Speaker A [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Paralysis Nutrition podcast, where changing your eating habits is the key to losing weight, improving bowel health, and feeling your best. I’m your host, Fatima Fakouri. I’m a registered dietitian who’s married to a quadriplegic and specializes in nutrition for paralysis. Get ready to be inspired, educated, and motivated so you can take control of your health using the power of food. Let’s get started. This is the Paralysis Nutrition podcast. Okay, you guys, today is going to.
Speaker B [00:00:32]:
Be a juicy one. I am revealing my number one secret for permanent weight loss, and I can’t wait to share it with you. All right, so like I said, this is going to be a juicy one. So I want to talk about what is permanent weight loss. So when I say permanent weight loss, I mean that you lose the weight that you want to lose. You get to a healthy weight and then you stay there. That’s what permanent weight loss means. A lot of people that I speak to or that I get in my coaching program, they have experienced temporary weight loss.
Speaker B [00:01:13]:
They have gone on a diet. They have done something right. They have changed their eating so that they lost 10, 20, 30, 40 pounds, but it didn’t last. Somehow or other, they gained back all of it. They gained back half of it. Most of it. They gained back all of it, plus more. Whatever it is, they weren’t able to have permanent weight loss.
Speaker B [00:01:41]:
So, for example, I had a client a couple of years ago who did keto, and she did, like, a modified keto. I’m not going to really get into it because I hate keto. I don’t want to put myself in a bad mood. So she went on this keto, modified keto, dirty keto, whatever you call it. She lost, like, 30, 40 pounds. I think. She lost 30. Yes, she lost 30 pounds.
Speaker B [00:02:03]:
And I think she lost it in, like, six months. And then she got off of that diet. And she had been off that diet for not quite a year, maybe like nine, 10 months, when she signed up for my group coaching program. And she said, well, keto worked. And I said, oh, it did. She said, yeah, keto worked. I lost about 30 pounds. And I said, oh, okay, so what’s going on now? Like, why are you contacting me, you know, to join my program? She said, well, when I got off the diet, I gained 40 pounds.
Speaker B [00:02:38]:
So that means that she gained all the weight back that she had lost on keto, and she gained more. And why did that happen? Because that diet that she went on was not. Wasn’t doable forever. It was a short term thing that she did and it gave her the results that she wanted temporarily. So that is why I say permanent weight loss. Like in my program we do permanent weight loss. I am not cutting out your favorite food groups. I am not telling you don’t eat pizza.
Speaker B [00:03:16]:
I’m not telling you you can’t have a beer or a martini or a margarita or whatever you like. I’m not telling you that. I am telling you how to experience permanent weight loss. And so if you’ve ever been on a diet, if you’ve ever done anything, I get a lot of women who’ve done like Weight Watchers, which is where you do the points. I hate that because points are not, they don’t make any sense. Points are not a real thing. They’re made up. Food doesn’t have points.
Speaker B [00:03:44]:
Food has calories, it has protein, it has fat, it has fiber, it has minerals, it has nutrients. Food doesn’t have points. Eating is not a game. And so if you’re not learning about what’s in your food, if you’re not learning how to eat in a calorie deficit, if you’re learning how to count imaginary points from a company, which is Weight Watchers, who know nothing about being a full time wheelchair user, when you’re on the Weight Watchers or whatever diet it is, you may experience the weight loss when you get off of that particular program, whatever it is, you are more than likely to gain the weight back. And in many cases, it’s sad, most people gain more than they initially lost. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that they felt restricted. So when you’re on a diet, you usually have some guidelines, some no’s, like, no, you can’t eat after 7pm, or no, you can’t eat bread, or no, you can’t have cheese, or no, you can’t have wine, whatever it is. And so you can do that for a while, but then life happens.
Speaker B [00:04:58]:
You go to a birthday party, it’s Christmas, it’s a cocktail party, it’s a stressful week. Whatever it is, you know, life happens. And those rules, they’re not flexible, so they don’t bend. There’s no room for reality in these diets. And so what happens is you just do whatever, you go off the rails. And so today I said I was going to share the secret of permanent weight loss. And here it is. 90, 10, 90, 10, 90% of the time you are going to eat healthy, fresh, hopefully homemade meals that are colorful, that are balanced.
Speaker B [00:05:46]:
And when I say Balanced, I mean, that there’s protein on the plate, there’s fiber rich carbs on the plate, and there’s healthy fat on the plate. And that meal tastes good. Okay? It has to taste good. Otherwise, no, I veto it. It has to taste good. If it doesn’t taste good and you’re not enjoying it, you’re not going to keep doing it. So 90% of the time you need to eat meals that you enjoy that are balanced and are going to result in a calorie deficit at the end of the week. 10% of the time you’re not going to do that.
Speaker B [00:06:20]:
10% of the time you’re going to go out to eat, you’re going to have a more decadent meal, you’re going to indulge 10% of the time. So you might be familiar with 80 20. 8020 is a very popular concept in the weight loss world. So 80% of the time you eat healthy foods. You know, basically What I said, 80% of the time you’re eating what you should be eating and 20% of the time you kind of indulge. That doesn’t work for full time wheelchair users with paralysis who have lower muscle mass and have neurogenic bowel and have a decreased ability to exercise and burn calories. So 8020 might work for your neighbor, your colleague, your spouse, your friend. But if you’re a full time wheelchair user with paralysis and you have lower muscle mass and you want to have a healthy gut and you have these big health goals, you’re going to have to do 90 10.
Speaker B [00:07:27]:
Let’s translate 9010 into what a week would look like. So there’s seven days in a week, there’s three meals a day. So that’s 21 meals a week for 9010 to work. Two of those meals are going to be the 10%. So I’ll give you an example. In our household, every Friday, without fail, for dinner, we order takeout. It’s usually like our kickoff of the weekend. I don’t want to cook on Friday night.
Speaker B [00:07:59]:
I want to enjoy myself. Might get a panini, might get one of those fancy salads that have like a million ingredients that I really like. And then order a dessert. Okay, might get a cheeseburger. Last week I got a hot chicken, which is a fried chicken sandwich. To be honest, it made me kind of sick, so I’m not going to get that again. Every Friday night, that’s 5% dinner. And then usually Saturday or Sunday, we will go out as a family.
Speaker B [00:08:33]:
That might mean a barbecue at my parents House. That might mean a family dinner with my in laws or it might mean that we go out to a restaurant. So two times in the week, two meals in the week, I should say, translates to 10% of your meals for the week. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we are eating well, my husband and I are eating three meals at home. The kids are eating lunch at school, but they’re eating breakfast and dinner at home. And what they eat at school is healthy, by the way. They have really good food at their school. Come Friday, we’re eating our whatever it is kind of on rotation that particular week for breakfast and lunch and then dinner.
Speaker B [00:09:22]:
We’re ordering out. Saturday morning, we’re eating a nice normal breakfast. We’re making omelets. We have a piece of toast. My husband will have some fruit. I’ll always go for toast. He’ll always go for fruit as his carb. Lunch.
Speaker B [00:09:37]:
What did we have? It’s the weekend right now. So like I made tuna. We had tuna sandwiches or tuna on crackers and some vegetables on the side. We had our normal stuff for breakfast and lunch, and then we went out for the dinner that day. So it doesn’t mean that you can eat whatever you want those two meals. It means that you don’t have to be. So you don’t have to think so much. I wouldn’t say eat whatever you want because then that kind of gets into that cheat meal territory.
Speaker B [00:10:14]:
And I don’t like that. Cheat meal usually means, you know, I’ve been dieting all week and now it’s my chance. Yeah, that’s going to clog up your bowels. It’s going to give you indigestion. It’s not going to make you feel good. And if you just, you know, go ham and you’re eating a double cheeseburger and fries and drinking three beers, I mean, you could blow your calorie deficit out of the water for the week just with, you know, one crazy meal like that. So when I say 90 10, even that 10%, you need to have your head on. Right? We’re not.
Speaker B [00:10:51]:
I think that 9010 works so well because 90% of the time, if you do eat a certain way, it kind of becomes your default. Kind of becomes like, this is how I am. This is not a diet. This is making me feel good. This has. This has sort of become part of my personality. Like, I am a person who eats this way. I am a person who makes choices that make me feel good.
Speaker B [00:11:20]:
I’m a person that says no, thank you when I’m Just not in the mood. I’ll give you a perfect example of that. Earlier today we were at a kid’s birthday party and they had pizza and ice cream cake. Very popular for the, for the six year old birthdays, right? I did have a slice of pizza. I did not want ice cream cake because I just, it’s not that I don’t like ice cream cake, it was just like, yeah, I just had pizza. I’m not going to also have ice cream cake because it’s just not, I’m not in the mood, right. It’s just not appealing to me right now. Next week when we go to another, you know, thing and there’s ice cream, I’ll probably get it if I’m in the mood.
Speaker B [00:12:00]:
So learning your kind of sweet spot in terms of like, how can I enjoy myself and still make healthy decisions, that’s really what it’s about. And so when you do 90, 10, 90% is pretty much almost everything, right? You only got that 10% left. So 90% of the time, if you’re enjoying yourself eating healthy meals, why would you stop? I think that those two meals that you have for your 10%, yes, you can have whatever you want, but if you’re tracking your meals, you can make a good decision and say, well, you know what, I really want dessert tonight. So I’m not going to get the pasta and a dessert. I’m going to go for the fully loaded, I don’t know, salad with, you know, all the fixings that I like. And then I’m going to have an entire dessert. See, that would fit so much better for your calories, macros and everything for the week than the pasta and the dessert. So this may be kind of hard to understand if you’ve never tracked your meals, so I highly encourage you to do so.
Speaker B [00:13:15]:
Download an app such as MyFitnessPal. It’s free. Start tracking, start seeing what’s in your food. What are you eating 90% of the time? What are you falling short on for the week? Are you eating enough protein? Is it hard for you to feel full because you’re not getting enough meals in? Are you eating most of your calories later in the day? Like, what’s your pattern? What are you doing 90% of the time? I almost don’t care what you’re doing 10% of the time. But it’s super interesting to me how when in my coaching program we talk a lot about 9 to 10 and it’s interesting to me when I ask, like, oh, you know, what’d you do this weekend. My clients will say like, oh, well, I went out to brunch and then I went out to, you know, the next day, then I went out to dinner and, you know, I really didn’t go crazy. And it’s so interesting to me because I’m like, well, but that’s your 10%, like you can kind of do what you want. And I think because 90% of the time they’re focused, it’s almost like practicing.
Speaker B [00:14:17]:
It’s almost like it becomes a part of who you are. That’s how you make permanent weight loss a thing. When you make this, you know, they say it’s like so corny. They’ll be like, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. That’s kind of what I’m saying. Like if I tell you 90% of the time you need to eat in a calorie deficit, I mean, this is for weight loss. You need to get enough protein, you need to get enough fiber. You need to be conscious about where your fats are coming from.
Speaker B [00:14:48]:
You know, are they saturated, are they monounsaturated? Monounsaturated are the more heart healthy fats. Saturated are the ones that we want to, you know, be really mindful of what are you eating 90% of the time. And when I work with people and they change kind of their perception of what is healthy. They know that in my world, in the paralysis, nutrition, you know, method, it’s healthy to have a slice of cake on your birthday. It is, it’s mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. It’s healthy to have a slice of cake on your birthday. It’s not healthy to have a slice of cake because your family member, your friend is cutting up the cake and just puts it in front of you. Only eat it if you want it.
Speaker B [00:15:36]:
Right? It’s unhealthy mentally, spiritually, physically, everything to eat things when you’re really not in the mood or just because you’re in the habit. It’s not a good thing when someone offers you something, you don’t really want to eat it, but you’re used to eating it. But you know, you know, you probably overdid it earlier. Now you’re just really going to go over your numbers. It’s not healthy to say yes when your mind is telling you no. So the 9010 is the way that we get to permanent weight loss. Because when we do something over and over and it becomes 90% of our life and it becomes 90% of the way that we eat, there is a wiggle room There is wiggle room. There is that 10% to have a margarita and tacos and to go out with your friends and to have, you know, ice cream when you really want it, there is room for that.
Speaker B [00:16:27]:
And so you guys know I hate diets because diets come from a place of. No, 9010 comes from a place of I can when I want to and when I choose to. 9010 is empowering because if I want to on a Tuesday, because it’s beautiful out, go out to dinner with my family and, you know, eat a bunch of tacos and drink a margarita, I can. That’s 5%. That one dinner is my 5%. I got 5 more percent, so I got one more meal. So I think that what I’m really hoping to get across today is that it is in your control, it is in your power to choose. When you do 90 10, you can choose.
Speaker B [00:17:11]:
You’re not coming from a place of no, you’re not coming from a place of restriction. You’re coming from a place of being conscious. So many people are just eating every day and have no clue how many calories is in their typical breakfast. I had a one to one chat with a new longevity coaching client the other day and she was like, yeah, for breakfast I usually have oatmeal. I make it with water and I put some chopped nuts and I put some berries in it. And I said, okay, well there’s no protein in that. And she was like, what? Because she just didn’t know. This is an educated woman who knows a lot of stuff, but unless you track your meals, you’re not going to know.
Speaker B [00:17:54]:
Hey, oats are a carb. Hey, fruit is a carb. Neither of those things have protein. Okay? The little bit of chopped nuts, that’s a fat as a teensy bit of protein. But basically you’re not going to know what you’re missing unless you start tracking your meals. So it’s always interesting to me how people use their 10% in the beginning and then towards the end, you know, typically work with people for three months or, you know, sometimes six months, but usually three months and even their 10% becomes more conscientious because they’re like, you know, I’ve learned that when you go to the restaurant, everything tastes good. The lighter stuff does taste good, half of the dessert is great. I don’t have to eat the whole thing.
Speaker B [00:18:40]:
I can split it, whatever it is. You know, they come to these realizations or they find things on the menu that they normally wouldn’t order but that they really enjoy and that they’re healthier. And when they want to indulge, they do. So that’s why I love 90 10. I feel like it’s so, so doable. Unlike these strict diets, right. 9010 is flexible. Your 10% could be on the weekend.
Speaker B [00:19:09]:
Your 10% could start on a Monday. You know, like, when do you want to do it? It’s up to you. I really want people to feel empowered and I want people to feel relaxed around food. I don’t want you to feel upset. You know, I don’t want you to feel like, oh, can’t have this, can’t have that, can’t, can’t, can’t. No. Life with, you know, spinal cord injury with paralysis is challenging. The last thing I want is to stress you out with some bogus food rules.
Speaker B [00:19:36]:
I want to give you guidelines and have you choose, because that’s going to work for life. So the secret to permanent weight loss. 90 10. That’s it for today, you guys. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I will talk to you next time.
Speaker A [00:19:57]:
That’s our episode for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new. Remember, if you want to lose weight with paralysis, improve your bowel health and feel your best you can. It’s possible. You just have to change your eating habit. If you need inspiration on how to get started, check out the paralysis Nutrition Cookbook. 101 recipes to help you lose weight and improve bowel health.
Speaker A [00:20:20]:
The cookbook comes with a bonus 30 day meal plan and is the perfect way to start eating healthier. You can find it online at paralysisnutrition.com cookbook I’ll talk to you again soon.
