Though women and men have been “dieting” for centuries, different diets
move in and out of fashion. We’ve all heard of the Atkins Diet, the South
Beach Diet, and I just recently learned that there’s even a Martha’s
Vineyard diet! At Women to Women, we understand that these fad diets may work in
the short-term, but they typically don’t address the root of where weight
gain begins. And the women we talk with every day want weight loss that lasts.
This becomes so much easier for women once they understand that eating well is not
so much a diet as a way of life — it has to be something we do for ourselves,
for the long term. And after reading Marcelle Pick’s new book, The Core Balance Diet, we know —
as I’m sure many women have known intuitively for years — that finding
a healthy weight is not simply about what we eat, or how much we exercise. Issues
around weight are much more complicated than popular culture has dictated, especially
if we want the weight loss to last.
Marcelle has opened a whole new door in dieting history — allowing women for
the first time to get an honest look at the core metabolic and emotional imbalances
in their bodies that may be causing stubborn weight gain or the retention of extra
weight. Debunking the myths around calories-in/calories-out, fat, carbohydrates,
and food in general, this book is a breath of fresh air for women of all ages. Please
join me while I ask Marcelle a few questions about her new book and about this profound
new perspective on healthy weight.
MH: So let’s start with the question we’re all wondering
about. How does the Core Balance Diet work to help women lose weight?
MP: Well, The Core Balance Diet looks at the unique differences
among women with core — meaning metabolic and/or emotional — imbalances.
If we look at the map showing obesity trends in the United States from 1986, we
notice that they’ve had to create entirely new colors to represent these trends
because as much as 30% of the population in some states are obese — which
wasn’t the case when they created the map. For me, this trend isn’t
about the fact that we have more compulsive eaters. There aren’t simply more
people sitting in the closet eating bon bons. If that’s what we think, or
that quick-fix diets are going to solve this problem, we’re barking up the
wrong tree. The reality is that our food speaks to our genes. And not only can an
overabundance of processed and refined foods send misinformation to our genes, but
so can our environment, along with what we think and feel.
So the Core Balance Diet takes an individualized approach, first by looking at your
emotional and physical well-being to define the core imbalances most likely interrupting
your body’s ability to maintain a healthy weight, and then by offering a functional
approach to heal the imbalances and encourage the best foods for your metabolic
make-up.
What’s also unique about this approach is the community support provided through
the Personal Program for Core Balance.
There is lots of recent research showing that women are much more successful at
maintaining healthy eating when they have adequate support. Women tend to put everyone
else before themselves — their kids, their spouse, their employer, their parents,
their house, their pets.... I’ve been there — and I still do this, even
though my kids are older now! I have to remind myself that they’ll be okay,
it’s time to take care of myself. But putting others first is at the core
of our very existence. So sometimes we need someone to remind us of ourselves, and
tell us that we’re doing a great job. So many women wake up every morning,
look in the mirror and say to themselves, Oh no — look at my hair, look at
my hips, look at that gut! I’m not looking in that mirror again.
This book is all about getting away from this negative self-talk. You’ve gotta
love yourself!
MH: How true! So this brings up an important distinction in the
philosophy behind the Core Balance Diet: Our emotional history can play a significant
role in our overall health, including how we gain and lose weight.
MP: Absolutely! Here’s what Caroline Myss says in Anatomy of the Spirit: Our biography becomes
our biology. Or, to paraphrase, Our issues are in our tissues!
It’s something I’ve seen all along in practice, and even though there
are studies now to back this up, many practitioners simply weren’t trained
or lack the time to make these connections.
Back in 1998 a famous study called the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study
evaluated the effect of traumatic childhood events on health risk behavior and disease.
The researchers found that compared to those who had none, those with negative childhood
exposure had a 1.4– to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and obesity, along
with many other medical problems. So we know our life stories affect our
bodies.
In a study published just this year (2009), the authors concluded that overeating
may serve to repair negative mood in the short-term. Well, yeah, of course it does!
Food is love for many of us. And I think most women have had first-hand experience
with this — I wrote an article on
emotional eating, for those who want to explore the issue more.
There’s also an editorial I read recently, by a Dutch scientist who concluded
that behavioral factors have more to do with weight loss than what we eat, and cognition
and emotions have a huge impact on that behavior.
So science is finally catching on to this idea. But let me give you a real life
example of how emotions can affect weight. I just saw a patient the other day, who
is probably 100 pounds overweight. She’s stunningly attractive and wants desperately
to lose this weight. So we talked for a while, and one of the things that came out
in our conversation was that when she was growing up her mother was always saying
things like, “You shouldn’t eat that,” or “You shouldn’t
wear that,” or “That’s going to make you fat.” So her response
was to always get seconds — especially when her mother was around! This behavior
was so deeply embedded that she didn’t realize that every time she
ate, she was essentially reacting against her mother. Once she became aware of this,
she could see hope for change. So we simply can’t ignore these emotions around
eating.
Fat, calories, and listening to your body
MH: So let’s talk a little about the “what-you-eat”
part of this. For years women have been told that eating too much fat will make
them fat. The current food group under the microscope is carbohydrates. How does
the Core Balance Diet address these food groups?
“...The Core Balance Diet is... not a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s
really about having more awareness of the foods that speak best to you and your
genes — because when it comes down to it, food is information for your body.”
— MP
MP: Okay. To start with, our bodies need fat. Fat helps to maintain
our cell membranes, our brain tissue, our nerves. It’s the precursor to our
sex hormones. And women have to understand that without fat their bodies can’t
function, let alone lose weight.
We also need carbohydrates for energy. Our brains can only use carbs for fuel, so
without carbohydrates we also have a problem.
Rather than focusing on strict ratios between fats to carbs to proteins, the Core
Balance approach is about the quality of the foods you choose, with a strong emphasis
on healthy fats like omega-3’s and monounsaturated fatty acids, lean proteins,
micronutrient-rich vegetables and fruits, and unrefined carbohydrates.
The other important message is that the Core Balance Diet is not a one-size-fits-all
approach. It’s really about having more awareness of the foods that speak
best to you and your genes — because when it comes down to it, food is information
for your body. And when you provide your body with the information it needs for
your specific gene type, all kinds of good things happen — including healthy
weight.
Does more fat mean higher cholesterol?
MH: Many women I talk with in practice are worried about cholesterol
when they start including more fat in their diets. Can you talk about cholesterol
concerns and heart health when it comes to the Core Balance Diet?
MP: The Core Balance Diet is not a diet high in saturated fats
like, for example, the Atkins Diet. It’s much more like the Mediterranean
diet, emphasizing high quality protein, phytonutrient-rich foods — by this
I mean lots of nutritious fruits and vegetables — and healthy fats and oils.
All of this together can affect cell-signaling and actually decrease the chances
of inflammatory related conditions like high cholesterol, insulin resistance, type
2 diabetes, heart disease, and so on. There’s plenty of research on this way
of eating that shows us how heart-healthy it is.
Let’s talk more specifically about the differences between the Core Balance
Diet and a high-fat diet like the Atkins diet. A study published in 2005 out of
New Zealand compared some recent popular diets, and the researchers concluded that
a reduced-carb, higher-protein diet was likely the best at reducing the risks of
cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. While the high-fat diet worked well
for weight loss in the short-term — which many women who’ve been on
Atkins will tell you — the big worry was how such a high intake of saturated
fats would affect lipid levels, especially over time. In other words, the Core Balance
Diet is an approach you can stay with for the long-term, free of worry about any
damaging effects to your health — in fact, quite the opposite.
Why a calorie is not just a calorie
MH: The concept of calories-in/calories-out is something many women
live by when trying to lose weight. Why do women who take this mantra to heart have
so much trouble losing weight, and how does the Core Balance approach differ?
MP: I first noticed this rule didn’t work when I was 19 —
I enrolled in Weight Watchers, and everyone around me was weighing and measuring
everything, but I also noticed everyone was cheating all the time! I was weighing
and measuring everything, too, and not cheating at all — I mean, I was picture-perfect.
But I still only lost a quarter-pound here, or gained a quarter-pound there. I thought,
What’s wrong here? I’m doing everything right! Ultimately,
I found my problem was that I was gluten-sensitive, and that had a lot to do with
why I wasn’t losing any weight.
So the reality is that there are many potential blocks to weight loss in the form
of metabolic imbalances. And the individual food plans with my approach vary according
to which metabolic imbalance is wreaking havoc with your ability to lose weight.
Calories are only a piece of it, and calories are not all created equally. Two hundred
calories of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or hydrogenated oils send much different
information to your cells than 200 calories worth of almonds and feta cheese or
spinach and olive oil. Similarly, if you’re sensitive to gluten and you eat
200 calories worth of pasta or bread with gluten, you’ll send a whole cascade
of negative messaging throughout your body. If we become more mindful of what
we eat and fully savor those foods, we can obsess less about how much we
eat, so some of the stress of losing weight subsides and we’re much more likely
to be successful.
Fruits and veggies speak to our genes — and our jeans
MH: You mentioned phytonutrients. For years we’ve been told
that eating more fruits and vegetables is healthier for us. More whole foods like
fruits and veggies (especially organic) are a large component of the Core Balance
Diet and the Mediterranean diet. What is the philosophy behind this?
MP: Here again we have the concept of food as information. Thousands
upon thousands of phytonutrients in colorful fruits and vegetables have been identified
to date. And they have been shown to work with the body’s cell-signaling pathways
to influence gene expression in countless beneficial ways — most of which
we have yet to discover. We do know these genes are then responsible for turning
on detoxifying enzymes, which help program cell death for cells in our bodies that
have “gone wrong” (helpful in prevention of cancer), and they can have
anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative effects (also helpful in prevention of cancer).
We’ve also seen how the fiber in fruits and veggies helps to prevent weight
gain. And this is partly due to the way fiber can lower the glycemic index of our
meals. Just by adding a vegetable we can slow down the way glucose is used and stored
in the body. So I always say plant-based foods speak to our genes and our jeans!
Exercise and weight loss — hand in glove
MH: Marcelle, can you give us your thoughts on the subject of exercise
and weight loss?
MP: There is practically nothing bad we can say about exercise,
except perhaps for one precaution: please don’t allow your exercise routine,
or lack of one, to become another stressor in your life. Exercise is so beneficial
to us because it is a stress reliever, not a stress producer.
Let’s start with just that one benefit: we know from research that exercise
enhances mood. And if it did only that, it would be wonderful. But its effects are
additive and cumulative, and integral to reaching and maintaining a healthy weight.
It can prevent insulin resistance and diabetes by boosting our cell’s sensitivity
to insulin, a very good thing for any woman wanting to heal metabolic imbalance.
Studies have also shown how exercise can reduce abdominal fat — even without
dieting! — and when we put the two together, the benefits compound one another
to assure long-term success.
But we don’t have to knock ourselves out with exercise. The trick is to make
it fun, make it something you look forward to. Find a way to move your body that
you love, and don’t be afraid to experiment!
If you don’t have a lot of time, “bursting” is a great way to
challenge your body without spending hours at the gym. The idea behind bursting
is that you want to quickly bring yourself to an extreme and back again several
times during your work out. During a burst, your breathing may be so heavy that
it’s hard to talk. Stay at this level for 20-30 seconds at first and work
up to 1 minute. I like this concept because you can reap the benefits of an intense
work out in only 20 minutes and it doesn’t matter what kind of exercise you’re
doing!
Weight loss as a happy side effect
MH: In your book, you explain that weight gain is an indicator
of a wider imbalance in the body. Can you point women in a direction where they
can learn more about this?
MP: I’ve seen many core imbalances lead to unwanted weight
gain, or sabotage weight loss efforts. And once you address the core imbalance,
the weight loss is often a happy side effect.
In the book, I discuss at length the six core imbalances I’ve seen most in
my years of practice, and how they are connected to weight. Often we have more than
one imbalance, but one or another of these will tend to predominate in each of us.
To learn more, see the following summaries of core imbalances and their effect on
weight:
The bottom line is that women are so tired of being told, “If you would just
cut back on one more meal...,” or “If you would just work out more....”
This all translates into “You’re just not doing good enough!”
I’ve found that most women really are doing well — they’re eating
regularly, they’re exercising regularly, but their extra weight is just not
budging. We want to reassure women that it’s not that they’re not doing
a good-enough job. You’re doing a great job! But something is up here —
something is out of balance. Your body is smart enough to come to a place of balance
— once we give it the support it needs. This book is for all those women who
have been trying to do well but still feel stuck.
MH: Thank you for talking with us about The Core Balance Diet. I wanted to
let readers know that in addition to the guidance about healthy weight loss in this
book, there are also loads of delicious recipes — all tailored to the individual
core imbalances.
MP: You’re welcome, Marcy. I want to encourage women not
to give up. It’s just not true that as we get older we should simply give
in to weight gain and lost energy. Our bodies are so much more resilient than we
give them credit for, and if we can provide the natural support they need, life
can be just as good — and better — than it was in our younger years!
The Personal Program for Core Balance helps rebalance your body to promote natural and lasting weight loss. At the heart of our Program is The Core Balance Diet, an eating plan designed to provide the body with the foundation it needs to lose pounds along with the digestive and nutritional support needed to maintain a healthy weight.