Three Food Mistakes That Cause Fatigue, Weight Gain, Brain Fog, and Anxiety

Dr. Mariza of the Essentially You podcast spoke to Stu Schaefer, a personal trainer and health coach, who has spent the better part of the last decade working with women in their 30s and beyond who have tried all sorts of diets without success. I found this conversation really thought-provoking and summarized it below!

• After all of the usual methods failed, Stu was determined to help his clients and stumbled upon research about getting the body into a thermogenic state where it burns fat while preserving muscle.

• With this new focus, he saw his clients losing significant amounts of weight while maintaining muscle.

The key to Stu’s approach is getting these women to EAT MORE and WORK OUT LESS! Yes, you heard that correctly. He developed the food quadrant approach (think of a big plus sign). In the upper left side is WHAT to EAT; bottom left is HOW MUCH to EAT; upper right side is WHEN to EAT (also certain foods at certain times) and the bottom right is HOW to COMBINE FOODS at meals.

• The What to Eat includes LOTS of OPTIONS. He talks about a hierarchy of carbs with the best being gluten free and non-grain (such as most veggies, and certain beans), then grains (maybe wild rice, gluten free) and legumes, then most fruits.

• For How Much and When to Eat, Stu suggests smaller meals (he himself eats 7 small meals), with lunch being the largest meal because you have plenty of time to burn it. He suggests avoiding fruit later in the day and always pairing it will some protein and/or fat.

Three Biggest Mistakes People Make:

1. Eating a Carb-Rich Meal at Night. You won’t have time to burn the calories so most of it will turn to fat. He suggests loading your carbs earlier in the day with lunch being your biggest meal.

a. He says dinner can still be special time but food doesn’t have to be the entire experience; maybe try eating less & talking more.

b. What’s for dinner? Good lean protein and large serving of veggies!! Add a healthy fat if really hungry. Fats keep you full but don’t stimulate your metabolism so much. Carbs help the body process the amino acids from the protein, which help the cells rebuild from wear and tear.

2. Skipping breakfast. Saving all your calories for later in the day when your metabolism is slower is not a good idea. If you aren’t hungry in the morning, try a fruit smoothie with a source of protein (whey, pea/hemp) and some healthy fat (almond butter) will be easy to digest and get your metabolism off to a quick start. Protein will help you regulate blood sugar levels.

a. He likes an earlier dinner (6pm/7pm latest) and then going about 12 hours until an early breakfast.

b. Dr. Mariza reinforced that your body needs 3hrs minimum from your last meal before bed to allow digestion to be done before the brain starts its cleans up.

3) Snacking the Wrong Way. Fruit, while loaded with nutrients, will spike your blood sugar just like having a cookie, and can cause you to store fat. Never have fruit or any carbohydrate by itself; always try to pair it will protein or fiber to slow the glucose absorption.

Exercise: Stu also focused his discussion on HOW MUCH to EXERCISE. He sees women doing too much exercise and overly stressing the body which makes it want to cling onto fat. When you overwork the body, you stress your adrenals, which will spike cortisol levels and depress your other hormone levels, leaving everything out of whack.

• He often has to encourage women to back off of their HIIT, CrossFit, and Peloton workouts and swap in some low-intensity cardio like walking.

• With the right amount of exercise, you can get into a thermogenic state, normalize hormones, lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, and evaporate your fat.

• He also suggests strength training to lose fat while maintaining muscle mass.

Stu says that if you look at your health wheel including nutrition, weights, and cardio, nutrition is the most important, following by weight training, and lastly cardio.

• Studies have shown that the optimal exercise regimen for weight loss is 3 days/week for 30 mins/session of weight training with off days focused on 30-45 minutes of cardio

• He says the best cardio for fat loss is WALKING.

**Content provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is derived from information from Dr. Mariza Snyder’s Essentially You podcast. It is not to be considered medical advice.**