Step into the Spotlight with Your Best Body Now

With Teresa Sievers, MD and Karen Callan, CHC –

As many of you already know, Karen and I have been working together for over a year now, sharing our mutual passion to help people meet their goals for a healthy, fit body for life. Together we bring a combination of traditional and integrative medicine to identify obstacles that have prevented patients from achieving optimal health, weight loss and, ultimately, their best body.  This is our passion. And to that end, we are excited to launch Best Body Now, our new program designed to empower people to take charge of their health and well-being by teaching them the proper way to fuel their body and mind.  Through diet, nutritional supplementation and proper exercise, we help people to achieve their Best Body Now to feel and look their best.  Our program combines my integrative medical knowledge and supervision, with Karen’s ability to create individualized nutritional plans and, most importantly, provide the coaching and accountability that people need to be successful.  These plans include weight loss, ending sugar cravings, increasing energy, improving gastrointestinal health, and recovering from serious illnesses, such as cancer or surgery.

Common themes that we have noticed, in our years of experience, are the amount of incorrect information patients read and believe to be true. One of the first steps in our program is exposing the many myths about diet and exercise. We thought a great way to share these myths, provide you with facts and to kick off Best Body Now would be by opening up a question and answer forum in our monthly articles.  Each month, along with highlighting one of our areas of specialty, we will offer a section where you can Step into the Spotlight for Your Best Body Now with Dr. Sievers and Coach Karen.

For our first issue, we have put together some of the most common myths about diet and exercise. Keep in mind while the answers that follow will be of great help to you, we offer individualized life plans specific to your body and your lifestyle and encourage you to contact us for one-on-one coaching, also offered via virtual appointments.

Now, let’s Step into the spotlight with Dr. Sievers and Coach Karen.

Q: I like to jumpstart my weight loss with a low carb high protein diet, but I find after a while I get tired, constipated and crave pasta. What am I doing wrong?

A: Low carb, high protein diets work by putting you into a state of ketosis, which helps you utilize fat for fuel.  However, this can also lead to kidney stones and failure, high cholesterol, gout, bone loss, adverse effects on insulin, and even cancer.  The extremely low fiber content inherent in this type of diet is responsible for your constipation. You are tired because your body uses carbohydrates as its preferred source of fuel, thus you are lacking these.   A better eating plan would be one that includes lean protein and lots of veggies while restricting refined grains and processed carbohydrates.  The vegetables are full of nutrients and enzymes; they are alkalizing and have lots of fiber to make us feel full.  They are also low in sugar keeping our insulin stable.  The lean protein provides lots of amino acids to build muscle and regulate your blood sugar.  P.S.  Potato’s and corn are NOT veggies!!!

Q: I love fruit, is it ok to have while I’m trying to lose weight?

A: While fruit is an excellent source of fiber, vitamins and minerals; it is also high in sugar and raises your insulin level resulting in fat storage.  We always tell our clients to limit their fruit consumption to two servings a day of low glycemic fruits such as berries, apples or grapefruit.

A: I have been exercising to speed up my weight loss, but find that it makes me really hungry and the scale doesn’t move. What am I doing?

Q: The “Eat Less, Exercise More” approach to weight loss is much more complicated than it appears.  The balance between exercise and appetite is affected by hormones that stimulate hunger and signal satiety.  Long duration exercises such as aerobics, biking, swimming and running increase appetite shortly after exercise by stimulating the hormone ghrelin (hunger signal) and decreasing the hormone  leptin(satiety signal).  A better choice would be high intensity short duration activities like sprinting or interval training as these have short-term appetite-suppressing effects.  A 2004 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that low-intensity walking vs. high-intensity walking (power walking) resulted in significantly less eating following exercise.

If you would like to Step into the Spotlight with Dr. Sievers and Coach Karen in this forum email us at Karen@healthfromtheinsideout.org.   Be sure to visit our website at  www.lovemybestbodynow.com.

Teresa A. Sievers, MD
Restorative Health & Healing Center
10201 Arcos Av., Suite 201, Estero
Learn more about Dr. Sievers at:
www.rhhcenter.com

Karen R. Callan, CHC, AADP
Certified Health Coach
10201 Arcos Ave., Suite 201 Estero
239-405-9169
Learn More About BEST BODY NOW at:
www.lovemybestbodynow.com

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