What’s up everybody.
It is me drew Manning your host of the fit to fat to fit experience podcast, creator of fit2fat2fit.com, where I intentionally gained 75 pounds on purpose in six months, documented the whole journey on my website and on YouTube. And then fortunately last, all the way in another six months, uh, in a nutshell, I learned so much more on the mental and emotional side of transformation. Having done this journey that went viral, I’ve been on certain TV shows like dr. Oz and good morning America, and the view talking about the lessons I learned, and I wrote them also in my New York times bestselling book called Fitbit fit. So definitely check that out on Amazon, if you haven’t yet. Or if you haven’t heard of me yet, today’s guest is Stephanie [inaudible]. She is a clinical nutritionist, weight loss and emotional eating expert all the way from Montreal, Canada, she’s French Canadian.
Um, let me, can I dive into the mental and emotional side of transformation, uh, and especially focusing on cravings, the three steps that she recommends to help people overcome cravings since she lost a hundred pounds on her own. But the cool thing that we dive into is, um, how weight loss does not equate to happiness, right? She lost a hundred pounds, but she still wasn’t fulfilled. She was successful in her job. Um, you know, in the corporate world, super successful, lost a hundred pounds still wasn’t fulfilled. So we talked about how health is so much more than just the weight loss. And so we dive into that. Um, but before we dive into that, you guys a really quick, if you haven’t subscribed to my podcast, please do so on iTunes or Stitcher. That definitely helps out with ratings, which means the podcast will be, um, you know, available to more people.
More people will get their eyes on it. Also, please leave us a review as well. Let me know honestly, what you think of the podcast, if you hate it. Cool. I respect you still. I still love you if you love it. And then please let us know. Please let your friends and family know. I appreciate all support that you guys give me, um, from, uh, from, you know, following my podcasts and I try and deliver a high quality content each and every week. Also really quick before we jump into the show, if you haven’t checked it out yet, you guys, I finally launched my keto program is a 60 day intro to keto program, right? So it’s an introduction. It’s very basic. We don’t dive into the science at all. Um, very deeply. I just try to keep it very basic, very simple, but it’s a very easy to follow a PDF that you can download.
It’s I think it’s $37. If you go to quito.fit to fat, to fit.com, people have been asking for this ever since I was on the dr. Oz show last year, talking about the ketogenic diet, that benefits of it, you know, the improvement in cognitive function, mental clarity for me is why I love it, but also, you know, you can use it for other therapeutic applications. So definitely check it out. keto.fit to fat, to fit.com. And before we jump into the show, let’s give a shout out to our show sponsors because without our show sponsors, we wouldn’t be able to have this podcast. So first and foremost, my friends over@anfbomb.com. So if you do live a high fat, low carb lifestyle, checkout drop an F bomb.com. These are easy, um, single-serving packets of high quality fats. So things like coconut oil, olive oil, macadamia, nut butter, um, uh, avocado oil, all these different high quality fats that are hard to get access to on the road, or it’s very inconvenient to bring a whole bottle of olive oil or coconut oil with you and your bags.
Uh, they have these single serving packets you can bring with you. For me, it makes it so much easier to get my healthy fats in when I travel. So definitely check them out. If you guys want a discount, just use my code fit to fit@dropanfbomb.com for 10% off of their high quality delicious fats. I love their macadamia nut butter. It’s so good. Um, so, so it definitely showed them some of also my friends over at Organifi Organifi is by far the best tasting powdered green supplement I’ve ever taken. And I love that has things like ashwagandha and turmeric in it, these healthier, um, it was a minerals, uh, but it actually tastes good. Good. That’s the biggest thing I find when I recommend a green powder to people, people are like, Oh, this one’s cheaper. And you know it, you know, and I can find it at my local Walmart and that’s totally fine if you can stomach the taste of it.
Uh, they do not usually taste good, but Organifi does a great job of making it taste good. They also have recently launched a turmeric and probiotic and they have their own plant based protein, which tastes amazing as well. If you’re, if you’re into plant based protein. So definitely check them out. If you use my discount code Fitbit fit, once again, I try and keep it consistent for you guys. These are some of my favorite brands out there that I highly recommend. I use myself personally, and that’s why I’m okay with recommending them and having them on as sponsors of my podcast. The last show sponsor you guys is my friends over@questkito.com who make living a keto lifestyle so much more convenient because every once in a while, you know, I have two kids when life gets busy, it’s so much easier. Sometimes you want some convenient food.
And in the past before keto, what would people do? New? We would reach for fast food, you know, pizza or, or burgers and fries, something really quick and really easy if you don’t have any food prepared. And I know in my life I get in jams where I’m like, okay, I need something quick and easy, but it’s hard to keep it Quito, right? Low carb, high fat. And that’s why quest keto, their frozen meals make it so much more convenient. They have things like sausage pizza and they have, um, these, uh, uh, um, I want to say sausage McMuffins, but that’s obviously it’s not McDonald’s, but it’s the same kind of concept, uh, of a little bun with meat and cheese. Uh, they have tomato bisque, bacon cheddar tomato bisque soup, which is amazing as well. And you just heat it up with the microwave and it’s good to go. Uh, I have maybe one of these per day, uh, if I’m, if I’m in a rut, but check them out at [inaudible] dot com. All right, you guys, let’s go hang out with Stephanie ed.
Stephanie, how are you doing welcome to the show. I’m doing fabulous. Very good. Thank you so much for joining me all the way from Montreal, right? Is that where you currently reside
For a beautiful province of a French Canada so that the accent you’ll Ditech is French.
It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. To be honest with you, I’ve been to Montreal one time. It was last summer and it was, it was so amazing. That was my first time in Canada. And so the only place it had been in Canada is Montreal. And that was such a great experience. Um, not one person was mean it’s so funny how all Canadians are so nice.
It’s very warm and hugging people and Kipling Quebec particularly.
It’s so true. The joke out there was, you know, if you step on a Canadian’s foot, they’ll apologize for their foot being in the way. That’s what I loved about it. But anyways, um, the, the accident is beautiful and I’m so honored to have you on. Um, and, uh, I kind of want to introduce you a little bit to my audience and your story because you, you lost a hundred pounds, but what’s so cool about that is most people’s stories. You know, you see on TV shows, even my TV shows like that’s the ending point. You did it, you, you accomplish it, but that wasn’t the finish line you even talked about in your story. I heard your story and you were saying how you, you still weren’t fulfilled. You still weren’t happy, even though you did this amazing, incredible thing, losing a hundred pounds, which is incredible and always will be, but that’s not the end all be all. So kind of tell us about your story, what led up to that, and then how you lost the weight. Of course, and then the, you know, how, um, how it didn’t really equate to happiness for you?
Absolutely. So we’re going to step back six years ago. And at that point it was 35 years old and I was, uh, an executive in a major retail outlets in Canada. And I was a very busy person and I was in meetings and in planes all the time. And one day I was about to step onstage to give a public speak, which I did all the time. It wasn’t very stressful for me, but my, at that point, my breath saw my heart started to race and I were literally collapsed on the ground. So everybody around me thought I was having a heart attack. And so in an ambulance, I went to the hospital and six hours later came out of that emergency trip with a diagnosis of panic attack, not heart attack. And for people to understand is at that point in my life, I was a hundred pounds overweight, but I was just diagnosed with prediabetes high cholesterol. I was inflamed. I had a skin condition and I smoked a pack a day.
Wow. That’s a lot of health problems in one. Okay.
And I didn’t exercise. I didn’t eat properly. My favorite place to go eat was McDonald’s.
Um, so yeah, so like people can relate to that. A lot of people can relate to that though.
When I ended up in hospital, I had the profile of a heart attack, right. And so I got diagnosed with panic attack and up at my family doctor, which handed me a prescription for anti-depression and anti-anxiety medication. And that’s the moment where my life changed because I left the office with the prescription script in my hand, and I still have the visual picture in my head. I’m walking down the hallway and I look at the prescription and there’s a voice inside of me that said, that’s not the solution. And so I saw a garbage can crumble the script and threw it out and said, I got to figure out something else. And that’s how my journey into the world of health, natural health and nutrition and fitness started is by finding another solution to medication.
It’s really powerful because a lot of people wouldn’t have the courage to do that. You know? So I think it’s remarkable that you were listening to some kind of intuition or some kind of gut feeling saying this isn’t the solution for you. And so that’s a really powerful moment, I think. And a lot of people, I think maybe can take courage and listening to that and not saying that they don’t need to listen to their doctor, but at the same time, you can control certain things in your life that maybe you don’t think you can.
That’s exactly it. Then in that little voice inside of me, it wasn’t clear. It was just that intuition and that gut feeling that led me to know that there had to be something else. Now, let me tell you that the path of finding my solution, wasn’t easy. It took a month of me having almost daily panic attack and anxiety for me to find a health coach and a fitness trainer that actually practice natural health. And he grabbed me under his wing. And then we gradually changed my eating habits. We started to move very slowly and then we attempted to quit smoking, which worked. I quit smoking cold Turkey. And then he put me on nutritional supplement to make sure because when you’re a hundred pounds overweight and you smoke, you’re very toxic and you don’t eat well, he you that right. So he put me on a regimen of supplement to help me detox and the way just started to fall off without me counting one calorie.
Really good. Do you want mine talking about the supplementation? What it was it I’m sure people are interested.
Absolutely basic multivitamin. So, um, he worked under the guidance of a gentleman named, um, um, uh, what’s his name? Polokwane thank you, Charles. Paula Quinn. You probably know Charles. Right? So my mind was blanking out that Paul check in my head for some reason, this the one. Um, so it was all Polokwane professional supplements. So multivitamin and that’s a later to help me detox, fish oil, magnesium, and zinc. Hmm. Five supplements. Okay. Somewhat basic, but that’s what my body needed. Just the basic. And I, we ate Pally, paleo. So he, within the month, what I liked about his approach, which I still practice today is we added food instead of removing. So we layered in vegetables at breakfast and we layered in protein at breakfast. And then the next week we layered in vegetables at lunch. And then we ended up a month later that I was eating vegetables at every meal protein at every meal, healthy fats. And I was making my lunch to go to work.
You know, what’s interesting about that really quick is I think that’s a great approach because for example, smoking, you kind of did cold Turkey. And I feel like if you do cold Turkey from one extreme of a lifestyle to another extreme of a healthy lifestyle, it all becomes overwhelming for people. So I kind of like the baby steps of, Hey, don’t remove anything from your diet. We’re just adding these things in, because I feel like for some people, especially when they have this huge mountain to lose all this weight, the idea of change, like their nutrition, their fitness, everything, cold Turkey, all of a sudden seems overwhelming for people. And I like kind of like that approach of just simple, small steps in the beginning. And then from there, you build on that as it gets easier.
And here’s the thing when you do that, you end up not being hungry because when you put two cups of vegetables at every meal, you automatically end up eating less crackers or breads or whatever it is that you’re trying to pull out of your diet. And that’s what made it so easy for me to transition and not feel overwhelmed. Um, so went to that paleo low carb lifestyle, which ended up being almost a low carb ketogenic lifestyle. And then the weight fell off without counting a calorie because you, I didn’t have the time to, to like put my head to counting calories. I still had a job that was taking me 60, 70 hours a week. And I had to work out and do all those things. So he did it in a matter in which I didn’t have to count anything. And it just like fell off. And my craving went away because for me, the craving were huge. And that’s why I specialize in this right now, right. Is my craving went away at about 70% of them naturally because of the way that I was nourishing myself in the way we approach the change and not having that stress of going like a cold Turkey approach, as you said earlier, and it just, it just fell off naturally in a very simple manner. And then a year later ended up being a hundred pounds lighter, but still not happy.
That’s huge right there. You to talk about that, go ahead.
So I’m, I’m in my office. I’m still working in as an executive and I’m sitting in this big corner office and in my assistant leases a room and I still remember the moment she closed the door and I’m like, it strikes me again, this intuition, like you’re not happy. And I remember saying, I have lost a hundred pounds. I’ve changed my nutrition. I changed my fitness would the hell with me. Right. And it’s like, I’m still not happy. And then the universe, God, whomever you believe into a week later, there’s a friend of mine who put a book on my desk. And it’s the book that teaches about health from a perception of mind, body connection. Right? So it’s called the anatomy of the spirit from dr. Carolyn Myss. And I read through this, I’m like, Oh my God, that’s my problem.
My problem is I had no connection between my mind and my body and I didn’t have this spiritual or belief aspect beyond myself. And then I read through this. I’m like, I got to work on like, first of all, quieting my mind, because my mind was running at a hundred miles an hour, always questioning myself, always like putting myself down, even though I lost a hundred pounds, it was still something wrong with me. Right. And so I worked on that and all sudden that’s when my life went beyond just the weight loss and went into this aspect of, there is such a powerful element to health that people are not aware of. I got to share it with the world and the universe worked his magic again. And my company actually was bought by an American company. I won’t name the name, but people can figure it out. So this big American company came to Canada, bought all our business. And I had an option at that point. Again, the, the two direction of my life, I could go and work for that company or leave the company. Yeah. And I left. And, um, and then this inspiration of helping other people led me to going back to school.
That’s really interesting. And that’s why I love the name of your podcast beyond the food, because it’s beyond that. There’s so much more to health than just, you know, what you put in your mouth and the exercise you do, people think, Oh, just eat healthy and exercise. That’s all you need to do, but it’s so much more than that. And then at the end of the day, it’s so much more than weight. Loss is so much more than our physical appearance. It’s so much more than just our bodies. Uh, but at the same time, we’re so obsessed with that. We’re so obsessed with weight loss. We’re so obsessed with being skinny, having muscles and being, you know, having a six pack when in reality, that is not what brings us happiness. We think that’s like the finish line, but in reality, that’s not like that’s, that’s one small part of the whole puzzle.
If you will. The mental and emotional side is, is the biggest piece of it. But it’s so overlooked in the health and fitness industry. Cause we’re all busy counting calories and macros and still focused on our outward appearance. And so I think it’s very powerful, the message that you, you talked about on your podcast and your, that you talk to your followers and now this is something that you do, um, to inspire other people is that’s the component that’s missing in the health and fitness industry, in my opinion. So it’s great to have other people like you, who, who has a voice and experience and this and who, and you’ve experienced it firsthand. You know, you lost a hundred pounds. That should be amazing. But even with people like on T on the TV shows, even my TV show, it’s not just about, you know, changing your body. It’s a, that doesn’t bring fulfillment. And I live Tony, Tony Robbins quote, you know, successful though without fulfillment is not success, you know?
And it, and it’s exactly what you said. It’s I was driven by the weight loss in the fitness industry to lose a hundred pounds thinking that was the end of it all. And once I have achieved that life would be powerfully good. And it wasn’t, and it’s like, there has to be something else. And that’s exactly what the podcast is about. It’s about giving that something else. I still believe that nutrition and fitness is very important. That’s the primary element that I work with when I work one on one with people, but there’s so many people talking about this. We don’t need another podcast about macro nutrients specifically in the keto and low carb world. I mean, thanks to all the podcasts, just talked about this, right? I’m like, I still believe in Quito, a low carb paleo, but I want to talk about what everybody else doesn’t talk about because that’s, what’s bring health and happiness because in my world, happiness equals health.
And I’ll tell you a little bit of a story. If you’re familiar with something called HPA dysregulation or adrenal fatigue, I had this very seriously, this concept, and I wasn’t able to heal from it no matter how good I ate, like perfect eating, never not eating something correctly. Grassfed food, organic name, it working out five days a week, light workout. And I was still consistently exhausted because your happiness, the way you feel about life, your level of happiness actually produce or moans and neurotransmitter in your brain, which helps regulate all the other hormones in your body. And until I was able to achieve this level of happiness, which regulated other bones in my body, I wasn’t able to regulate this HP dysregulation, adrenal fatigue, or cortisol. However you want to look at it because of my level of internal happiness. Wasn’t what it should have been until I actually tapped into things beyond the food.
I think that’s another powerful lesson for people to hear as well. And I even experienced some of those symptoms as well. I have noticed even I’ve had to scale back my workouts, even though I feel like I eat perfectly for the most part. Right. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t heal everything like you’re, there’s so much more to the other parts of your life relationships, the spiritual side, um, the mental and emotional aspect, uh, the social aspect as well. Those kinds of things have to be in place too. And, and that’s, that’s kind of stuff that’s overlooked in my opinion, same thing with stress. Like you could be eating perfectly and exercising perfectly, but if you have stress in your relationships or at home with your kids or, or spouse or significant other, that’s going to play a factor into your health as well. It’s not just, you know, eating organic and grass fed and that solves everything
Exactly. And it goes a step further that it will actually produce food craving. And that’s what I in the research and the work I’ve done on myself. And that’s why now I specialize in the food craving. And this emotional aspect is because when you don’t have those natural level of happiness, which produce example, um, endorphin, dopamine, or oxytocin neurotransmitter in your brain, you will seek the trigger to produce those hormones and those neurotransmitters somewhere else in your life. And for some people it’s food, because when you eat something such as sugar, for example, sugar act upon your reward center in your brain, and it produced natural reaction of dopamine. When you eat sugar, you produce dopamine, your body needs that dopamine to be healthy and happy, right. And when you don’t have it naturally through your relationship or through your social engagement, you will seek it in food.
Yeah. And a lot of people, you know, that’s their, that’s their drug. If you will, you know, is, is the comfort of food. And it’s hard to break that habit, especially after years and years of, uh, using that as their kind of release, if you will, you know, over and over and over again, and then not realizing it. And then all of a sudden to say, okay, just cold Turkey, stop that. It’s, it’s just like telling a drug addict, Hey, stop doing drugs. What’s wrong with you? You know, it’s not that simple.
And it’s even more evident for women because women are emotional being where are innately different than men because we’re nurturer, we’re caregiver where feeder, we feed baby when babies are born, that’s what the female body is made for. And when a woman is particularly unhappy, depress and not satisfy in her life, she is more likely to go towards food as a way of making herself feel better or avoiding negative emotion than a man.
Hmm. Yeah. I believe that 100%.
I’m sure you see that with your client day to day basis and for men it’s I like, what’s the problem. They don’t understand because we don’t want to build the same. Right.
Yeah.
And that was my thing is, is I was after that, losing that hundred pounds, I was so having craving. And when I started to quiet my mind and practice breeding and meditation, I started to realize that my craving were in moment of stress. They were in moment of loneliness. They were a moment of rejection. How has trying to get away from a negative emotion? I was to sooth myself with food, even though it was all healthy food and don’t take me wrong. Like I was not back in eating McDonald’s when I crave food, I was craving like an extra serving a sweet potato or paleo bread. Right. Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was trying to suit myself. I was trying to avoid this negative emotion by eating food, because it did produce that feeling good for a short amount of time that got me away from that emotion.
Another thing that I think is hard for women too, is, um, when they, you know, when they get into these depressive States, if you will, they also feel like, okay, well, you know, if I just serve others, for example, like moms, like I see this all the time with moms that you’re like, okay, if I just give to my kids or to my spouse and just sacrifice my health, at least that makes me feel better that I’m serving others. But at the same time, they’re miserable and inside. Cause they feel sometimes they feel selfish. If they make time to go to the gym or if they spend extra money on groceries that are organic or healthy and they feel like they’re justified by sacrificing themselves, their health for their kids. Like that’s, that’s their kind of, um, redemption, if you will, is I’m doing this, you know, as a sacrifice for my kids. And when in reality, they’re kind of pouring from an empty cup, even though they’re doing that, do you see that a lot as well with women moms?
Totally. You nailed it on the head. That’s exactly what’s happening for female. And it can go beyond mum totally. Right. With mum, they give to their family and their kids. And part of it is the loss of identity, right? So basically we’re a woman and then we’re a mother, but we jump into that role of motherhood, leaving the woman behind and the individual need of that woman to, to supply the needs of all the other people around us and that loss of identity cause us to not take care of ourselves and to feel guilty. So the part of the process is rebuilding an identity as a woman, by stepping into spaces of self care of going to the gym three times a week, or cooking for ourselves. The biggest challenge for mom is while I want to eat the LT, but the rest of my family doesn’t I can’t do that.
I’m sure you hear that all the time, right? Yeah. Well, that’s step number one. Step. Number one is actually to do it for yourself to build that, that identity that needs to be fulfilled through this proper food. And guess what? 90% of the time, six months down the road, the family will have changed their eating Abbott because mum did it. But first of all, we need to step into that space where we are a woman before being a mother, the same thing happened. The same thing happens for me when I was an executive, right. My first priority in life was to be an executive. Interesting. Right. I didn’t have kids. So my kids were my employees and I had to make the time to go to the gym. I had to make the time to cook on the weekend, go to MIT. That was hard because I had to bring my lunch to work because there was no way I was going to eat vegetable at work if I didn’t bring it to work. Right. So I had to step into being a person, a woman first before being an executive or a mom. And I think that’s the first step for people that are faced with those challenges, remind yourself that you are your own person before being a title or a function in the life of other people.
Yeah. Wow. I actually really love that. I love the way you put that. Cause I think that’s really powerful and really smart. Um, both for men and women, I think it can apply to both, um, in the individual roles. Um, let’s go back to your story a little bit because I think this is another interesting part. How you kind of the risk of letting go of your corporate job, which was safety to all of a sudden going back to school, how was that transition? How was that transition for you? That must have been really hard because here you are super successful and in your job and career and things were going great. And now you’re like, okay, I feel like my inspiration is leading me this way, but I have to go back to school. How was that
Scared the living crap out of me. And it was a decision that I still remember when I made that decision and reminding myself, this is a principle that I used to teach to people that work for me is our success is when we step out of our comfort zone, right? Life begins at the end of your comfort. And I mean, this quote has been thrown around so many ways, but basically for me to grow, I needed to step out of my comfort zone. And at that moment I had pretty much achieved what I wanted at 35 in the corporate world. And I had this opportunity and I knew that fear had to be along the party if I wanted to continue to grow. So when I made this decision, I was scared crap. Like not to use other words. People think that change is comfortable.
Absolutely not. It’s opposite. If you feel comfortable, you’re not challenging yourself enough. So I, I literally acknowledged the fact that theater was going to be part of my life and I just stepped out and put it out. This is what I wanted to do. And then the universe, God put things in my life to aligned my purpose and my passion and ended up going back to school and starting a business and working with people and opening a clinic and all those things aligned themself for me to be successful because I add understood the concept of fear and stepping out of my comfort zone.
So what did you, you went back to school to study holistic nutrition. Exactly.
So in Canada and I’m sure in the U S is the same thing. The, um, the nutrition field of education is pretty much regulated by the government. So if you want to go to do a university degree in nutrition, you have to follow the Canadian food guide. And I clearly did not agree with that. So I could not imagine myself going through four years of university to then not teach what I had learned. So I decided to go to an alternative school called the Institute of holistic nutrition. And I did that for it’s a two year period of, um, of education that we do in a one year intensive. So it’s 11 months straight. So I did that. And then I started to do all kinds of alternative education. So Paul Chek, I did the, um, his chorus. I did some biosignatures chorus from Polokwane and I did a number of course. And then what I have now is a practice that combines a whole bunch of approach together to help women with their food craving and their weight loss. So I built that from a bunch of people’s knowledge.
Yeah. So w let’s let’s kinda just, uh, move into food cravings a little bit, cause I feel like you’re a better expert at this than I am. Cause my, my, my, my, um, association with cravings has been limited cause I grew up my entire life for the most part in shape, you know, playing sports and, and football and wrestling here in America and family of 11 kids. And so we were all active. And so I was never, I never really experienced true cave cravings until I did fit threat to fit, which was a crazy experiment. But even though it was only for six months, it kind of opened up my eyes to the emotional connection to food that before I, I looked at it as an excuse or just lack of willpower that people had like, look, just stop drinking soda. What’s wrong with you.
It’s not that hard until I did it. Yeah. And even though it was only for six months, uh, the cravings were there afterwards. Cause I quit cold Turkey and went back and lost the weight, you know, to make a long story short. But you know, my, my journey is different than someone who has had cravings as long as they can remember. Right. And that, that emotional connection and kind of like that high that they’ve had since a young age is totally different than me, who only did it for six months. So I feel like you’re more of an expert to touch on this field. And what’s the, what are some of the biggest, um, things that you’ve seen help people overcome that emotional connection to food?
Absolutely. But let me ask you a question first, if you didn’t experience craving, as you were growing up, you were likely using something else to make you feel better. Would that have been fitness? Maybe.
Yeah. That’s a, that’s kind of a, what I learned over the years, you know, hindsight’s always 2020. And so looking back, yeah, my obsession was, was, uh, was, and the fitness world, like looking good and working out. And if I didn’t work out for two or three days, I felt, you know, I felt fat already. I felt like, you know, my body was already changing. And so that was my, you know, obsession. That was my fix if you will.
Yeah. So you suit yourself by likely going to the gym six days a week and doing different types of workouts. So you pass your emotion and your suiting through that. So you had craving the outlet, you chose to use wasn’t food at that point in your life. Right? For some people it’s alcohol, some people is drugs, some people with sex, some people like me it’s food. Right. And it’s, it’s the challenge with food is the fact that it has to be in your life no matter what
It’s, every time you go to the grocery store, it’s at your friend’s house, your grandma’s house it’s and you need it. It’s legal to, it’s not illegal, like drugs, right. It’s legal at you. And it tastes really good. Yeah.
And you have the eat. It’s not like alcohol, you can stop it and then you can survive without alcohol eating you can’t, you’ve got to eat. So it becomes even more difficult to actually get over your craving because you have to develop a different relationship to food than you had before. So before for me, and it started for me at the age of 11 and the age of 11, my, we moved from one end of town to the other and it’s not a big deal. But the fact that I lost all my friends and it’s not like I could jump in the car at 11 and drove and see my friends. I was alone in this neighborhood that had no kids. So I felt lonely and I didn’t have any friends. And I started to internalize everything. And one of the way that I found to cope with that was cooking because Quebec European background food is everything right.
We have food everywhere. So I learned to cook very young with my mom. So I started baking cookies and making cakes and so forth and eating it. And now they understand the physiology of it. Like I was feeling rewarded in my brain. I felt good when I ate. So in a sense, and not knowing more than I started eating to make myself feel better because I wasn’t engaging socially with other kids and that carrying my whole life. And I have ups and downs in my weight because at the age of 15, did my first diet lost, I think was 50 pounds at the time. And then went into my teenage year, like with a hot body and not skinny, but very eclectic. Like I’m very like I’m six foot tall and very like in shape from that perspective. And then it carried me through to my first heartbreak.
Then at the age of 22 first rejection from a man, guess what happened? Went back to food, went back to eating, to suit myself. So that’s a history that has been with me my whole life. So when you say, how do we work through craving while we need to rework our relationship to food? So we need to understand number food is nutrition. Food is not making you feel better. It’s never was meant for that. It was meant to nourish your body to fuel your body. So you have to reconstruct that relationship. The number one step I always do with people actually to clean their diet because of a good majority of our craving are actually due to the effect of food. On our body example, sugar, you can knock off a good chunk of your craving by not eating the sugar or reducing your sugar load.
Same thing with dairy. For many, many people, their product is very addictive again because of the opiate capacity it has in the brain and that reward center that it does. So clean up your diet and then move on to observing when you crave food, what is going on around you? When you want to have chocolate, when you crave chips, what is happening? Is there an event? Is there a feeling an emotion? Are you in a fight with your husband? Is your husband out with the boys while you’re left alone on a Friday night? And then all of a sudden you create chocolate, right? And then understanding that the reason why you’re craving isn’t because you’re a bad person. It’s not because your lack of discipline is because your body has registered a way to make you feel better by eating this food.
Yeah. That’s, what’s interesting is that it kind of creates this vicious cycle. Um, you know, and you kind of go back to it, even if you’ve been, you know, like you, your experience, you’ve been cleansed of it for a few years and then something happens and then boom you’re buddies, instead of your mindset instinct is to go back to that comfort zone,
Right? And it makes it even worse. And particularly for women who are what you said earlier for fitness people, because when you go to food and you overeat or you eat food, you shouldn’t be allowed. It does make you feel better. But then it goes into the vicious circle of you’re a bad person. I over then my calorie for the day, I, or I wasn’t supposed to eat bread and I ate bread and whatever it is, then you fall into that, that talk in your head that you’re a bad person. And you went again where you should have been and not about, and then go to happen. You crave more food. And that’s how people go into binges because of the effect of eating the food in the first place to suit an emotion. And then the end up, as people say, getting off track for three or four days, it’s some, because they are lacking discipline. It’s simply because of officials circle that they’re in. So the number one thing to do is to try to understand why you’re craving. And I know for many people, this sound like I have no idea, and I don’t even know how to do this. Right.
Welcome to my world. I have no idea. And that’s how this, this whole book, as I said, in the beginning, the anatomy of the spirit came in and then a person thought me a breeding technique, right? Just simple, deep breathing. And what it does, it actually allows you to think and to quiet your thought, to actually be able to connect with what’s going on in your environment. Because when your brain run as a hundred miles an hour, all the time, you’re not present in the current moment. So therefore you have no idea why you crave and it’s totally normal. So the step of actually quieting your mind and actually connecting through meditation, deep breathing, yoga, whatever it is, is the first step towards you understanding the emotion that’s behind the craving. And then the last step is actually to figure something else than food, right? Try to find another suiting method that does not involve food. And that can be a simple walk in nature. So some people is actually rubbing their forehead or they’re here alone with essential oil. It can be, um, massaging your body on the foam roller. It could be a yoga pose. It could be something else. And you’re changing the pathway in your brain to allow you to connect suiting to something else than food.
And it’s funny because I interviewed dr. [inaudible] a couple of weeks ago on my podcast and we were talking about neuroplasticity and many people say, well, I can’t change my habit. They’ve been with me for 40 years. Right. It’s impossible. Well, actually it is. It’s scientifically demonstrated that your brain has the ability to renew itself physiologically, but also the neural pathway can be reconnected. And the only way to do that is to practice right. Desire and practice, desiring to change something and then practicing, practicing, practicing.
Yeah, no, that those are great first steps. And I know that there’s a lot more to it than that, but I think for people that, you know, um, struggle and what’s so similar about this, or what’s interesting about this is how similar it is to almost any addiction. You know, like you go to AA meetings, it’s, it’s, it’s very similar methods to help people rewire their brains, to find out why they’re craving these, you know, certain foods or drugs, if you will, and find out the why behind it, instead of just saying, we’ll just stop doing it. Right. And that’s where I think the world needs more empathy towards people, not just drug addicts or alcoholics, but people who suffer with real food addiction. And we overlook that because like we talked about food is legal and you need it to survive. You can’t just not have it anymore.
Um, and so that’s why I feel like there needs to be more empathy. And I see a lot of, and this is why I did fit fit. And this is what I try and teach on to the trainers on my TV show who go through this process is, is empathy is so powerful. And I’m in the fitness world. There’s a lot of judgment, you know, and there’s a lot of misunderstanding about why people are overweight. And, uh, this part of it that we’re talking about is so overlooked. And that’s what my whole goal is with fit to fat five fifth and MITV show is to bridge that gap that exists there is to get there to be more understanding so that people who are coaches or trainers can better help their clients on a mental and emotional side. If they understand this side of it versus just, Hey, just work harder, just push through it. You know, it kind of no excuses type of approach doesn’t work for people just like it doesn’t work for drug addicts or alcoholics.
Let me ask you this. Did you have that understanding before going through your own experimentation?
No, not at all. And I freely admit I was probably more of the judgmental person and I was more focused on the physical side. Like, Hey, let’s just stop doing that. And let’s exercise more, eat, less type of approach. And I was so focused on the physical side cause that’s all I could. That’s all I knew. That’s all I knew how to connect with people on was the physical side.
Well, and likely because the physical aspect is what suits your, your life, your entire life. Right. That’s what made you feel good? So automatically that’s a good thing, right? Yes. So it is normal for you to be the way you were without education. You’re like a type a personality to you put yourself through what nobody in the world would want to put themselves through. Right? Yeah, exactly. Very minimum amount of people who would want to do that. But you came out of this with much more than just the experiment of gaining and losing weight. You came out of this with the other side of the story and that’s what make you different from everybody else.
Exactly. And that’s what my whole approach is. Cause I can’t keep doing this. Like I did it once and it was way harder than I ever thought it was going to be. But now my whole goal is to like on the TV show, these trainers have to go through the same thing I did. The whole goal is to get them to kind of come out out of it with more empathy, more respect, and a better understanding on the mental and emotional side, because I feel like that’s, what’s lacking. It’s not so much the knowledge of eat less and work out more. That’s not what people are missing. People know they need to do that. Part of it is just the how on the mental, emotional side. So that’s my whole goal with Fitbit fit.
Well, we have the same goal, right? Because people often ask me what, like how many nutritionists out there? Like there’s thousands and thousands of them. What’s the difference? The difference is I’ve been through it and I still have to work through it and likely will work through with my whole life. It’s my learning journey. Right. Um, and that’s what my approach is, is different. When people come to me or come to my website on my podcast is the fact that I’ve been there automatically. My language is different. Just like you, your language is different today than it was probably 10 years ago. Yeah. So,
Um, we’re coming up on time here, but I kind of wanted to dive into your keto connector and what that was, and kinda talk about your transition from paleo to keto and you know, what, what your philosophy is nowadays now that you’ve, you’ve lost the weight, you know, six years ago and kept it off and what you’ve learned over the years. So maybe talk about that really quick if you don’t mind.
Absolutely. So you’re referring to my book. The keto connector is it’s the mind body connection to the low carb keto approach. So that’s, so for me, I started from a paleo frame, but automatically without me knowing actually went into a low carb setting because of how little carbs I was eating without knowing what it was. So then I went to study nutrition and I realized the impact of insulin on health. And then, so I started and then the keto world came up at the same time. So I wanted to write a book that help people understand that yes, keto is great. He has all the physiological advantage of it, but here’s all the other pieces that nobody talks about the mind body connection and your cravings and your ability to remove stress from your life and learning to understand what your body messages are. So that’s what the KIDO connector is about.
So it’s the foundational element of the diet, but half of it is all the other stuff. So I have the book, I have a video series that help people through the first 30 days. So when they purchase it for $27, they’ll get 30 days of video everyday to guide them through yes, the nutritional change. But honestly, that’s the easiest part. And then we work through all the other aspects through a daily video of five minutes. And then I also have an online community on Facebook where people can come in and ask question and hear through other people going through the same process as them. And it’s honestly very little about food. It’s mostly about life challenges and emotional challenges and how we overcome them with other means than just
Yeah. Yeah. Cause like you said, that the easy part is the food is, that’s the easiest part, to be honest with you, but it’s the mental, emotional side, the application of it, um, to help people overcome those cravings. And so I love that. I love that you have not just the physical side, but also the mental, emotional side tied into it as well. Cause I think that’s what makes any program successful is instead of just, Hey, here’s some meal plans here, some workouts and I’ll go do it. You know, there’s a million of those out there and we all know how that works for most people. So I love, uh, I love what you do, Stephanie. I really do. And I really appreciate you coming on and um, I will have to let you know if I’m ever up in Montreal. So yes. And uh, really quick before or before we go, I just couple, a couple quick questions is, um, the 2017, what’s the, what’s the, if you read books, what’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2017.
Uh, actually it’s a book from Doreen virtue called constant craving. It’s in the Wu aspect of things. I gotta say the Marine virtue were right for the hay house, but it’s about the non-scientific aspect of food craving. So what she has been doing is she’s 72 years old and she worked for the last 40 years, one on one counseling people and she dropped drew a map between the emotion and what type of food people are craving. So literally based on their observation, non-scientific this type of emotion drives to this kind of food. So when people drive at this food, it’s actually this emotion and it’s pretty accurate.
Oh really? Okay. Off the look into that. Cause that’s really interesting stuff, even though it’s not scientific, I think there still could be some correlation there between the emotions and the, the food people are craving. Right?
Exactly. So it’s called constant craving for people willing to go in the non scientific aspect of things.
Okay. And then any supplements or hacks that you’re currently implementing in your life right now that you’re loving, that you would love to, you know, put out there?
Absolutely. There’s the number one supplement in my life right now is from dr. Zach Bush, which I had on my webcast, it’s called restore. And it’s a supplement that helps repair the gut lining, particularly the dump, the damage done to your gut lining by glyphosate. It is re volution airy in the sense that no one has ever looked at it from the damage of the glyphosate. So basically I’m not a scientific biochemistry person, but the molecule inside that liquid, it’s a liquid that you take three times a day will actually counter effect the negative damage of glyphosate in your food.
Interesting. So it’s not a probiotic or anything like that that helps with gut bacteria is you’re talking about the lining of the gut.
I absolutely am. It actually works on the emotional side of it. So his observation through his research is that when people have a leaky gut, they have also no emotional boundaries.
Interesting, because I’ve heard of the, the, like the gut, uh, the bacteria is, is kind of like your, your body’s second brain and emotions and depression have kind of been linked to that. So I kind of looked into that recently, but that’s really interesting. So what have you noticed by taking, like, what do you notice differences in taking it? Like what do you notice?
So my gut was pretty LT already, so it’s, from that perspective, physiologically no difference, but from an emotional perspective, safety and my decision, a better strength about where I’m going and the decision that I’m making. And that wasn’t a matter of like a couple of weeks of taking it three times a day. It’s unknown. He’s just to get out to the world. He just did a, um, a webinar with dr. Mercola last week. I think so watch for this. This is the beginning. He’s gonna change the way people look at gut health with that product.
So is it available in both the U S inc.
It is available us and Canada and he just got it onto Amazon a month ago. So he can go to amazon.com and amazon.ca it’s called restore.
Cool. Well, thank you so much, Stephanie. I really appreciate it. I really had a blast having you on, so thank you so much. Absolutely. Have a good day, guys. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode with Stephanie [inaudible] from Quebec. Uh, hopefully you learned some valuable information today. I know I did. Uh, anytime we talk about the emotional side of transformation, um, you know, my, my ears kind of perk up and I love talking about this, cause it’s not talked about in the fitness industry. We focused on much on macros and calories and weight loss and, and having six packs. When in reality, our health is so much more than that. Uh, there, we forget about the mental and emotional, spiritual and relationship side as well, um, when it comes to health. So, uh, hopefully you enjoyed it if you guys want to stay in the know, um, when it comes upcoming events, when it comes to season two of fitted to fit the era date, um, you know, my traveling, you know, other events, speaking events that I have, please subscribe to my newsletter@fitbitfit.com if you haven’t already, um, and also follow me on social media at fit to fat, to fit on all my social media handles.
I’d love to interact with, with everybody and reach out to me and I’ll give you a shout out and I appreciate the support you guys, and we’ll see you guys back here next week on another great episode of the fit vet fit experience podcast.
