Motivation Archives - Hudson Valley Chiropractic & Wellness

My January Whole30 Experience

February 7, 2023 by drchrista Leave a Comment

Have you been struggling to stick to a healthy eating & exercising regime in the wake of the pandemic? I know I have. It’s been hard to admit because yes, I know these things, and I’m a health expert. In the middle of such uncertainty though, it happened to many of us that we lost the supports and structure for our normal health routines.

Enter the Whole30.

I’ve known about the Whole30 for years; recommended to it many of my patients. I even tried one in June of 2018 that didn’t quite work out (I was doing it for weight loss, not health). Fast forward to this year and an email that inspired me to give it a go to kick off the new year.

It’s not a D-I-E-T.

One of my favorite things about the Whole30 protocol is that it’s not a diet. There’s no counting of calories allowed. There’s no tracking what you ate and didn’t eat and you’re not even allowed to weigh or measure yourself for the 30 days. This combined with the focus on only eating real, whole foods helps shift the focus to mindful eating- am I really hungry? Hungry enough to eat a can of tuna from the pantry with some avocado mayo? Or am I snacky- craving sugar or salty treats? Many processed foods are designed to be hyperpalatable- that means its so much easier to override your body’s satiety signaling that’s saying ‘thanks I’ve had enough’ and plow headlong into a dopamine-induced stupor of ‘holy cow is that the bottom of this pint of Ben & Jerry’s already????’ Developing this mindfulness is hard, but it’s key to any long term changes in dietary habits. If you can’t stay in touch with whether you are actually hungry or thirsty or just craving something sweet to deal with stress, it can be very easy to over consume calories trying to ‘figure it out.’ This is why the results for willpower-based crash diets can be so poor. You’re starving, and all you can think about is what you can’t eat. Cravings can be hard enough to deal with, but when you add real hunger from caloric restriction on top of it- that’s why its so hard to have enough willpower to stay on the diet. Your brain is starving for calories so it will grasp at any justification to give up, give in and just eat the thing you aren’t supposed to eat and have been fixated on. Again, since the Whole30 is not about starving yourself or calorie counting or focusing on a scale, you shouldn’t ever get to the point of having to try and white-knuckle it through hardcore hunger. You might be feeling snacky for sugary or crunchy/salty items, but without the calorie restriction on top of it, I found these cravings much easier to resist and they took far less willpower than so-called diets of the past. Without the calorie restriction or focus on metrics like calorie-restriction or weight loss, I never felt overly hungry. Part of this did involve preparation & planning. There were very few places I could eat out or just pick up a snack if I was hungry. I had to plan ahead my lunches and make sure that I had healthy snacks in my purse if I was going to be out for awhile. EPIC bars, plain almond butter packets, the occasional Larabar and chicken salad bowls with guac from Chipotle were my best friends for the month. As a healthcare practitioner, I think this a huge win in helping folks form long-lasting healthy eating habits for the long-haul. Focus on filling your plate with healthy, nutritious food. Indulge in a favorite treat every once in awhile- once you’ve checked in with yourself about why you want it and what you are expecting to do with it. From that mindful place, it’s easier to make a better choice about whether or not said treat is ‘worth it.’ With that mindful pause before eating you can much more easily asses if its worth it both in the moment and to your future self, who is trying to stay healthy for the long-term.

Elimination Diets: The gold standard for food allergy testing

Another thing I appreciate about the Whole30 program is the clear elimination diet it sets up. Removing grains, dairy, legumes, alcohol, sugar and processed food additives like MSG will work as an introductory elimination diet for the vast majority of people. Following the Reintroduction phase after the 30 days follows the same protocol as a medical elimination diet- reintroducing one food group at time, observing the reaction and then trying another. Once you follow the Whole30 and do the Reintroduction, you should have a solid understanding of what foods help you feel great and which ones- well, not so much. Understanding the possible consequences of a certain food for you gives you more objective data to compute for the question of ‘is it worth it?’ when confronted with the choice to eat that food again. It’s a lot easier to say no to a food that you know will make you feel bloated, foggy, crumby or otherwise less than your best. I came down with a sinus infection just as I was finishing my Whole30 and moving into Reintroduction. This made it difficult to determine which foods made me feel ‘less than my best’, so I will definitely be doing another Whole30 again in the future to reset and try the Reintroduction phase again with hopefully a clearer result. In the meantime, I am practicing flexing my new-found mindful eating muscle with lots water drinking during the day and grateful “no thank yous, I’m actually full and satisfied and don’t need to eat more.”

Have you tried a Whole30 before? If so, what did you experience or think of it? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

The first step to achieving any goal

December 1, 2015 by drchrista Leave a Comment

Most of my patients come to me with goal. In fact, if they haven’t clearly communicated their goal to me by the end of our first visit, I will ask them, “What is your goal? What do you want to achieve in our work together?”

I do this for two reasons.

First, I want to make sure that we are on the same page with their goal. If they want to lose 20 pounds and I’m reviewing their case and thinking we need to work on chronic systemic inflammation first, there obviously needs to be a conversation that takes place about reasonable expectations and time frames given the bigger picture of their current health.

But the second reason I ask about their goals is that I want to know what motivates them and how committed they are to their goal. I very much view the doctor-patient relationship as a partnership. We work together. I provide the technical knowledge and know-how to help navigate toward the goal, but the patient must be willing to implement the plan. They must be willing to change their diet, cook more often at home, take their supplements regularly, do ‘homework’ exercises, etc.

In short, they must be willing to show up consistently.

Depending on how a person articulates their goal, I can get a sense very early on of what kind of results they might get. Inevitably, those who are clear about their goal and willing to show up consistently, get the best results and outcomes. Those who aren’t clear on their goals or express resistance at the changes suggested, unsurprisingly, don’t do as well.

It’s as simple as this: I explain how gluten may be causing leaky gut and leading to systemic inflammation or antibody formation. Patient A goes home and adheres to a strict gluten-free diet for 30 days. Patient B goes home and ‘tries,’ but gives in a few times to the bread basket at a restaurant or just has to have a slice of pizza. When I see both for their follow-up, guess who is doing better?

We live under the pervasive myth that change is hard. Its really only hard if you make it hard by resisting it. If you approach change with the simple willingness to show up consistently, its really not hard at all. “Showing up” for something is really just another way of saying “being present for.” When you are “present for something” you are directing your physical and emotional energy at that thing. Think of your energy as Miracle-Gro for whatever you direct it at- whether that be positive or negative! To take our plant analogy one step further, what happens to our plant if its not feed and watered regularly, consistently? It withers and dies eventually.

Most people fail at their goals because they want a quick-fix. They want to show up once and magically have what they want. That’s why all those 3-day crash diets, super-low carb introductory phase, fad diets don’t work in the end. Their real crime is that they let people think they only have to do the hard work for a little bit of time to get lasting results.

Note that “showing up consistently” is different than “being perfect and succeeding consistently.” Failure is inevitable on any journey- we learn more from our failures then our successes. When your focus is showing up consistently, then when you make a mistake or fail at something- you get right back to it. When you think that you have to be perfect and succeed consistently, then you’re ready to throw in the towel at the first failure. Have you done this before? You start a new diet protocol and the first time you eat a food that is “bad” for you, you think, “well, that’s it. I broke my diet. Might as well go eat some ice cream. And cake. And cookies.” Or “I ate 3 Girl Scouts cookies and broke my diet, might as well finish the box!” It’s OK if you have- we all have been there before. My goal is not to make you feel guilty, just to show you why you’ve failed at achieving other goals in the past.

Showing up, being present and directing your energy towards a goal is a practice. People who are good at showing up consistently got that way by doing it repeatedly- that is by committing to being present for their goal, everyday. The good news is that we know from neurology- each time you make that choice- you make that neuronal connection, that association of your goal with an action, stronger. That means it gets easier to make that choice over time as you practice making it consistently!

So that’s the first step to achieving any goal, whether it be to lose weight, get stronger, perform a bodyweight movement you haven’t done before, or regain your health after a period of illness. Commit to showing up consistently. Direct your energy positively toward your goal every day. It’s OK if you mess up sometimes, but keep showing up despite failures and missteps. Commit to the practice of showing up- make that your ultimate goal- and watch how quickly you achieve your other ones.

Making your resolutions stick! Part 1- The Mind

December 12, 2013 by drchrista Leave a Comment

We are coming up to that time of year when most people like to make New Year’s resolutions, but 95% of people will have given up on those resolutions before the end of January. Its to the point where gyms count on you buying that full-year membership on January 1 and then not using it for the majority of the year!

What is perhaps most sad about this state of affairs is that the most common things people resolve to do in the coming year revolve around their health- giving up smoking, losing weight and exercising more are the most common. So as a HEALTHcare provider, I feel that this an important part of my job to help people keep their positive, health-related resolutions.

To this end, for the month of December, I am going to do a series of posts about how to go about successfully implementing long-term changes that will help you achieve your health goals.

Let’s start here: Your mind.

Did you know that when you have an emotion, receptors on the cell surface get ‘locked’ into a specific shape that fits that neurotransmitter? It’s true and if you want to know more, I encourage to explore neurobiologist Candice Pert’s seminole work on the subject, “Molecules of Emotion.” The point is, there is a biochemical mechanism for how our thoughts create our reality and can either create or destroy our health.

So how can we use this knowledge in the achievement of our health goals?

Know where you want to go. When your goal is simply “to lose weight” or “eat better” its too vague. How much weight? What kind of time frame? What does ‘eating better’ mean to you? We’ve all had the experience of having a project to do. When there is a deadline for when that project needs to be done, its much more motivating then when there is no deadline. Set a deadline for your goal. Define specifics- i.e., ‘I’m going to eat at least 5 servings a veggies a day.’ If your goal is a big one, break it down into smaller, more realistic ones. ‘I’m going to lose 10 pounds in two months’ or ‘I’m going to start by eating 3 servings of veggies and day and drinking 2 glasses of water for the next three weeks. Then I will add two more servings of veggies a day, drink 3 glasses of water a day and cut sweets down to 3 treats a week.’ The other advantage of this is that it gives you clear measures of success along the way. When you succeed at the smaller goals, it creates a ‘motivation snowball’ that helps you keep the momentum and motivation up to continue moving forward.
Know your why. What is your core motivation? Why do you want to achieve this goal? Do you want to be a better example to your kids? To your family? Are there activities you enjoy that you are not able to do because of your current health? Identifying your ‘why’ is what often separates people who succeed at their goals from those who don’t. The catch is this: your ‘why’ needs to be powerful and intrinsic. Saying ‘I want to lose weight so I look better in a bathing suit’ generally isn’t’ powerful enough for most people. Why? Because it is a temporary and external goal. Very few of us, when tempted with pizza or ice cream, can say,’ but that bathing suit….’ Most of us will think, ‘screw it, give me the pizza, I don’t really care that much about what other people think.’ So your why needs to be something that is more powerful then what you may want at the time. Suppose your goal is to exercise more. Your motivation needs to be stronger then the comfort you get from sitting on the couch. It also helps if this goal is for you. Losing weight because you want to feel better about yourself is generally more powerful then doing it to please someone else.
“Fail to plan and you plan to fail.” This relates to knowing where you want to go. Once you know where you want to go and your why, break it down and make a plan for how you will arrive at that end destination. If your goal is to eat better, are you going to go Paleo, vegan, or follow some other diet? Do you know how to eat that way? Do you have cookbooks to give you recipe ideas when you’re not sure what to make for dinner? Have you cleaned out your cupboards so there are no unhealthy foods to tempt you in a moment of weakness? This is a really powerful and important step. For most people, making a resolution stick in not about having enough willpower, but having a detailed plan. We all have moments of weakness, moments where it is very tempting to give up and go back to the comfort of our old habits. Having a plan in place to deal with such moments is the key.
Visualize your success. I mean really visualize. Before bed and first thing in the morning, close your eyes and visualize what achieving your goal will be like. Be as detailed as possible. How does it feel? How is your life improved? Feel the happiness of having achieved this goal. Be grateful for it in that moment, treat it like its already true in your life. This is a powerful exercise that begins to align all the cells of your body with your new reality and sets the stage for lasting change.

So spend some time really thinking what your health goals are this year and why. Write them down. Write down why you want to achieve and then write down a detailed plan for how you will go about achieving them. In the post of this series, I will talk more about the specific ACTIONS to take to be successful at your goals.

My January Whole30 Experience

It’s not a D-I-E-T.

Elimination Diets: The gold standard for food allergy testing

The first step to achieving any goal

In short, they must be willing to show up consistently.

Making your resolutions stick! Part 1- The Mind

Let’s start here: Your mind.

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