in a life where we sit down most of
Speaker 2: the time. So it does require quite a lot of
Speaker 2: planning and strategy to buffer that. And you write, it's
Speaker 2: not people's fault, but you do have the ability to
Speaker 2: take control and learn a structure that will work for
Speaker 2: you when they're the variables you're dealing with every day.
Speaker 1: Good point you work with people, you've got your very
Speaker 1: popular podcast. Always see it at the top of the chart, SUSI,
Speaker 1: well done. What's the one or two traits you see
Speaker 1: in people who you know who want to lose weight
Speaker 1: to get back in their healthy weight range, lose it
Speaker 1: and then keep it off.
Speaker 2: So there's a belief that you're on a diet for
Speaker 2: a certain period and then you lose weight, and then
Speaker 2: you go back.
Speaker 3: To your old eating patterns.
Speaker 2: But your old eating patterns were maintaining a higher weight
Speaker 2: than you should have been, so you might have been
Speaker 2: seventy eighty ninety kilos. So you can't go back to
Speaker 2: your own habits. You have to reprogram to develop your
Speaker 2: new baseline that allows you to maintain the weight that
Speaker 2: you like, and that often requires a buffering effect where
Speaker 2: you do have some light days of eating because we
Speaker 2: all like to go out and have a.
Speaker 3: Few heavy days.
Speaker 2: So it's an acceptance that that will have to be
Speaker 2: the way to eat forever, and an acceptance around moving again.
Speaker 2: I think people do exercise on special occasions when they
Speaker 2: want to lose weight. The more activity you do, the
Speaker 2: more calories you burn, Basically, the more you're going to
Speaker 2: be able to eat.
Speaker 3: So if you like to eat like so many of
Speaker 3: us do.
Speaker 2: You're probably going to have to exercise a lot, so
Speaker 2: really it's about reaching an acceptance about what you need
Speaker 2: to do as an individual, rather than being on and
Speaker 2: off a program, and that you'll keep doing that for
Speaker 2: as many years as it takes for you to understand that.
Speaker 2: It's about reprogramming your baseline to a lower level of
Speaker 2: the weight that you want to sit at.
Speaker 1: You've got some core healthy habits in here which are
Speaker 1: very simple, but I think there it's a great reminder
Speaker 1: for us all whether you know we want to maintain
Speaker 1: our weight lose weight. They're quiet, let's just talk through
Speaker 1: them quickly, Eat more fitches.
Speaker 3: If I wrote a book with that as the title,
Speaker 3: no one would buy it.
Speaker 2: But it's the most effective strategy and no one, you know,
Speaker 2: Leanna and I speak to women all day every day,
Speaker 2: and no one eats enough vegetables. You know, you need
Speaker 2: a serve or two at every single meal, and as
Speaker 2: soon as you do that, there's less room for all
Speaker 2: the other calories, so you eat less. It's the simplest
Speaker 2: dietary strategy, and yet we don't do it. The secrets
Speaker 2: to make them taste good, you know, have a green
Speaker 2: juice in the morning, or great extra veggies into your meals,
Speaker 2: or add a super salad to lunch. It's not about
Speaker 2: having a boring piece of broccoli on the plate, you know,
Speaker 2: it's about really focusing on them as the core of
Speaker 2: the meal. But most of my clients will always go
Speaker 2: first calves and protein and maybe a bit of tomato
Speaker 2: on the side, And it's just rejigging that to be
Speaker 2: more salad, veggie bolk on the plate first, and then
Speaker 2: half your dietary issues will be solved and of course
Speaker 2: disease risk just by doing that.
Speaker 3: So it's simple and boring, but it works.
Speaker 1: And I think we're I mean, we're you know, in
Speaker 1: our western modern Western society, we focus on a lot
Speaker 1: on the meat. If we're like the meat, okay, what
Speaker 1: meat are we going to have? Or what fish are
Speaker 1: we going to have? And then add the veggies. We
Speaker 1: should really be focusing what are the veggies look like? Oh,
Speaker 1: and then we might add that little bit of meat
Speaker 1: or fish or whatever.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like when you go to a restaurant, like
Speaker 2: it's always about the protein you're ordering first, and then
Speaker 2: the veggies may be aside.
Speaker 3: You have to pay a fortune for. So it's all
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: Programming that means it's not the front of mine, but
Speaker 2: certainly as soon as we se and this is something
Speaker 2: supermarkets are doing well. They're making vegetables and stuff it
Speaker 2: easier and more cost effective, so you can buy a
Speaker 2: salad bag for five dollars and get two or three
Speaker 2: serves out of it with a nice dressing.
Speaker 3: It tastes good.
Speaker 2: So it absolutely is about making it taste good and
Speaker 2: incorporating it into delicious food rather than being the boring
Speaker 2: side that of course, no one's really.
Speaker 1: Motivating under exactly prioritize movements. The other one we've already
Speaker 1: talked about that take time to plan.
Speaker 2: Planning is the key to dietary success. It's having the
Speaker 2: food available when you're hungry, tired, and it's ready to go.
Speaker 2: It's getting home late at night, having a meal in
Speaker 2: the freezer you can quickly heat up so you don't
Speaker 2: order in a high calorie meal. That is probably, after vegetables,
Speaker 2: the most important strategy. Creating ten fifteen minutes a week
Speaker 2: just to map out the meals, order in the snacks,
Speaker 2: pack the lunch the night before. Make it easy, because
Speaker 2: when it's easy, to eat well that you will grab
Speaker 2: it as opposed to not having options available.
Speaker 1: How much time do you spend planning?
Speaker 3: I'll know what I'm eating every day every week.
Speaker 1: Do you plan on a Sunday?
Speaker 3: I actually do.
Speaker 2: The same thing every week, so it's just what I
Speaker 2: need to buy. I remember you telling me yefore yeah
Speaker 2: and not.
Speaker 3: Everyone's like that.
Speaker 2: They want variety, and you might want to get out
Speaker 2: the recipe books and do a beautiful meal plan each
Speaker 2: to their own. But in my family, I tend to
Speaker 2: eat the same thing each.
Speaker 3: Weeknight, getting ball and as Monday night.
Speaker 2: Similarly salmon every Monday, and so on Sunday or Saturday.
Speaker 2: I know what I need to order or buy, so
Speaker 2: it's ready to go for the week, because like most people,
Speaker 2: I don't have time. I pack the kids lunches and
Speaker 2: all the lunches the night before while I'm cleaning up. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: it's planning cook.
Speaker 1: More at home. That's pretty easy. But last one, I
Speaker 1: just the last one I want you to talk about
Speaker 1: is focus on consistency. What's this all about?
Speaker 3: Well, it's that on and off again, isn't it. We're
Speaker 3: all or nothing?
Speaker 2: We eat really strictly for Monday, Tuesday, and then you know,
Speaker 2: loose of control it over eat the rest of the week.
Speaker 2: So if you can be consistent five or six days
Speaker 2: a week with light dinners, with an early lunch, with
Speaker 2: a protein rich breakfast, and then just allow a meal
Speaker 2: or two that's more indulgent, that's the model we want
Speaker 2: to reach.
Speaker 3: Whereas most of us have Monday Tuesday pretty.
Speaker 2: Good, and then it all unravels because we haven't planned,
Speaker 2: we don't have the vegetables, we don't know what to cook.
Speaker 2: So if you spend that time planning and aim to
Speaker 2: be consistant most of the week and highlight a couple
Speaker 2: of special occasion meals, you will have much better consistency.
Speaker 3: And that's the secret to success. Thank you, Sissy, Thank
Speaker 3: you for having me always so nice to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this interview as part of
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty four summer series. There are plenty more
Speaker 1: awesome epps for your ears, both from Healthy Ish and
Speaker 1: our big sister podcast Extra healthy Ish. If you did
Speaker 1: like this interview, please take you equipment to share it with
Speaker 1: a friend. If you do want any other info, head
Speaker 1: to body andsoul dot com dot you follow us on socials.
Speaker 1: Any feedback please dm me at Felicity Harley and until
Speaker 1: tomorrow enjoy the sun and stay healthy ish