Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy?

Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? with Gregory Ann Cox

Gregory Ann Cox the author of Your Genes Do Not Determine the Size of Your Jeans talks with Feeding Fatty about the importance of mindset in our question for health and wellness. She addresses the importance of finding what works for each individual and don't let the values and beliefs of others determine your actions and how you feel about yourself.

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About Gregory

“Gregory Anne, aka “Greg” believes there is no one way to be healthy, no one diet for everyone, and no way aging should ruin your life.

Greg’s focus is delivering the truth to anyone who wants to live a long life in good health. She’d also like to reverse the rates of heart disease and diabetes, which are devastating the lives of too many people needlessly. She is proof that you can have a body you feel good in and still have your wine and foods you love.

She was among the first female graduates of The Culinary Institute of America, one of the world’s premier culinary colleges, in Hyde Park, New York. After 25+ years in the hospitality industry, a certificate in nutrition and the launch of a heart healthy restaurant in San Diego, she turned her focus to coaching.

She wrote Your Genes Do Not Determine The Size of Your Jeans, to bust the myths that are keeping women fat, frustrated, fatigued, and not able to fully enjoy their second halves.

www.rebelliouswellessover50.com

ww.feedingfatty.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (00:00):

So, you know, what we, uh, this podcast is about us chronicling our journey, my journey through, uh, getting healthy, trying to, you know, increase my wellness. Especially as I age, I want to, um, you know, ma don't want to outlive my, my wellness. I want to, um, you know, have a healthy aging process, but also be healthy as I age. So Chronicle our journey, but we also bring on professionals and experts in their field from time to time. And today is no different. We have a great guest with us, uh, Gregory and Cox, and I'm gonna let Terry intro her.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (00:35):

Yes, Greg has been helping women at midlife and beyond age in good health, in a good mood and a body they love, or at least have made peace with for a decade. She does not buy into the conventional wisdom that this is what happens at your age. When we feel like crap, she is the author of, um, your genes do not determine the size of your genes. There's no deprivation and no one way to live and be healthy and enjoy life. There are however certain principles of longevity that we would like, but that we would do well to adapt. So we can beat the odds when it comes to disease and decline. She is a former professional chef and currently also a copywriter for the health and personal development fields. Greg, welcome to the show.

Gregory (01:22):

Thank you. That's a great introduction. I'll have to get,

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (01:27):

Uh, uh, we have to laugh and say, we love the title of the book. Of course your genes don't determine the size of your genes. I love that. So, uh, well tell us a little bit, first off, before we get too deep into this kinda, you know, how you found yourself here, writing the book, uh, is kinda talk about your journey for a minute.

Gregory (01:47):

Well, I don't know how far we want to go back, but when I think it must have started because I was a chubby tween teen, right? Like young teenager. And when my grandmother who was a seamstress used to sew some things for me. And I remember one time we were looking at pattern books in the store, they used to have these big books and you would go and you'd pick out the pattern and then somebody would get it out of a drawer. And she kept like, I guess last time she had sewn for me was like the last I would fit into that normal. And we had to go get the chubby book at one point. And I was just like, horrified because that word chubby meant something to me. She didn't put that on me. I took it to mean something. Yeah. So that started a journey of disordered eating, not eating, you know, all kinds of things throughout all the, till I was 30 something.

Gregory (02:38):

I, my oddly enough, my career choice was to become a chef. So I was feeding all these people and I could not feed myself and be happy about it. It just, it was bad for many, many years, but, uh, after cooking for 27 years, I woke up one day and I said, I cannot cook another meal. I have to do something different. So I got certified as a coach because although I thought I would go back and finish a psych degree, I didn't live anywhere where there was a school that I could go to. And coaching turned out to be a really great choice for me. And because I had studied nutrition as I started my life coaching business, I started to get people that would say, well, you were kind of healthy and in great shape, what do you do? And I thought, ah, let's do that then.

Gregory (03:18):

So I transitioned to the health coaching and I, when I was a chef, I worked for a heart surgeon and I got to see heart surgery. He performed heart surgery and he led me in the, or with him to watch this woman have a quadruple bypass. And when he held the heart in his hand and showed me what her lifestyle had done to the heart in case it in fat really made it very, very sluggish. He did this because he wanted us to understand the importance of lifestyle choices on our health. And let me tell you, it had a huge impact. Oh, I bet. So this many years later that stayed with me and I thought I can't just cook healthy food and just help people with, you know, nutrition, advice and weight loss. I really wanted to have a platform to get more people, the opportunity to hear something that might shake up their beliefs, open their mind to another idea that they hadn't been introduced to before, let them know that there were alternatives to the Western medical model. I have no problem with the restaurant medical model, but it's better at disease management and emergency care than it is wellness and prevention care. So I guess that's where I started and how I got here.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (04:29):

You know, it's funny, you mentioned the chubby girl because there wasn't, um, it wasn't, it's in an old memories group that I'm a part of and they posted this ad last week that it was actually, there was a chubby girl clothing line. I don't know if his clothing line or pattern line, but that was actually the ad copy. And they were just saying, you know, how, how long would this ad last today? Because they had a picture of a girl who obviously she wasn't that chubby and then down at the bottom and huge, I mean, huge type was chubby girl. Oh my gosh.

Gregory (05:06):

It was ridiculous.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (05:08):

Anyway. So it's funny that you say that because, uh, you know, a lot, when you first said it, I was thinking, Oh, well that was just your grandma relating that to get the bigger patterns. But there was actually something called that as well.

Gregory (05:22):

Yeah. Oh yeah, no, no, that was, it was the chubby section of the book.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (05:27):

Well, you know, I think that's good that, um, you know, it's, it's good knowing our genes. We're not predetermined. We can make changes. I think that's the, uh, you know, something we want to talk about a little bit is there's so many different things out there. It's, it's not just because it worked for your neighbor. Doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. We really have to look through, find out what suits our lifestyle, what we can stick with. That's the main thing you could do a lot of different things. It's can you do it number day, number two and day number.

Gregory (05:58):

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I say there's no one way. And to your point about finding what works for us is really important. And whether it's, um, including meat, fasting, eating three meals a day, whatever really suits our physiology is where we have to go. Or as you said, we're not going to stick to it. Day two, three, four, five might be great. We're in a high, we're doing this new thing. And if it's not our, and now this is not to say that when we make changes, sometimes we're very uncomfortable with the change, right. But for the long haul. So when people go on, let's say a keto diet, again, that is a miracle diet for a lot of people, with certain types of diseases, inflammatory diseases, diabetes, but for other people it's too constricted. They can't just eat this thing and not have that thing once in a while, because, you know, if you're on a keto diet and then you eat like a huge smoothie, one morning now, your body's all out of whack.

Gregory (06:57):

You've had a ton of sugar and, you know, but then people like, but I want to have, you know, so it's just hard either that, or you say, okay, I think you said, we're doing really good. And then I had a, I don't know what you called it, it, wasn't funny to come apart, come apart. If you want to plan for those, that's great too. I'm going to do this six days a week. I used to be, uh, uh, dietary, I don't know idea that you would do, um, no carbs all week or very, very low cards all week for six days. And on Sunday you would eat whatever you wanted. And it, somehow they said that it helped with your weight loss. I don't remember the science behind it. It sounds a little sketchy now. I liked it. I did it because I wanted all those carbs on Sunday. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (07:41):

Yeah. And that's, well, I can only speak for me, but that is my downfall. If I'm doing something and can stick with it, um, having that break or taking that day off or that cheat day, or, you know, a lot, whatever people refer to it as it just totally resets me to the bad ways and I I'm off. And so, yeah, I've just found over the years that, um, just much better just being restrictive and not, not allowing that stuff to creep back in. I just can't handle it now. I'm not saying there, you know, there are other people who obviously can, and, and that's great for them, but you know, unfortunately I have a couple m&ms and I've got to have 200 of them.

Gregory (08:23):

You and my husband should never get to get

Terry - Feeding Fatty (08:27):

It is hard. I mean, it's like, if, if you do that, you know, for six, if you're restrictive for six days, and then you have one day, it's you just wait, it's like waiting for the it's like today, you know, it's Friday. Oh my gosh. It's Friday the weekends come in. Well, we got a lot of work going on this weekend, but it's Friday. We're excited. So just waiting, you know, something to look forward to, but then you just go overboard. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (08:53):

Well, and Terry can handle it. She's better at eating a little bit of something and just being able to walk away from it where, yeah. Not, not me. It's like, if I'm in for a dime, I'm in for a dollar. So,

Terry - Feeding Fatty (09:06):

And I didn't know, I wasn't always like that. I mean, I used to, yeah. I used to have to give me the whole bag. Now I'm not sharing, get your own bag.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (09:16):

Well, and some of this, I guess we can attribute to mindset beliefs. I mean, cause I th I really believe that's important because I've had people ask, you know, over the years, talk about the surgery or doing this or doing that. But my, my I'm not against that. I'm just more to the point of, if I don't change my thinking, it doesn't matter what I do mechanically like that I'm going to end up right back in the same place, because I've seen people like that. It's like, you know, they have the surgery, they do good for a while. And then the next thing you know, they're at the Mexican food place having a big old plate of enchiladas and for margaritas. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, that was just like, you know, 10,000 calories you just consumed there. And so

Terry - Feeding Fatty (09:59):

Many thousand dollars.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (10:02):

So, uh, anyway, I just, I think the mindset in our beliefs and what we can do, I think that's very important to address it, to realize it, to be honest with ourself about it, and then, you know, try to make changes there.

Gregory (10:18):

Yeah. And you know, it, our beliefs can be tricky. And what is a belief? A belief is a thought. We think that's all, we just keep thinking it because somebody told us something about it. And we said, Oh, that's true for me. Or that's true about the world. The world is flat. That was a belief that we have until we could prove other words otherwise. So when we have beliefs about our body, my body doesn't lose weight. I've tried everything. It doesn't work. Then we're less likely to believe that we can and try something new or we try it. But half-heartedly in the back of our minds. We're like, it's never going to work. It just doesn't work for me. And, and that's one of the most limiting mindset traps, um, is to believe something will not work. And I'm a little bit fresh as a coach sometimes. And what can I have somebody say, well, you don't know me. We all want to be special. Right. My story is different. You don't know my body. I always say, you don't know my process. If you will try my process and do it exactly the way I say, you might get a result. No guaranteed. But are you willing to try? Right. That's it are people willing to try something that they think they've tried, but unless they've tried it with that, chef coached nutritionist, whatever, they haven't tried it. Right.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (11:37):

Right. And I think that works for life in general because, you know, there's an old saying that it is this going to work or it isn't it going to work. And the answer is, yes, it's, whatever you believe of that. And so, you know, feeding ourself that positive information that I can do this, I can not eat that. Or, uh, I think that really fits to a lot of things in life. We have to change flip that switch and be positive and always be feeding ourself, the inspirational positive information. And you know, a lot of, here's another great saying that I'm about inspiration. It's like, um, do you, do you really need that every day? I mean, you have to, you know, is it, you get it once it doesn't last forever? And somebody said, yeah, well, it's like taking a bath. I mean, you've got to do it every day. And some days are harder than others. We wake up and feel like, uh, I'm not going to make it today. We've got to flip that switch and say, you know what, it's going to be okay. And I can do this. And if I go wrong, then we got to immediately say, you know what? That was just a one-time thing. I can get back on this and do good at whatever exercise, eating a lot of things in life. I think fall under that.

Gregory (12:50):

Yeah. And the whole good and bad thing is another trap. You know, I, I was so bad last night, I ate 14 cookies, you know, whatever. Yeah. And then there are good and bad foods. Like a cookie is obviously a bad thing. If we put it in a bad category, it's only it's, it may be detrimental. It may not make us feel good, but food by its very nature is just a thing. It's just food. Right.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (13:15):

Exactly. I know that's a good point.

Gregory (13:17):

I really believe that everything can be included in a healthy way of eating. I just believe that that is the truth. And you were here, you were saying earlier that, um, Terry can, you know, walk away from a bag of something. Well, my husband, I was, I brought out a bunch of ingredients and he said, why, what are, what are these chocolate chips doing on the counter? She's he's always trying to lose weight. I said, well, I feel like making cookies is you can't make cookies. I said, well, I'm going to make cookies. Why? Because you only want an Ollie 200, well, one batch doesn't make 200, but I get your point. I'll give them away. I just felt like having a cookie. Yeah. And I want him to have a cookie too, but I won't leave enough around so that he can, you know, stuff himself. He doesn't sit down, he pulled back. It's like one, two, then there's tea time at four, we have another cookie. It's easy for them to disappear. I understand.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (14:08):

Oh, well, that's why we do better with nothing around for me. But you know, she'll buy something and have it in the cabinet. And then, you know, she'll take one bite of it and come back a couple of days later expecting it. That's still going to be there, which I don't know. I'm trying to change her mindset on that one, that you leave it around. It's going to end up being disappeared.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (14:30):

Well, and how hormones you talk about hormones, um, being, uh, you know, something that affects, uh, our, I mean the eating process and, and, um, Y you've talked about it cause I'm not doing it very well.

Gregory (14:52):

So whenever we mentioned the word hormones, people think about their sex hormones. Yeah. Okay. Important hormones. But there are other hormones in the body and there are certain things that all of the hormones are messengers. So if a hormone is released, let's just say our thyroid is activated by the pituitary gland, by a hormone trigger, a hormone called T S H thyroid stimulating hormone. There are other hormones like insulin. And so anyway, on and on throughout the body, stress creates hormones. Food creates hormone, not creates them, but has them release and move around in the body. And certain foods release, help the body release too much of certain things and not be able to use other things too much insulin, too much blood sugar, then there's too much insulin circulating. And then we get insulin resistance and inflammation. So the, the way to manage your hormones and hormones are also in the case of certain hormones, fat storing hormones, right.

Gregory (16:03):

And fat releasing hormones. But when we eat a certain way, which is usually too much sugar, too much starch, we get too many of the fat storage hormones. And when we store fat, where does it go in the cells, we get fat, fat cells get sad, or we get up, right. So it's very important to manage your blood sugar. And that's the simplest way to describe it, forget all the names of the hormones. If you eat only enough of the foods that produce enough blood sugar, so that you have energy and vitality, you won't have to worry about having too many hormones cascading around in your body. If you eat, you know, good, healthy protein, lots of the right kinds of vegetables, not just the potatoes and the beets and the corn, but you know, and again, you know, we're all sitting here, nodding and everybody listening is like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gregory (16:52):

I heard a lot before. Yeah. And it's easy to do. I always tell people have one good carb a day if you're trying to lose weight and that's it like, if it's it breads your thing, have yourself a good old slices or two of toast sandwich, whatever cereal, oatmeal, that kind of thing. But it's easy to add it up if you have it at breakfast and then you have it at lunch and have it at dinner before, you know, it you've really had more carbs than your, especially at dinner, then you're going to burn off. Yeah. Cause we usually our activity usually declines in the evening. Yeah.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (17:25):

Oh, go ahead. I know I was going to say, and is it better to eat the carbs in the morning or in the evening? Probably.

Gregory (17:33):

So if you are more active in the morning, I would say, eat them in the early part of the day. You know, even if you exercise after lunch or late afternoon, um, you know, there's a, a saying eat breakfast, like a King lunch, like a Prince and dinner, like a, yeah. So I would include the carb ratio of that way. Right. If you're a card person, get them in, get them out, use them up.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (17:57):

It gets us to the point of looking at labels because I think, um, once I started looking, I was very surprised at where they hide the carbs at. And there's a lot of things that you wouldn't think, or even just making a different choice, like, uh, the type of bread that you eat. I know there are some that are, you know, 20 carbs, a slice, but I think Terry's found something that's, you know, more like 10 or 12, just little bitty, uh, adjustments like that can really go a long way.

Gregory (18:29):

Yeah. And what you have with that car. Right. So if we're just eating, like, and I was a kid like wonder bread with some margarine on it, by the slice, after slice, after slice, that's not a good idea. Right. But if you have your bread with some Turkey, eggs, um, maybe tofu, cheese, you know, some kind of protein, it helps slow the absorption of the carbs into your system. So you're not getting like a blood sugar rush. Yeah. It takes more time to digest it. So it takes more time for it to be released into the bloodstream. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (19:03):

One thing you mentioned earlier that has gotten a lot of attention lately is inflammation. And, uh, I mean, I know I, I don't, I guess it's a chicken or the egg. Some people are like, yeah, the inflammation comes. Some people like, know what we eat. I mean, I guess it's a combination in reality, but it can be the starting of a lot of things that really go wrong for us in our body.

Gregory (19:26):

Yeah. So that chicken and the egg thing is, does disease cause inflammation or does inflammation cause disease. And I would have to say that they're leaning in the direction of, we create a system, a situation of inflammation in the body that makes the body more susceptible to the diseases of inflammation. That sounds crazy. But you can't, I don't think we can have inflammation. I mean, if you're sick, if you have a virus or you cut yourself, you're going to get inflammation around the spot of the cut. Right. You've seen the redness, you feel the heat, you get a fever, that's also inflammation. But what we're talking about is systemic internal inflammation where things like the arteries getting narrower, the digestion gets slower. Um, all kinds of processes are not able to function fully. And of course when the system's not working, right, it's going to burn some parts it's going to break down. Yeah. So, um, and stress is a huge creator of inflammation in the body. You wouldn't think that what you're thinking. Cause of course stress is usually what we're thinking about. The thing that we think is causing us the stress. Right? Right. Like the traffic is not inside of us, but the traffic is suddenly making us stressed out and crazy. Um, so that's something to watch too for people it's not just diet.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (20:43):

Yeah. And that's where we can, I, you know, my thing is, um, we, we call worrying around here borrowing trouble because you can worry, worry, worry, that thing may not come true. And we kind of had an incident like that, that happened yesterday. You know, I was kinda like stressed out the night before thinking about how I was going to handle this and what's going to happen and yeah. Tossed and turned. And then all of a sudden it didn't materialize, which is like a wasted time, but I'm sure, like you said, that stress the stress and everything it released in my body. Probably not that awesome for that either.

Gregory (21:18):

Well, and especially not sleeping is another contributor to weight gain or hard to lose increases belly fat. Yeah. So that borrowing trouble is also borrowing from your wellness on a scale. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (21:33):

And that's it? That was the actually, if somebody just wrote down was that sleep component. Because with me, we've talked about this a lot, but uh, sleep is a big trigger for a lot of things. Don't want to exercise. Don't feel like it can't move. Uh, also you, I tend to feel like I want to eat more carbs and stuff like that to try to get that quick boost of energy. And you kind of get on that roller coaster of, you know, the ups and the downs of that.

Gregory (22:02):

Yeah. That's absolutely right. Your brain is craving your brain needs energy. Your brain is one of the biggest energy sucks in the whole body. Right. And so if it's not up to par, if you haven't given it what it needs in the term, in the form of rest, and it hasn't been able to wash itself clean itself out, it's going to go for the quickest energy source, which is sugar. So any carb that turns into sugar, that kind of thing. It's very, very hard for people to manage their cravings when they're tired.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (22:28):

And we, and again, that kind of leads into listening to our body because I'll tell you where I got in trouble years ago was, you know, at night eight or nine o'clock, I would start getting tired. And so what I would do is reach for something to eat, have a BA have a unhealthy snack. I'm not going to say bad anymore. We'll have an unhealthy snack, you know, right before bedtime or load up on a lot of things. And it became a cycle of, I mean, I don't mind admitting, you know, there was a point that, you know, nine or 10 o'clock, I would run up to the convenience store and get a bag of chips or this or that, just to try to have that in offer. I still offer Terry every now and then at 10 o'clock at night, I'll say, I'll run up and get you a candy bar if you really want one. But especially when I'm stressing out and he's like, ah, you okay, what you need. But I think that, um, you know, had, uh, have, uh, been smart and just realize what's going on. It's like, my body just needs sleep. I just need to lay down to get that rest instead of, you know, female, he doesn't need to be full. Yeah, exactly.

Gregory (23:37):

That's true. It's true though. The more empty our belly is before we go to sleep, the better sleep generally speaking. Yeah. And we also don't get those acid indigestion in the middle of the night things. Right. Yeah. And wake up all bloated and yeah. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (23:54):

Well, we were talking the other day about, uh, you know, we were eating pretty good and, um, it was launching, she said, I told her, so like, I feel just a little bit of a hunger pain. And what I have to realize is that is not as the sound of our, it's not the feeling of death coming upon me. It's like, he just it's okay. It's natural. You know, you feel a little hungry. You're probably going to survive for another, you know, 30 or 45 minutes till you can eat something else.

Gregory (24:21):

Yeah. We're so conditioned to eat on schedules, right. Especially people who work in a job that they have like a lunchtime, right. And you eat whether you're hungry or not, but I always, I have it, I had to break definitely was, especially when I don't do intermittent fasting. You guys were talking about that earlier, the way, the way. Um, I had heard that most, most people, you know, I, I'm not a practicing intermittent faster, but I have, since I learned about it started to make sure that I don't eat at least for 12 hours and I try to go 13 or 14. It's easier in the summer. Cause I leave the house early and go to work. But, um, in any event, I, that got me to realize that I'm often not very hungry first thing in the morning, but I used to try to get my food and coffee and so that I could run outside and be outside and do things and then come back in and be in the office and do like that kind of stuff. Now I realize, and then if I have my coffee at eight 30 or nine and some light breakfast and my husband's eating at noon, cause he started at six 30 eating, you know, his breakfast. I don't have to eat with him. Right. I don't, I'm not hungry, but you know, it's just a reconditioning kind of thing.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (25:34):

Well, there's been a lot of talk and I, I guess there's a lot of evidence that, um, our body, you can correct me if this is misstatement, but it's like our, when our bodies are so focused on digestion, it's not healing other things and it's not refreshing other systems in our body. Is that

Gregory (25:54):

Yeah, I would say, you know, I'm not an expert in that particular category, but my understanding is that we, when we can have more hours between digestive sessions, you're right. The body can heal. But also when our blood sugar can finally go way back down to base level, then the body rejuvenates, it's not like you said, spending all that energy because digestion is a, is a intensive process. Let's put it that way. Well, depending on what's eaten, obviously if you're having a chicken broth, that's so much, right. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (26:27):

I haven't had we've I guess we've been kind of playing around with it the last week or so. And I haven't surprisingly breakfast is my favorite meal and it would be when I would get up and eat the most, but surprisingly, um, I have some G and I'll put a little geeky in my to help me, but, um, I haven't really been having that, you know, the dire feelings of hunger or feeling bad or running down on energy, you know, leading up to us, eating around noon or so it's been interesting. Yeah. And again, you know, we we're like everybody else, we're kind of searching around trying new and different things just to see what works, what helps us feel better. Again, you know, we always say always recommend go to your health professional, let them, you know, tell you what's going to work for you or let them monitor these changes that you're making.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (27:18):

Please don't do any crazy stuff on our recommendation, but you know, always seek out a doctor dietician or somebody like that that can help you with that process. But you know, we enjoy kind of testing things out because it's hard for us in, I say us it's hard for me because we tried the cooking angle, you know, back at the end of last year, when we first started this show, Terry got into this culinary medicine cooking class and we did it once a week, which it was fun. Awesome. A lot of time for us together, but it's so time consuming. It just wasn't sustainable for us every night to spend, you know, two hours preparing a meal. Yeah.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (28:00):

And that's because my knife skills are not, not very good. It just takes me a while. I got to get the chopped up stuff.

Gregory (28:10):

Yeah. I get that. Yeah. The night it is, it's not sustainable. Like you said, I try to make, I mean, I'm a chef. I could make anything that I wanted, but I, most meals are very simple. I boil some fish, I rice and chicken and I throw a chop on the grill or, you know, we have salad, we have a lot of salad and a lot of veggies. And cause I don't feel like cooking either at the end of the day, especially.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (28:34):

Right, right. Yeah. And that the, the, um, the vegetable part, you know, it's hard for me because, uh, up until about six months ago, I thought there were only two vegetables, potatoes and corn

Terry - Feeding Fatty (28:48):

And

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (28:48):

No, there was a whole other category of vegetables out there.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (28:52):

Yeah. I say squash in his face just

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (28:56):

Yeah. But you know, it's, I guess it's also, I have to give Terry credit. She's very inventive of seasoning. And so,

Terry - Feeding Fatty (29:06):

Because I need to leave. Yeah. I just need a little

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (29:08):

Crunch and that's one thing I notice that, you know, when, when you do the vegetables a lot, um, I don't get that like, uh, you know, that texture maybe has something to do with that.

Gregory (29:20):

Oh yeah. Texture is a huge way that we get satiated with our food. It's not just flavor. Right. It starts with our eyes to be honest. And then what we can smell and then what we taste and texture is the third, fourth component of a satisfying meal. Yeah.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (29:36):

Well in RA, you know, we don't, we don't eat enough raw vegetables that don't think

Gregory (29:42):

Maybe that I, I, uh, there is a doctor trying to think of his name, begins with a D anyway. Um, an amazing guy who, uh, when I met him, he was, uh, practicing as a holistic or osteo. And then he opened a whole school to train other people that wanted to do that. Um, but he used to say, if all you did every day was one bowl of cooked and one bowl of raw, like a good sized cereal bowl, one of cooked, one of Ron Brock could be a salad, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, whatever that would change people's lives because most people don't even get that much in it. Yeah. It's interesting. Not rocket and go right to, sorry, not raw cookie dough. Oh, dear sticks. A broccoli with broccoli and zucchini.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (30:30):

Yeah. Yeah. Because that's, you know, just like our diet or my diet was, you know, easily meet up the potato or the corn and bread, you know, those were the three categories. And so, you know, really making that swap over to being more mindful about the vegetables, about how we cook them. Uh, the other thing that we've done a lot too lately is the smoothies. I dunno if you've, if you do that, recommend that, but it's a good way to put all that stuff together. We put a little protein powder in, on top of it and it really kind of masks the taste if you're uncomfortable eating some vegetables.

Gregory (31:08):

So you do put veggies in your smoothies. Yeah.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (31:10):

We've been to doing a spinach and kale, things like that. Uh, we had a, we had a guest on that was just talking about, he was, um, and I can't recount the whole story. It was on, uh, our aging show. And so he, um, something about the eyes and so what him and his wife did, they cut breakfast out with the, uh, the gluten and started having the smoothie in the morning because of some score that has to do with your eyes. But anyway, they scored really high on this because they cut that gluten out in the morning and just did the smoothies with some protein and spinach or kale. And, uh, you know, it's, it's easier, Travis. Yes, yes. Yeah. It's much easier for me to stomach to do that, but you know, it's just, again, I think we get back to the first thing we talked about is our mindset and our belief, I've got this belief. I don't like vegetables or can't eat them or whatever that may be, but it's just gradually saying, look, I've got to, in order to be healthy, there's just no way around that. Or my belief is there's no way that we have to, that has to be a large part of our consumption every day.

Gregory (32:22):

Yeah. And I liked the way you put that I have to, right. This is just, there's no avoiding it. At some point, we have to be the adult in the room for ourselves to the corner who wants the ice cream every night. Right. And so, you know, whatever it takes, I'm going to figure how to do this because, you know, life where, you know, aging is inevitable, but I don't want to end up that I can't eat or enjoy my life because I didn't take the time to say, now is the time for me to change some habits. Right. Because you know, sometimes people's digestion gets so bad. They can't eat X, Y, or Z, no spicy food, no tomato, no. I've seen people get older and lose so many of the categories of things that they love. But it's mostly because they didn't nurture like a healthy biome. And we're talking about the biome these days and a healthy digestive system and good sleep habits. It all adds up. There's no escaping it. I mean, some people do, right. Do we all know somebody who is old and like has been smoking and drinking and they're still like rocking on the porch, having parties with their friends. I don't, I would love that to be me. I don't know whether it's going to happen. So on the erring, on the side of caution.

Terry - Feeding Fatty (33:33):

Yeah. So be, you know, try to take care of it before you get the choices taken away from you. And the older we get, um, the clearer, it becomes that, Oh, okay, this could happen. This could happen. And the more people we talk to now, it's like, Oh, we gotta, we have to, we have to do it

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (33:54):

Well to quote Willie Nelson. He said, there's more old drunks than there is old doctor. So I guess I'll have another one.

Gregory (34:02):

I'll have what he's having.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (34:05):

We don't, we don't want to promote that. I was, that was a joke for anybody that heard that. So, but it is, I mean, it's important because I, um, I don't think I obsess over it, but it's become much more clear in my thoughts that, you know, I, I can't go into the next phase of my life being heavy out of shape, not, you know, getting out and walking and doing these things because it's eventually going to catch up and we will outlive that wellness and then be a burden to somebody else. Or at the very least, we have to sit in a chair and watch the rest of the world go by and not be able to participate in that. So I think that's, you know, kind of what was one thing that really got us started in this journey. And that's the one thing that kind of keeps me searching around trying to find something that, you know, will fit for me. And that works good for me

Terry - Feeding Fatty (34:57):

And is sustainable. Yeah.

Gregory (34:59):

Yeah. And you can always switch it up, you know, it could work for a year and feel really good. And then one day you think, you know what I did well on a plant-based diet. And now I really miss I've read countless stories of mostly young women. Interestingly, that went vegan for years. And then one day they weren't, well, they had no wire and they couldn't get pregnant, whatever the story was. And they added a little bit of meat protein back into their diet and changed everything. So nothing is set in stone that we decided about our diet.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (35:28):

Exactly. So what are some, I know we're getting pretty close and long on time, but just for a minute, what are some things that genes, you know, how can we overcome that? I mean, I guess is that just mindset thinking that this is our body and we can't do this, or, you know, what are some tips or tricks that you can help us with?

Gregory (35:49):

Okay. So there were a lot of subjects in that question. I want to go back to the genes, let's start with the genes. So genes, I literally just did this research gesture day for a client that I'm copyrighting for and our genes by all, uh, the experts that this was a meta-study they say between 20 and 30% of who we are. And our longevity possibility is determined by our genes. That leaves a lot of room for us to have an impact on our genes. And one of the things there's a woman named Pam peach. She's a, she's a motivational person, doctor, she's a physician, but did a lot of motivational speaking. And she did a lot of coaching with women and she says, genetics loads, the gun and lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (36:40):

Interesting. I love that.

Gregory (36:41):

Yeah. I think that's a great metaphor for we come in with certain proclivities and you could get every gene tested in your body and you will find anomalies. You'll find broken ones, snipped up what? Right. It doesn't mean it's going to turn into a disease unless we create the condition within the body for the certain diseases. Everybody on the planet has cancer cells in their body, every single human and not everybody gets cancer. And not everybody, I'm not saying that people that get cancer are responsible for their cancer, right? I'm not blaming anybody for a disease process. I'm just saying certain people will create a condition in their body. That, that gene that is a little bit screwed up has the environment. It needs to go crazy to create something else. And the easiest ones to recognize are the lifestyle diseases or diabetes and cancer, to a certain extent, but heart disease and diabetes, 75 to 80% of all people suffering could have less suffering and less symptoms if they could change their lifestyle habits. Yeah. Yeah. And some people will do well on medication. Not everybody needs medication. Most people need a change of what they're eating to do.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (37:57):

Yeah. And it's important. I'm going to interrupt you for a minute to say that, um, the, the diabetes, and then there's been this linked to Alzheimer's recently, they're calling it the what type three diabetes. Uh, so, you know, that's another thing to think about is, uh, some of these unhealthy habits, they lead to other things, you know, in our, at the end of our life. And so whatever we can do to help minimize it may be we're predisposed to Alzheimer's anyway, because of our genes and our family, but our unhealthy lifestyle guests can contribute to making that a reality. Absolutely.

Gregory (38:36):

In the book, successful aging by Daniel Levitin, he says that most people that live to 80 in a fairly healthy condition, you might have, everybody has a bump on a hurdle in a thing. Right, right. Somewhere after 80 is when disease processes start to kick in. Okay. And if you've done your homework or your longevity work until then you can have a better chance of not succumbing to the most awful ones you made, then get heart disease. You may then have a kidney problem. You may then get dementia or a mild form, but you're not necessarily setting yourself up for the big Alzheimer's cancer of, you know. So I thought that was really interesting that many people who are practicing healthy habits have a good chance of living to 80 in a good frame of body and mind. And then, you know, we have to be prepared for other things, but

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (39:29):

Right. Yeah. And the other part of that conversation, and I know this is way too much to cover, but just making a point is that yeah. You know, just making the point that, um, the, you know, the doing the, there's been some research that I have read, that's kind of linked our explosion of Alzheimer's today to our diet, uh, back in the seventies and early eighties when the low fat was huge. And so, uh, I guess everything in moderation, we need to have that fat intake because of the, um, I guess it kinda lubricates the receptors in our brain. And if you don't have enough, but then there's this, there's a myth that, well, um, our brains only run on the carbs, but there is some evidence that we can kind of switch that over to our brains can run on the fat intake. I'll let you expound on that just a little bit.

Gregory (40:25):

You did a pretty good job. So it's just a matter of reconditioning the brain to run on fat, as fuel, as opposed to sugar. And that's where the keto diet comes into play. It really reconditions, people's whole metabolism. And, you know, so the, and fat, the going back to the eighties, I, I did a talk for many years all about when Snackwell's came in. Do you remember Snackwell cookies, the low fat, finally low fat in the, I think it was three years subsequent to the cause it really became a craze. Like everything became low fat. Right, right. After that happened well in the next three to five years, I think it was the percent of the increase in heart disease and other kinds of diabetes and stuff like that went up like off the charts exponentially because people had replaced healthy fats or even not such healthy fats, but they don't cause the glucose spike with a lot of sugar because you got to put something back into the thing when you take something out of it.

Gregory (41:27):

Right. Right. And so what we were doing was causing this inflammatory response in the body, all these people with all of these low fat products. And we really haven't recovered from that. I don't think even though they're not a big deal anymore, there are still low fat products. They're not like the go-to thing. Right. But so going back to your point about the brain, if we forget a Blake, don't worry about low fat, so much worry about a balanced diet of healthy. And if you think about a piece of let's just take salmon, salmon has a pretty high fat content. If you get deep water salmon, right. Cold-water salmon like Norway and Alaska. And those it's a natural package of fat protein and other nutrients, even vegetables have fat and nutrients, right. There's always a little bit of fat in almost every planet on the earth. But I mean every piece of food that's natural to the earth because that's what we're designed to have a balance.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (42:19):

Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. And I guess before we wrap up one thing, uh, it's suggestible is just go to your doctor and have all your blood work done and get these levels tested because that may actually, uh, show you where you're deficient show you where you're over. I mean, that could be a big part of how we want to eat going forward if we knew that information. Correct.

Gregory (42:45):

Oh yeah. And so I not I'm a cholesterol is not killing you. Crazy person. Cholesterol is not the enemy people. I eat a lot of fat. I, certain people need more fat in their diet. I think my probably a 40% fat in my diet, my triglycerides are like 58, which is low. Right. My cholesterol is super healthy. So the people that fear that if they eat well, if I put more fat in my diet, it's going to cause all these problems. It's not, it may, depending on who you are, which is why to your point, right. Get your blood levels tested, right. Have a full cardiac panel. Don't just get your cholesterol levels, taste tested like LDL and HDL, have them break the particles down, LDL, big, small, all that stuff. You need to know those numbers and your inflammation numbers are really the easier. I mean, the sooner you find out, if you have inflammation, the better, it will be free going forward. Cause you can start to do things now to reduce that.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (43:39):

Yeah. Yeah. And, and whatever you do as well, you know, we kind of pushed that. We need to know the macro nutrients or micronutrients that we take. And so, you know, we have the, the app, we put stuff in because it's funny, you know, even when we thought we were eating very healthy, there were still nutrients that we were totally deficient in. And so it, it, it's not the end all be all. But I think what it does, it helped us adjust our eating because we could say, okay, well we're not getting enough of this. Maybe here's a food that we could add that could help us with that. Again, I know that's a lot of trouble, but um, you know, if you have the time and the energy to do that, I think it can be very helpful as well.

Gregory (44:19):

Yeah. That's a great idea. And I have to, again, like I said, I'm a bit of a bear when it comes to coaching, what's more important. If it takes a little time, what's more important than your health. Exactly. You want to be that one sitting and watching the world go, or do you want to say, I'm gonna take a little bit of time every single day, 15 minutes, right. To decide what I'm eating or for the week to decide what I'm eating and to make sure that I get enough nutrition, because I'm going to check in with fitness pal or whatever those apps are once a week and see how I'm doing. You know, I think we can't use those kinds of ways of thinking anymore. That it's takes too much time.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (44:51):

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, Greg, thanks so much for taking time to be with us. Uh, it's a real pleasure talking to you. We love it. A lot of great information. So, uh, before we get away though, tell us, uh, you know, what is a habit that you have a habit, an app, something that helps you professionally, personally, that you just couldn't live without that as a lot of value to your day.

Gregory (45:16):

Oh dear, are you asking me this once before and add, threw me off? You know what I really love there is an app called Headspace and it is a meditation app and it can be free or paid. And the guy who started it, I don't know how many voices there. I think there's only two there English. I have an 11 English accent. You can put it on for five minutes, 10 minutes. I'm not a big meditator. My meditation practice looks like my chess game is really bad usually, but some days I need to get out of my head. It's on my phone. I get in my comfortable chair over here. I put my earbuds in, I sit there, they talked to me, they tell me nice things and I feel better. It's a simple little thing, but I never

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (45:59):

Interesting. Yeah. Yep. Cool. I'll have to check that out. I've never heard of that. Yeah. All right. Awesome. All right. Well tell people how they can reach out, tell them, you know, first who do you work with? How can they reach out and get a hold of you also tell us where we can pick up a copy of the book.

Gregory (46:15):

Thank you for asking. So my website is rebelliouswellnessover50.com. And you can, you can reach out literally by emailing me at [email protected]. But if you go to the website, I have a page there that the little tab at the top, one of them says the book and people can actually download the first, like I would say, section of the book, that's the philosophy behind the book, why I wrote it, where I was. Um, and the reason those things are in there and I make it available to people is because it may not be the right thing for them. I don't like people to have to buy a whole book that they're not gonna use. So this gives you a pretty much a taste and I've got some products on the website, a lot of free stuff, information about sort of the same way we were talking today. Um, so that's pretty much the best and I have a podcast of the same name. You can find it on Apple, iTunes, I mean, Apple and Stitcher and all those good places.

Roy - Feeding Fatty - Is Your Mindset Holding You Back In Your Efforts To Get Healthy? (47:10):

Okay. Well, great. Awesome. Well, thanks a lot. Um, that's going to do it for us and, uh, you can always find us of course, at www.feedingfatty.com. We're on all the major social media platforms, as well as, uh, a video of this interview will be on YouTube as well. When it goes live, where you are on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google, Spotify for nine Oh one that you listened to certainly reach out. We'll be glad to add you on. So that's going to do it for us. Thanks a lot, Gregory. Appreciate you being here.

Speaker 4 (47:44):

Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

 

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