THE "WHY" OF WEIGHT LOSS
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Episode 254:
Show Notes
Drs Lucy Burns and Mary Barson emphasise the importance of understanding the "why" behind health and weight loss efforts, suggesting that "why power" is more crucial than willpower. While knowing "what" to do (e.g., what to eat) is necessary, understanding the "why" and the "how" provides the foundation for sustainable change. Asking "why" fosters curiosity instead of judgment and is a powerful tool for initiating and maintaining change.
Key "Whys" Discussed
Why Low-Carb, Real Food?
- The doctors recommend a low-carb, real food lifestyle because many people struggling with weight gain or obesity have underlying insulin resistance.
- High insulin levels prevent the body from accessing and breaking down fat stores (lipolysis).
- Eating whole foods lower in sugar and starch helps lower insulin levels naturally, allowing the body to access fat stores.
- Prioritising whole food protein is also recommended because it promotes satiety (feeling fuller for longer) and requires significant energy (calories) to digest, aiding metabolism. Eating protein is generally preferred over drinking protein powders for those without specific medical needs or surgeries.
Why Manage Stress and Sleep?
- Chronic psychological and physical stress increases cortisol levels. Elevated cortisol promotes fat storage (especially abdominal fat), increases cravings and hunger, and disrupts sleep.
- Poor sleep disrupts metabolic hormones, including cortisol and insulin, which affect appetite, cravings, and fat storage.
- Improving sleep and managing stress are skills that can be learned. They not only improve quality of life but also directly aid weight loss and metabolic health. Often, these aspects are underestimated levers for change compared to focusing solely on food.
Why Understand Your Eating Habits?
- It's crucial to explore the reasons why you eat, beyond just physical hunger. Hunger is a normal biological signal, not a character flaw.
- People eat for many reasons other than hunger, such as boredom, soothing emotions (sadness, anxiety), or entertainment.
- Understanding these non-hunger eating triggers, including subconscious ones, is the first step to addressing unhelpful patterns. Developing alternative skills to manage emotions and experiences without using food is key. Hypnosis is mentioned as a tool to help address subconscious patterns.
Why Do You Want to Change?
- Identifying your personal, deeper, emotional reasons for wanting to improve health, lose weight, gain energy, or increase longevity is vital.
- This personal "why" must be genuine and intrinsic, not driven by external pressure (e.g., from doctors or family), to be truly motivating.
- Connecting with your "why," such as enjoying your "glory years" without the burden of chronic illness, helps maintain focus on the bigger picture.
Why Have Past Efforts Failed?
- Many previous weight loss attempts may have failed because they only focused on the "what" (e.g., following a diet plan) and maybe the "how" (e.g., counting points), without addressing the crucial "why".
- Without understanding the underlying reasons for eating habits or the personal motivation for change, individuals often revert to old patterns when life challenges arise. Sustainable change requires addressing the what, how, and why.
Program Mention:
- The doctors briefly mention their "12 Week Mind Body Rebalance" program, which incorporates exploring the "what, how, and why" of health transformation, including the use of medical hypnotherapy.
Register to join:
- The next round of our phenomenal 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance starts on May 24th! Want to be the first to know when doors open? Join the waitlist now at rlmedicine.com/12WMBR
- Register now for our FREE masterclass with weight management expert Dr Mary Barson – The Keys to Long Lasting Weight Loss:
👉 www.rlmedicine.com/weightloss
Episode 255:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:12) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Lucy Burns (0:21) Good morning gorgeous ones, how are you this morning? Dr Lucy here and it's a fresh crisp autumn morning and I am joined by my gorgeous friend Dr Mary. Hello Miss, how are you this morning?
Dr Mary Barson (00:33) I'm really good. I'm feeling good. Yes, it is cold. I'm wearing slippers for the first time in a long time, and I'm feeling good. Yeah, we've all got our little vulnerabilities in life and the things that we're just not so good at—our struggles. For me, one of my main struggles is keeping my home organised, as I am a busy solo mum with a wonderfully creative, clever, but sometimes scattered brain, at times. I've been tackling this over the last six months, and it just occurs to me lately that I've really made a big difference—just little bits consistently here and there. Yeah, I just feel really good. I've got a lovely clear desk for the first time in ages, and I'm managing to keep it clear. So I'm kind of happy that change is possible, even when it's something you're not naturally good at.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:30) Yeah, you know, and again, we sometimes use the gardening analogy for weight loss. People will go for losing weight, and then they do things for a while and stop. It’s very much like gardening—or in fact, decluttering your house. You do it, but you actually have to continue. It doesn't ever really stop. That's right. Which I think sometimes people feel a bit disappointed about. But honestly, if we recognise that it is just like gardening or tidying your house, we see that you do have to keep on top of it, or it just goes back to the way it was.
Dr Mary Barson (02:05) Yeah. And having systems and tools that make it easier to keep on top of things is key. I’ve allowed myself to experiment with different systems, and now I’ve got systems that work—and it’s wonderful. Now people can come over, and I don’t have to spend 15 minutes hurriedly tidying up so it doesn’t look like a totally chaotic person lives here. Now they just come. I can walk someone around my house with a modicum of pride. It’s great.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:34) Yeah, absolutely.And again, it’s that thing—it takes time to develop the habits around systems. You try something, and it might work, or it might not. Or you think, “Yep, great! I’ve found the magic cure. This is going to be great.” And then you do that for a little while, and it drops off, and you kind of have to, you know, just constantly revisit.
Dr Mary Barson (02:54) And experiment. So yeah, I'm feeling good. Those are my little musings for today.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:58) Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I thought we might talk about, you know, I thought we would call this podcast, Why Why Why. So all of the whys. Why Why Why by three wise women—except there are only two of us. So we've got two— in fact, two wise women. That's probably the equivalent of three wise men. And let's talk a little bit about why. So, we get asked a lot about what happens in our programs. You know, people will email us, again, wanting to know details—which is great. We're always happy to share details, and we're very happy to talk about what happens. But we really like to talk about why. Why things happen. Because when you ask why, there are a couple of things I think it opens up. One is it opens up a level of curiosity. So you're just asking: Why? Why do we recommend the things we do? Or why do we do the things we do? Or, as a participant, why do I eat the way I eat, or whatever it is? So it opens up some curiosity rather than judgment. But it can also be a powerful tool for change.
Dr Mary Barson (04:14) Yep. Why power is very, very powerful. Indeed.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:17) Indeed. I did an interview with Dr Arun Dhir a few months ago now, a bariatric surgeon, and he introduced us to the phrase that why power is more important than willpower.
Dr Mary Barson (04:31) Knowing the why and understanding the why is very powerful—not to dismiss the what, because you need a what. Any health and weight loss program will give you a what. They'll tell you what to eat. They'll tell you what to do. And you need a what. I think that's actually very, very important. But beyond the what, you also really need to know the why and the how.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:54) Yes, because if you just blindly follow the what without understanding why those recommendations exist, then you can lose your way. We were doing a little brainstorming of all the whys beforehand, and I think we've got a few that we're going to talk about today. But one of the most important things is to find out: why do you recommend the things that you recommend? We were also talking about, you know, why hasn't anything worked before? That's another great why. And one of my favourite things is for people to really get down into the weeds of understanding why they eat in the first place, or why they might overeat in the first place, or why they might eat particular foods. Or they might ask themselves, why is it that they have trouble with certain foods? So there are lots of whys
Dr Mary Barson (05:51) Lots of whys that are very, very important.
Dr Lucy Burns (05:54) And then I guess the other one is: why do you want to change? I think you're the boss of you. This is all about empowerment. You have to know why you want to change. You don't want to change because your doctor says you should change, or your husband says you should change, or your wife says you should change, or your mother. It has to be about why you want to—because you're a grown-up, and you're the boss of you. And at the end of the day, the only person who can really change is you. And the only person you can change is you.
Dr Mary Barson (06:28) Absolutely. Let's dive into our first why. You know, why is it that we have our recommendations around, you know, nutrition, sleep and stress management in particular? You know, we, our what is, you know, a delicious, low carb, real food lifestyle, managing your stress, managing your mindset, getting good sleep. These are like the core fundamental what's in our 12 Week Mind Body rebalance. These are the what's that we address. And I think it's really important to understand why, why these are our recommendations. We talk about this a lot, but why is low carb, real food so helpful and important?
Dr Lucy Burns (07:14) Yeah. So I think if we go back to the root cause of people who develop overweight or obesity, you know, remember they're kind of medical topics. I know that the word "obesity" is pretty barbed and, you know, makes people kind of take a breath. But if we just use that as a medical phrase, then the cause of that is not simple. There is no one cause, as we've talked about many times. And anyone that tells you there is just a simple cause and therefore there is a simple solution… Well, lie, lie, pants on fire. It's multifactorial, but we do know that the majority of people who become overweight or develop obesity have insulin resistance as part of that picture. And so for us, it's like, right, you know, insulin resistance, we've spoken a lot about that, and you know, what causes insulin resistance? Again, that's complex. But at the end of the day, if you go, right, if you have high circulating insulin in your blood, you cannot access your fat stores. You can't access them with any ease or any consistency because insulin stops fat breakdown. So, you know, the medical word is it stops lipolysis. I love saying "lipolysis"—makes me sound clever.
Dr Mary Barson (08:40) But it's really just super clever.
Dr Lucy Burns (08:44) I know. Yes. So yeah, so it stops. High insulin—when your blood insulin level is high, you can't break down your fat. Like, that's just a fact. There's nothing—I don't need to dispute that with anybody because it's just how it works. So then we go, well, obviously what we would want to do then is lower insulin levels back to normal levels as much as, as easily as possible. And there's a number of ways to do it. You know, in Australia, we have that funny phrase, "many ways to skin a cat." There are many ways to lower insulin, but a simple way for us is to focus on whole foods that are lower in sugar and starch, aka low-carb real food.
Dr Mary Barson (09:26) And it can be so delicious, fun, and exciting when you know how.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:30) Yeah, absolutely. So that's our nutritional fundamental as part of that. And it's sort of slightly separate, but important, to prioritise protein. Prioritising protein doesn't directly lower insulin, really, but it does a number of other things that then help you lower insulin. And we know that by prioritising protein, we are more likely to stay fuller for longer. Protein is quite hard for our body to digest. And what I mean by that is it takes a lot of energy. Remember, energy is measured in calories or kilojoules, but no one ever uses kilojoules. So it does take a lot of calories to break down whole protein. And I kind of go, that's good. You're just lying around burning calories for free.
Dr Mary Barson (10:21) Giving your metabolism a workout by eating some yummy food. It's great. Yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:25) And it doesn't negate the need to move your body, but it's certainly a complementary tool for it. And again, whole food protein does this in a way that powdered proteins don't.
Dr Mary Barson (10:45) Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:47) Yeah. So again, this is why people go, "Why don't you recommend protein powders?" And it's not that we think protein powders are terrible and you should never have them. They have a role. But if you're thinking that they're going to help you with weight loss and you've got a normal digestive system, you haven't had any surgery, you haven't had bariatric surgery, you're not taking injectable weight loss medications, you've just got your standard stomach without any medications, then eat your protein. Don't drink it.
Dr Mary Barson (11:20) Yep. And our other what's, what is the why behind our what of stress management and sleep management? How do they help insulin resistance and help us get back into a beautiful metabolic balance?
Dr Lucy Burns (11:34) Yeah, I think that's a great question, Miss. And you're the queen of meditation. So I think explaining, perhaps you could explain the physiology behind how stress causes or contributes — probably let's go to "contribute" since we're talking about being overweight as a multifactorial problem. How does being stressed contribute to weight gain?
Dr Mary Barson (11:58) Yeah. So stress, psychological stress and physical stress can lead to increased cortisol, cortisol spikes, and the hormone cortisol, although completely essential for life and we need it in just the right amounts, when it's elevated, especially when it's chronically elevated, it increases our fat storage through increased glucose, which increases insulin, which inhibits lipolysis. It causes that increased fat accumulation. It also particularly increases visceral, like that kind of abdominal dangerous fat accumulation, which is not great for our health. It also increases our cravings, increases our hunger hormones, and also disrupts our sleep. And sleep is also extremely important for metabolic health and managing insulin resistance. Good, proper sleep helps balance our metabolic hormones, and disrupted poor sleep really disrupts that whole metabolic process. So sleep is essential for all kinds of hormone regulation, particularly for cortisol and insulin. These hormones directly affect our appetite, cravings, and fat storage. So yes, being calmer and learning how to manage the stress in your life not only makes life better and improves your quality of life, it also literally helps you lose weight and get physically healthier. Same with sleep. You can just sleep yourself slimmer, which is a fabulous, wonderful thing.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:29) Absolutely. And I mean, there's tons, buckets of evidence around poor sleep contributing to weight gain. And then I guess weight gain contributing to poor sleep with the development of sleep apnea as well. And so you end up in this vicious cycle, and coming up in a few weeks, actually, we have a sleep physician talking to us about sleep. So that'll be exciting because it is, it's so important. But again, lots of us are not very good at it.
Dr Mary Barson (13:58) And you can get better at it, like with stress management. These are skills that you can learn and obtain.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:03) Yes. I remember somebody said to me once, "I wish I had a few more hours in the day." And I used to think, "God, I wish I had a few more hours in the night." I don't need any more time in the day. I'm already, we kind of steal from the night to do tasks in the day, and it's unhelpful. So yeah, we've got all these really good reasons, these really good why's for our recommendations. It's interesting for particularly women who have done lots of dieting. We still often revert to food as being the issue or the lever that we need to pull, when quite often the food or the nutrition is good. It's optimised, but the stress management isn't, or the sleep isn't, or the busyness isn't. And so I think those two skill sets are really underestimated.
Dr Mary Barson (14:59) Yes. And so we spend a lot of time on them in our programs.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:02) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then my favourite why that I love to talk about—again, we spend, I would have to say the 12 Week Mind Body rebalance really, really digs into this—but it's, why do you eat in the first place?
Dr Mary Barson (15:18) Yes. All the reasons we eat.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:20) And of course, there is some hunger. And again, you are allowed to be hungry. You are allowed to eat if you're hungry. Yes, please do. Yes. Hunger is not a character flaw. It is a metabolic process. And without hunger drive, the human species would not exist. So being hungry is actually normal and healthy. The tricky thing is that we can't always determine the difference between physiological hunger and then, you know, what people might call cravings or food noise, or other people might use food for soothing or entertainment, you know, when you're bored or all sorts of reasons—like myriads of them.
Dr Mary Barson (16:08) There are lots of reasons why we eat, and it is not just because we are hungry, but understanding why we eat beyond physical hunger is key to being able to make healthy, mindful choices. And just being able to understand and address the underlying patterns, which might be unhelpful, and being able to change them, getting the skills to understand them, know why they're there, and then, you know, also giving you the how and how to change those underlying unhelpful patterns so that you use food to nourish your body. You enjoy your food, you love your food. Food's incredibly important. It's an important part of life, and it's always going to be. And you can learn to use food as nourishment and not as, you know, a punishment, entertainment, or to treat boredom, uncomfortable feelings, sadness, or anxiety. You can learn other skills to deal with all of those perfectly valid, normal human emotions and human experiences. And you can learn to soothe those without using food. But first of all, it's absolutely key that you understand why. Why?
Dr Lucy Burns (17:21) Yeah, absolutely. Why? And, you know, the interesting thing is that some of those why's people will be listening and think, oh, yeah, well, I already know that because I'm bored. But there are some why's that are subconscious, they're in their subconscious mind. And again, if it's subconscious, you don't think about it. I mean, it's not in your conscious thought. So you don't know about it, you don't think about it. And every now and then what happens is we see it often, like a penny drops for people. It's like, oh, oh, I do that. Oh, I hadn't thought about it like that. Oh, I just thought that was how I was or, you know, whatever it is. And basically, we've brought their behaviour, perhaps from that subconscious mind into the conscious realm. And so then they can make some adjustments if they want to. But the other thing that I think is really—well, I'm just talking about subconscious—is again, the power of a tool like hypnosis.
Dr Mary Barson (18:21) That's a very, very useful how hypnosis helps you address and change all of those underlying why's, which can keep you stuck. Yes. So we love hypnosis. For those of you who don't know, Dr Lucy and I are trained medical hypnotherapists and we use hypnosis in all our programs. And it's a beautiful, wonderful, relaxing, safe way to change your mind in really, really useful ways. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:48) So we've got the, you know, if we go back to our list of why's, why do we recommend the things that we recommend? Why do we recommend our what's? We've got the why, you know, why do people eat in the first place? And I think another why that is a really super useful tool for people is why do you want to change?
Dr Mary Barson (19:11) Yep. Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to be healthier? It might seem like a daft question, but truly being able to understand your deeper, more emotional reasons—connecting with those deeper reasons of why you want to be healthier, why you want more energy, why you want to improve your longevity and health—those why's help keep you focused on the bigger picture. That's very powerful, being able to understand your why.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:45) Yeah, absolutely. And I think as people get a little bit older, the reality of chronic disease becomes closer. And, you know, again, when you're young, when you're 20 or 30, young folks, you know, you often think that health is just something that is a given. You take it for granted and you feel invincible, not invisible. And then as we get a bit older, suddenly things become a bit clearer. The difference between lifespan and healthspan becomes really clear. And we say this a lot: we can keep you alive for a very long time. Medicine has evolved now, and the average age is vast. You know, people in their eighties are now considered reasonably young, and some of them are very fit. I remember when I was a medical student, 80 was considered old. Now, if you're in your nineties, we're now saying, "Oh yeah, elderly 90-year-old." That gives a long time for you to be alive with potentially, you know, suboptimal health.
Dr Mary Barson (20:51) You want everybody to really be able to enjoy the glory years, as we call them, you know, the autumn and the winter of our lives. We don't want people to be burdened with chronic illness and spend their lives in the doctor's office or, you know, not being able to do the things they want, not being able to run around after their grandkids, not being able to travel around the country, not being able to enjoy their gardening, hobbies, friends, and whatever it is they want to enjoy. We want people to be able to enjoy those glory years. So that's a pretty good why, but your why has to be extremely personal to you.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:31) Yeah, absolutely. Yes. It's, yeah. You can't take someone else's why and try to apply it to you unless it truly is applicable because otherwise, it's just superficial. And again, that subconscious mind, which is so very powerful, will just, yeah, you know, subvert you in your quest.
Dr Mary Barson (21:48) That's right. Yeah. You can't pretend to care about travel if you don't. You can't pretend to care about kids if you don't. I've also got another why that I think is useful to understand, and we get this a lot: why has nothing else worked? Why is it that I've lost the weight only to put it back on again in the past?
Dr Lucy Burns (22:12) And I think for a lot of people, it's because they have really only ever done the what. So, you know, they've followed, like, again, you know, I did it. I followed Weight Watchers. This is what you eat. And even the how, they gave me how, you know, this is how you do it. You count points, you track it, you measure it. And I'm diligently writing it all down and doing it all. And it was all fine. And I never really thought about why I ate in the first place. So I could do whatever what people wanted to do for short periods of time, and then life would, you know, happen. And I'd just go back to my old tools. So I think for a lot of people, the reason it hasn't worked in the first place is because they weren't given the whole kit and caboodle. I love that word "caboodle."
Dr Mary Barson (23:03) Caboodle is a great word. So you need the what, you need the how, but you also really need the why.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:11) Indeed. So, lovely ones, our 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance goes three times a year. It is, well, it's phenomenal. Well, tooting my own trumpet here, it's phenomenal. It's just that we seem to get feedback about its phenomenality.
Dr Mary Barson (23:27) Yeah, I'd say I would concur. Absolutely. And I love it.
It's wonderful, great work, spending three months with beautiful people, really helping them transform body and mind.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:38) Indeed.
Dr Mary Barson (23:39) With the how, the what, and the why.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:40) Absolutely. And, you know, you can become a wise person too by following your why and joining us on the quest of why-ness. So many options. Lovely ones, if you want to go check it out, you can go to our website at rlmedicine.com/12WMBR. Obviously, all the links will be in the show notes. And we look forward to connecting with you.
Dr Mary Barson (24:10) Bye now.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:11) Bye for now. See you.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:15) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
