Fire Up at 55 Plus
Are you ready to put yourself first in your 55+ years? Your host, Laurie Adams at 60+, successfully did that and is here now to help you discover what you want for your own, full second act in life. She lived in the people-pleasing era where young girls learned to put themselves last and how, as experienced, mature women they can rekindle dreams and realize them. A certified life and weight loss coach, Laurie, along with her variety of guests, share how they have shifted into their best years yet. If you’re stuck on the back burner and ready to fire-up at mid-life and beyond, tune in weekly to hear inspiring conversations and personal journeys with info you can apply to get going. Real self care and moving from hope to success starts here—for a new companion, or career, retirement, mastering weight loss, fitness and more. And if you’d like to work with Laurie 1-on-1, contact her at hello@laurieadamscoaching.com.
Fire Up at 55 Plus
36. A Weight Loss Favorite: Doable Facts from Dr. Lisa Oldson
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It’s Christmas Week, but already here interrupting “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” … on repeat, are the annoying New Year’s TV Ads. You know, the ones for diet programs that are supposed to inspire you to plunk down determination and cash. Come on, in 2024 we no longer need to be fooled by these truly depressing sales pitches. "Fool me once, shame on me," the saying goes … but, "fool me over and over again," and, well, shame on who? Today there’s so much strong, realistic evidence for what truly works long term for those of us ready to live a life with less weight and less stress … hey even happiness while we do it. My go-to expert is Dr. Lisa Oldson who helped launch this podcast with the most popular episode to date! Before you give in to the bright and shiny diet ads pummeling us this time of year, give a listen to this repeat episode for so much valid and current information on what really works at all ages!
Connect further with Lisa Oldson, MD:
Websites: www.smartweightlosscoaching.com and www.oldsonmedical.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-smart-weight-loss-coaching-podcast/id1683418958
Instagram: @LisaOldson
You can reach me via email at hello@laurieadamscoaching.com with any questions you have about creating your best life at midlife+.
This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.
Hi, and welcome to the Fire Up at 55 Plus Podcast, a show about how to put yourself first in your second act of life. I'm Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach Lori Adams, here to empower you to let go of guilt, take charge of your health, then find and fulfill your dreams. It's never too late, so let's get started. You're listening to the Fire Up at 55 Plus Podcast, episode number 36, a weight loss favorite episode, doable facts from Dr. Lisa Olson, obesity medicine specialist. Well it's Christmas week, but already here interrupting the most wonderful time of the year, on repeat, are the annoying New Year's TV ads. You know, the ones for diet programs that are supposed to inspire you to plunk down determination and cash. Come on, in 2024, we no longer need to be fooled by these truly depressing sales pitches. Fool me once, shame on me, the saying goes, but fool me over and over again. And well, shame on who? Today there's so much strong, realistic evidence for what truly works long term for those of us ready to live a life with less weight and less stress, hey, even happiness while we do it. My go-to expert is Dr. Lisa Oldson, who helped launch this podcast many months ago with the most popular episode to date. Before you give in to the bright and shiny diet ads pummeling us this time of year, give a listen to this repeat episode for so much valid and current information on what really works at all ages. Hello everyone, I'm Certified Coach Lori Adams, and I'm so glad to be with you today, especially because my guest is the highly accomplished, delightful, and expert Dr. Lisa Olson, an obesity medicine practitioner and instructor, as well as being an experienced, supportive, and understanding certified weight loss coach. That's a lot. So you all are in for some very helpful insights into effective weight loss from Lisa today. Welcome, audience, and welcome, Dr. Lisa.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. So excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm so glad to have you as my first podcast guest. You were first on my list. Woo-hoo! All right. We're also lucky that you agreed. So you know that women who were born in the 1950s, 60s, and even 70s beyond have a little bit different challenge, perhaps, than even your traditional midlife person who really wants to lose some weight and is experiencing some changes. So if you could describe your background and what led you into practicing obesity medicine and later weight loss coaching and how that can resonate with the largely the audience of people who are midlife and beyond today.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Thanks, Lori. Well, I got my start in weight loss when I was about 12 years old and started worrying that I was, I'm gonna put this in air quotes because this is how I talked to myself back then, fat. And um, you know, I wasn't. But whether I was or not, the fact is we were in such a toxic diet culture. So this was in the 1970s, and my parents, in particular my dad, would take me with him to a weight loss group at our local library called Take Off Pounds Sensibly. And we would fill out food trackers, we would turn them in, we would stand at the front of the room and weigh in in front of everybody. I went with my mom to aerobics class. You know, we wore those leg warmers around our ankles and did a lot of Jane Fonda type of moves. And, you know, that was the culture for so many of us women growing up as tweets, as teens, right? We were just immersed in this toxic diet culture. And I say toxic diet culture, um, not in any way pointing a finger at my parents because my parents were victims of it as well. I mean, I don't really like to think of any of us as victims, but you know, they were also surrounded by this kind of messaging that somehow our worthiness is dependent upon being thin. And it happens that my mom loves to exercise and she loves vegetables, and she has always actually been a healthy weight, and yet she certainly didn't think so for many years. And now in her in her 70s, she's actually has a half marathon coming up next weekend. She does triathlons and hundred-mile bike rides in the summer. I mean, she's really quite an athlete and yet still a little hard on herself about her weight, which by the way is so low. You can't, you know, you can't imagine someone at that weight could be critical of their bodies. And then my father is sort of on the other extreme. He always struggled with his weight. When I see pictures of him as a toddler, he was a very big kid. And so a lot of that was probably genetics, environmental, and so on. So he really struggled his whole life with his weight. And I don't really know how much weight he has lost in his 70s and 80s, but I'm gonna say in the past three to five years, he has probably lost, I'm gonna guess, 80 pounds, and he is at his lowest adult weight, feeling healthier and stronger, and he's done it really sensibly. But this has been a lifelong issue for both of my parents. So that's the world I grew up in, like so many of us women.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you have chronic experience on the family side, your personal side. Yes. And then you decided to expand your knowledge and help people outside of your personal life. And how did that come about?
SPEAKER_02So I am an internal medicine board certified physician, and about 10 years ago, I decided to change my area of focus to a new specialty called obesity medicine. So when I got board certified in obesity medicine in 2013, it was only the second year a board exam was even offered for that specialty. And I do just want to tell your audience, because I think the term obesity is so loaded for us. It's a really stigmatizing term in some ways. And yet in the medical community, it simply just means a BMI, a body mass index of 30 or higher. And so when I use that term in the medical sense, you know, that's that is what I'm referring to as a BMI of 30 or higher. I think it's unfortunate that the leaders from the American Board of Obesity Medicine didn't have the foresight to choose a different name when they created this specialty in this board exam. I really think it's, you know, we're not doing anyone any favors with that term. We could simply have been the American Board of Bariatric Medicine or something like that that might have felt a little less loaded for people. So I try not to use that word. I use the term excess weight. But about 10 years ago, I got this certification because what I found in primary care is that I was playing a game of whack-a-mole. Every problem I was treating had as its underlying condition excess weight. So high blood sugar, high cholesterol, heart disease, high blood pressure, knee arthritis, sleep apnea, a lot of disordered eating, a lot of mood symptoms, anxiety, depression. I'm not saying all depression is caused by excess weight, but you know, there is certainly a relationship between people feeling down about themselves, their self-esteem being impacted by their weight, feeling not worthy, not good enough, being harsh on themselves. You know, like there, it's just really intertwined for many people, mood and weight. There are 13 different types of cancer that are linked to excess weight: uterine cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, you know, a long list. 13 different cancers that we know are seen in much higher frequency in people who carry excess weight. And so as a primary care doctor, I was treating these problems, but never had the time to really get to the root of the issue with people. Because by the time you help someone with their cholesterol diabetes, high blood pressure, and their, you know, all the things, you're already running 10 minutes late for your next person. And so I just felt like, gosh, I could help people so much more if I could prevent weight gain in the first place, or help people with weight loss and, you know, head off some of these problems before they occur or improve them by treating the root cause. So that's how I got really interested from the medical angle in helping people with their weight.
SPEAKER_00So interesting. And when I think about coaching, I think about you've got two major things going on here that you've explained, which is the diet mentality and people's association with restriction and loaded words like obesity when maybe they thought they were overweight and now they're a little more nervous about it. And then the medical health implications, which can be so difficult, I know, for me, to watch um people as they get older, including myself, you know, wanting to maybe shift their goals from I just want to fit into this dress to I want to be able to play with my grandchildren and go on a hike with my friends or like your mother, you know, go into more rigorous activity and have fun. So, can you explain how coaching has been able to empower you to help people beyond the medicine?
SPEAKER_02Well, I just don't know how anyone helps people lose weight without this combination. And so, I mean, sustainable, serious weight loss. I mean, you can lose 10 pounds or 20 pounds, you know, like you can lose some weight. I'm not saying you have to have both, but I just find the intersection of the medical science with coaching has been the sweet spot for me. So, for many years, I was helping people just from the scientific angle, looking at, you know, what are the hormones involved in weight loss? What are the medical implications of when you lose weight? How does your body try to return you to your baseline weight? All focused on neurotransmitters, hormones, and the pathophysiology of excess weight. And I was constantly searching for that missing piece, which I knew was something related to mindset and self-talk. I took courses on motivational interviewing, I took courses on cognitive behavioral therapy. Not that I'm a therapist, I'm not, but I just thought there must be something there. So I was always looking for this missing piece that was the more human aspect, as well as habit change, behavior change, all of that. And so when I found the world of coaching, it was like a rainbow went off over my house, you know, like, ah, finally, I've got it. And so I went and became a certified coach, a certified life coach and weight loss coach. And that has just been the ticket to help people in the best way when I combine these two. And let's face it, many people who carry excess weight can and should be taking medication for it, as well as working on the coaching piece. We judge ourselves and one another for using medication for weight loss in a way we never would do for diabetes. We don't judge people who take Lipitor for their high cholesterol or take a little, you know, a little blood pressure medicine. I just can't fathom why it is that we're so judgmental about medication for weight loss. We know for most people, excess weight is a chronic progressive disease. And people who don't recognize it as such are really missing an opportunity to treat it effectively, which most often is with a combination of medication and the right kind of coaching.
SPEAKER_00That is so great to hear. I had a similar experience with uh going through the life coach school and coaching, uh having coaching myself. And I have to say that that's why I'm fired up with this podcast. And especially to um address these women who've been doing this so long. It's so ingrained that to be able to fire up and out of it, you know, it's going to take the mindset the supportiveness that you offer. And I want to say here that I know Lisa is so understanding and supportive. The conversations I've had with you, Lisa, you're so careful with your wording, just as you are with saying excess weight versus obesity, and you're so sympathetic and supportive to people that really need to have that kind of foundation, undergirding, you know, someone to listen to them, but also who's going to hold them accountable. So along those lines, um, when you treat women of this age, is there anything that you find that's kind of stereotypical right away? Is it what we've talked about with the mindset or negativity about themselves? Um so what would you like to say about that?
SPEAKER_02Well, the one thing I'd like to say is people can lose weight. Women can lose weight at any life stage. So often we think once we hit menopause, forget it. All hope is lost. And honestly, this isn't a very popular fact, but I'm just going to tell you what the science says. We do not have a sudden massive drop in metabolism at menopause. That's just not what the science shows us. What we do have is kind of this downward trend in our metabolism as we get older, but there is nothing magical about menopause. I think the reason so many of us think when we hit menopause, it gets harder is it's sort of the cumulative effort for all of these decades. It just feels like, uh, you know, it beats us down in some sense. And also I think we've reached a point often around menopause where we've sort of given up. We think we know all of the things to try, and we've tried them all. So I find around menopause, women are often very discouraged. But one important thing to know is scientifically, you're not on a different trajectory when you stop having periods, when your hormones change. Your weight loss is not going to be different at 50 than at 40 than at 60, other than just sort of the slow, steady decline that we have throughout our adulthood. Now, there are times in life when we do have sort of a dramatic change in metabolism. So we see like babies are really different from toddlers and elementary school kids and teenagers and young adults. Like there are some drops in there. Menopause is not one of them. So please be heartened by that, not discouraged. You know, if you are holding on to this is menopause's fault, just let go of that and use this as a jumping off point to say, actually, I am not being held back by menopause. I might be a little bit beaten down by decades of toxic diet culture and being told unhelpful things like eat less and move more or counter calories or you know, intermittent fat, whatever. We get so many messages that really aren't helpful for us. And that leads us to a place, to a place where we believe this might not be possible for me. I think around menopause, women are often giving up on themselves. And so my message is just it doesn't matter. You can be in this life stage and you can still lose weight. It is possible for you. But also, what I love about working with women in this life stage is I think, like you said, Lori, we're starting to understand our priorities a little bit better than maybe many of us did when we were younger. Suddenly we care more about mobility, energy, being active, being able to get on the floor and play and get back up effortlessly. We care about longevity. I'm always telling people come for the weight loss, stay to live healthy to 100, because that is my secret motivation behind helping people. I mean, if you want to look fabulous in the dress for your kids' wedding or, you know, whatever event you have coming up, that's great. I can help with that. But what I really think is it's so useful to turn our attention to healthy longevity because the same things that will lead us there will help us lose weight along the way. And we can just step off that frantic struggle bus that feels very time-pressured to lose weight. When we're trying to live healthy to 100, and I don't really mean like you don't have to be 100, you can be healthy to 95, but living longer without chronic disease, when we do that gently, patiently, and gracefully, the weight loss does come along for the ride. It might be slower, and that's okay. That's really a big message for me with people. So many people do the right thing and they get frustrated at the slow pace of weight loss and they give up just short of seeing the results.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's actually leads into what I was going to ask you because when people hear all the good news that you've shared that it's possible to lose weight at any stage of life, and that you know all how coaching and the medicine and the science go together, they're gonna get very excited. And also they will have feelings of fear. Is this gonna work this time? They're also going to come in, and I would imagine they come in a lot of times with that old diet mentality. Hey, I've found coaching that's going to work for me. Let's go. And then they're gonna have the same thoughts of diet mentality that means now I'm on the straight and narrow, I'm gonna be perfect or whatever, and I'm gonna go with that and I'm gonna lose weight. Or they're going to be like, this is gonna take a long time. I'm starting to understand it's not gonna be, you know, three pounds a week. It's gonna be, you know, uh an ounce of hamburger off my body every now and then. So what would you say to that?
SPEAKER_02Well, what I really think is this idea that we're on or off. You know, we're on the bus or we're off the bus to go back to like the old um, is it Ken Casey from uh the 60s, remember? And like the um, oh, who were the the cuckoo's nest?
SPEAKER_01Is it the all those guys and women too who were you know in that, like the Dharma blues?
SPEAKER_02Anyway, I I'm I'm butchering the names of these books. But anyway, the idea that you're on the bus or you're off the bus, you're with the program or you're off the program. Stop that! That's what I say. Stop doing that. Just take the next best action, you know. Like my next best action is going to be to drink some water instead of drinking some coffee with coffee made French vanilla creamer in it, which doesn't have cream, by the way, it's just a big chemical bomb. You know, we don't have to change everything at once. You don't have to create your plan and build up your plan and get all ready and it starts on Monday. I think that doesn't help us. So, what I like to invite women to do is to embrace their imperfections and just, you know, make the next choice a healthy one. People say we make 150 to 200 choices or decisions a day that impact our weight. Just make a few more of those weight neutral or weight helpful decisions as opposed to not. So drinking water, rethink your drink is something I love to say. Your drink is one of the first things that I do with almost all of my clients because so many people are looking for some sort of flavorful, sweetened drink. And honestly, that just keeps our mouths sensitized to that desire for the powerful sweet food carnival in the mouth, you know? And I think when you rethink your drink, is water boring? Of course it's boring in the beginning, but if you're thirsty, that's one of those things you can get used to. So I always tell people, I am not going to ask you to eat or drink something that you really don't like, unless it makes perfect sense to do so. So if someone comes to me and they say, I don't like fish, I will not try to convince them that they just haven't tried my salmon recipe. You know, if you say you don't like fish, I accept that at face value. Fine, don't eat fish. That's no problem. But if you tell me I don't like water, my response to that is come on, that is worth working on. Because all day long, every single day, we have to drink something. So when you rethink your drink, now you can have plain tea, like black tea or green tea. Fine. Black coffee, fine. Those things are good for you, actually, if you look at the medical literature. Plain water, fine. As soon as you put something with, I'm putting this in air quotes, natural flavors in it, you've created an ultra-processed situation which will cause weight gain, even in a zero calorie drink. So think about LaCroix. There's a reason why that smells so fragrant and why it tastes so flavorful. If it's zero calories, zero sugar, but it smells and taste like that. Come on, be skeptical. You're smart, you know that that doesn't make a lot of sense. So I do really ask women to rethink their drink and just practice drinking plain old water. It can be carbonated, you can have pellegrino or perrier or something, but for the most part, you know, just plain water, no flavors. That's a really good place to start.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you know, that's what I mean about you know being accountable. You know, there are still things you need to do beyond um being supported and told it might take a while and have patience with yourself. There are actual tools you can use. So I want to go over a few um trends. Yeah. Since you brought up the um you brought up the creamer and the sparkling water because I have heard, so I'm gonna tell you some things I've heard, and you can bust those myths, or you can also tell me more about what I ask you. Sparkling water, even Pellegrino, that you bloat with that, that that does not help you to um ridge your body the way regular water would.
SPEAKER_02Is there any truth to that?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm just gonna say I think when someone is eating and drinking so beautifully that the biggest thing we have to worry about is some non-flavored, pure, plain pellegrino with you know, with some bubbles in it, it's kind of like when people won't eat a banana because they think it's too high of a glycemic load. I just think, you know, when we're living on nut seeds and berries and running half marathons, then we'll weed out the pellegrino. But otherwise, like we have bigger fish to fry than that. So if you're drinking plain Pellegrino, plain water, plain green or black tea, really read the ingredient label and make sure that's all that's in there. Because most teas that you buy, little tea bags, if you read the ingredient label, there are chemicals in there: natural flavors, soy lecetin, other things like that. Plain black coffee. If you're drinking something truly plain and simple, I don't think we need to worry about the bubbles and pellegrino. If you feel bloated, then drink flat water, still water. Sounds good to me. But if you love Pellegrino, I don't see a problem with it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the natural flavoring or whatever flavoring it is, let's ask about sugar. Yeah. Honey, stevia, uh, cane sugar, all the sugars, the sugar substitutes. What do you have to say about that? So much.
SPEAKER_01I have so much to say. Can we stay here until tomorrow?
SPEAKER_02No, I'll try to condense it.
SPEAKER_01I just I just need to put some sugar and creamer in my coffee before you're such a rascal.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so here's the thing. Our pancreas, which sits at the top center of our abdomen, is in charge of releasing insulin. So insulin is not just something that's injected by people who have type 1 diabetes or advanced type 2 diabetes. Insulin is made in our own bodies by our pancreas. And the job of insulin, well, insulin has a few jobs, but one way I like to just sort of simplify the job of insulin is when we eat something sweet, the insulin is kind of, you could think of it almost like grabbing that sweet thing, knocking on the door of, let's say, our muscles, knock knock. Hey, I have some energy for you. Opening the door, sending in the sweet sugar, closing the door. Now our muscles have a little fuel to walk or dance or whatever we're going to do with our muscles. So insulin is important to get that sugar to where it needs to go, to get nutrients to where they need to go. The issue is all of those different sweet things that you mentioned and many other sweet things that you didn't mention, artificial sweeteners, natural sweeteners, they all stimulate our pancreas. And so when you use something like stevia, almost 200 times sweeter than table sugar per gram, you know, like ounce for ounce, gram for gram, however you want to look at it. Stevia is hyper sweet. And so are sweet and low, all these different erythritol, all of these different sweeteners that we can add in from a little packet. They are so much sweeter than table sugar. Our pancreas is like, whoa, what is that? It's a tsunami of sweetness. And so the pancreas is pumping out the insulin. Well, guess what? Insulin is an obesogenic weight gain hormone. This morning I had half of an apple and some almond butter. I would have eaten the whole apple, by the way, but I just was in a race to uh get my kids to school. So I only got half an apple in. It turns out that was enough. So half an apple with some almond butter, I eat that. My taste buds notice sweetness, but that's uh linked with fiber. So the fructose in fruit is in a web of fiber, which causes a very slow, gentle release of the sugar. And because of that, there's a very slow gentle release of insulin from the pancreas. We don't get these huge sugar spikes, we don't get these huge insulin spikes. Because insulin's rising gradually and never spikes too high, it sort of dissipates gradually. And so we don't come crashing down after we eat a sweet honey crisp apple. As opposed to these packets of sweeteners or these zero calorie sweeteners that are in so many of our ultra-processed foods and drinks, those are so sweet. They freak out the pancreas, which sends a fire hose of insulin to deal with this hyper-sweetness. Insulin spikes, it will come crashing down, leaving you hungrier and craving more sweets. And so I really encourage people to do an experiment. I have my women try this out. If they are sweetening their coffee, let's say, with coffee make creamer or with stevia or with sweetlow or, you know, drops of anything, whatever they're putting in it. I say, okay, just for a week or so, try substituting plain old table sugar. And on the first day, just put in enough sugar until you get it about as sweet, like close to as sweet as before. So people will put in a spoonful, stir it, take a sip. Whoa, that's bitter. Put in another spoonful, stir it, take a sip. Ooh, bitter. I don't even taste the sugar. And more and more and more and more. And it, I think it's very eye-opening for women to see how many spoonfuls of plain old table sugar one needs to approximate the sweetness of some of these sweeteners that we're using. So that's a really fun experiment you can do at home. Imagine you're back in science class, like just pull out a big container of sugar and try that out. And you will see how much flavor enhancement, sweet enhancement there is in so many of these creamers that we use.
SPEAKER_00So again, sugar versus high fructose corn syrup or however it's said. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02High fructose corn syrup.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh you're gonna pick one over the other, or you're not gonna pick any, or you're gonna say.
SPEAKER_02So I would say no, it's a it's a great question. So high fructose corn syrup is an ultra-processed ingredient, and one thing we know is that if you take two foods or two drinks that have the same number of calories in them, but one is made with ultra-processed ingredients, and one is just made with what I would call real food ingredients, there is a big difference in how they act in your body. So let me give you an example with cookies. If you make a homemade oatmeal, raisin cookie, you know, there's egg, there's sugar, there's flour, there's oatmeal. I don't know what else goes on cookies. I'm not much of a baker. Um, so you make your own homemade oatmeal, raisin cookie. And then you compare that to Oreos, totally ultra-processed, made with chemicals, right? There's a really different impact on metabolic health and weight from those two kinds of cookies. So when we were kids, we might have a cookie as an afterschool snack, a cookie and some milk, or two cookies and some milk. Maybe not every day. My mom was busy working outside the home, not baking cookies for the most part, but sometimes we got cookies, but they were real cookies. And contrast that to today when our children and we adults were exposed to so many ultra-processed treats, that kind of sweetness behaves so differently inside us. And so I just want people to understand that all cookies, I'm using cookies as an example because we're talking about sugar. All cookies are not created equal. An ultra-processed cookie will cause more weight gain than a homemade cookie. If I were to take a really dramatic example of this concept that all calories are not created equal, I might just give you something silly like 200 calories of Skittles behaves totally differently in your body than 200 calories of salmon, right? And we could all agree, oh, that makes sense. Of course, you can't just have Skittles for dinner and just say, oh, it's only 200 calories of Skittles, though. I was gonna have 200 calories of salmon. That's not a fair substitution. You're you will gain weight and it's not good for your health. It can increase your risk of dementia, diabetes, many problems that come from these ultra-processed foods. So when we look at sugar, I don't believe sweet things need to be forbidden. Many of us love sweet things. Is it easier for people to be all or non? I'm quitting sugar. A lot of people feel that way. A lot of people feel it's easier to be all or none, but I am always striving to help women find their balance where we don't have to make anything forbidden. So I do eat sweets. I don't, I really, you know, like I have a protocol. I'm not eating sweets every single day. And when I do have sweets, I really choose carefully. I'm not, it's not worth it to me to eat Oreos or Girl Scout cookies because I know those are ultra-processed, but I will eat cookies that my daughter bakes, for example. It's not worth it to, you know, to get the things that can sit on a shelf for months without getting moldy or stale. Those ultra-processed foods cause weight gain way out of proportion to other sweet treats. So I think choose your treats carefully, but don't make anything forbidden. That's my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel the same way about alcohol?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's such a great question. All right, you caught me at a great time for this because I have been through what I would consider a little bit of a, I don't know, like a personal journey with that during the pandemic. So at the beginning of the pandemic, my husband and I love to have wine with dinner. And we used to mainly have wine if we were going out somewhere or on the weekends. My husband used to travel every week for work. So I wasn't drinking wine typically by myself at home, but I would wait till he was home on the weekends. And then when the pandemic hit in 2020, spring, March 2020, he was home every night. So it kind of felt like every night was a Saturday night for those first couple of weeks, two, three weeks. So we were just, you know, there wasn't much to do. It was cold in Chicago where we live, and nothing was open, nothing was going on, no one was socializing. We were in lockdown. So we started doing puzzles and drinking wine every night. And so we really quickly started killing a bottle of wine every single night, the two of us. And it wasn't long before I was like, huh, I don't think this is really good for my health. And so I decided to cut back. The first thing I'll say is, wow, how quickly that habit occurred. You know, it was shocking to me how quickly my tolerance changed and how quickly I got very used to having wine every single night and not just a little, but a lot. And um, it was humbling, the effort that was required to cut back. So I did cut back. A lot of that was mindset work. Choosing labels for myself. This is something I learned first at a conference at the Mayo Clinic many years ago, that you can choose a label for yourself that you aspire to. So I chose a label. I am someone who only drinks wine on the weekends or special occasions, meaning, like, you know, my birthday or something, or getting together with friends for a party or something. So that wasn't actually true, but I started using that label. So whenever my husband would pull out a bottle of wine and say, Can I pour you some? I would say, no, thank you. And then in my mind, I would say, because I am someone who only drinks wine on the weekends and special occasions. And the more I practiced that mantra, that label, the easier it became, the more true it became, the more I began to identify with that. It really helped. And then fast forward now into 2022, I still, when I would drink on a Saturday night, I would have maybe two glasses of wine. So then I changed my label to be I'm someone who, you know, generally just has one glass of wine when I drink. Also, not a true label when I started using it, but with practice that became true. And then the medical community started learning about how we have been really fooled by the food and beverage industry, the beverage and alcohol industry, really, I should say, about wine, about alcohol in general. And we have perpetuated this misinformation to our patients and to the community at large. So I'm sure your listeners have heard this. One glass of red wine a day, good for your health, right? Boy, is that an unjustified little uh nugget of misinformation. I mean, it's just amazing. We are starting to get more and more data that says actually, that amount of wine dramatically increases your risk of cancer. It slightly decreases your risk of heart disease, but definitely increases your risk of cancer and other health problems. And where did that myth come from? Well, it came from a teeny tiny, not so great study showing a slight decrease in cardiovascular disease with a little bit of red wine every day. But then the beverage industry amplified that and promoted that message to the medical community who then unknowingly sort of perpetuated it to, you know, patients. And so I just want to tell your listeners, in no unequivocal terms, that is incorrect. A glass of wine a day is not good for you. More than one glass of wine a day is not good for you. So I am following the science, and the science says zero one or two alcohol drinks a week will probably not cut your life short. And so that's all I'm doing. I cut off never more than two drinks of alcohol a week. I know you were asking about my personal journey, but I'll just say, like, it has evolved. So if I just answer you to say, I don't think we should be drinking more than one or two drinks a week maximum. I think it helps to understand the backstory to it and the fact that I'm on this journey too. And you know what has happened over the year of reducing, reducing, reducing my wine intake so that now I'm only having one or two glasses in any given week. And I might go to zero. I'm not, you know, I'm not ruling that out, but I'm fine with one or two since I don't think that shortens my lifespan. But the happy benefit of this has been a drop of, you know, I don't know, I'm gonna say about eight or nine pounds for me with nothing else changing, you know, like I have very healthy habits, I think. Not perfect. I include in my healthy habits the fact that I do have some sweets and I do have some wine, but I don't think I changed anything else. I just cut way back on this alcohol and wow, fastest eight or nine pounds I ever dropped.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I would say that your um experience, you know, is very similar to what people experienced during COVID. We all changed our habits a little bit. I know I did, very similar to what you're saying. As I look at my overall goal being health and fitness, you know, I realize too that I wake up kind of foggy or I don't sleep well if I drink too much. And so that's another uh thing to consider.
SPEAKER_02So there's one more kind of trendy thing I want to May I interrupt to say one more thing for women in the first range about alcohol. Now, this is really from my experience and the experience of my clients and also my friends. I can't say that I've read an article that uh calls this out as an undisputable fact. But boy, do hot flashes and sleep improve when you cut out alcohol. I mean, the sleep thing is very proven. I think that hot flashes probably are. I just I don't want to quote something without the science to back it up. But boy, what a difference in sleep. We think when we have some wine, we fall asleep so easily, but that is not the deep restorative sleep that helps us on our weight loss journey and with our help. It's very interrupted, fragmented, light sleep that you get when you drink at night before going to sleep. So we sleep, we have better quality sleep, better quantity of sleep. And I think hot flashes are tremendously improved when alcohol is not in my life. And I hear that from my clients all the time too. So, yeah, another little perk of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great to know. Um, and we do have plenty of time here, but I want to ask one other kind of current trendy uh question. And then I want to talk about you some more and where we can reach you and some other things that you like. Sure. First of all, though, gluten-free, gluten-free. We all should we be gluten-free, should we not? Oh, I'm so glad you're asking that.
SPEAKER_02So, gluten-free is not a weight loss diet. So, if you're going gluten-free to lose weight, stop that. It's not helpful. People who have celiac disease must be gluten-free. And there are people who don't have full-blown celiac disease, but they seem to feel better off gluten. If that is you, great, then don't have gluten. I mean, never should we eat something that doesn't agree with us. But choosing things that are gluten-free when you don't have any medical or health reason to be gluten free, it is just not a weight loss tool. What I think people are sometimes doing when they choose to go gluten free is they're reducing the amount of bread that they eat. They're reducing the amount of those types of carbs that they're eating. But I don't think carbs have to be forbidden. I don't Think bread has to be forbidden. I don't think pasta and rice have to be forbidden. It is a question of what kind, how much, how often. You know, I certainly, like many of your listeners, I'm sure I grew up thinking bread is forbidden. And I don't just mean I grew up when I was, you know, 15 and 18 thinking that I'm gonna say until I was maybe 40, I thought, you know, like, oh, you can't manage your weight eating bread. It's just not true. But the kind of bread that we get at the grocery store, just turn over the package and read the ingredient label. It is ultra-processed bread. And sometimes it looks brown because caramel color is added to make it look brown. That brown does not mean it's healthy necessarily. So I eat a type of bread that just has a whole grain flour, yeast, water, and salt. Like four ingredients.
SPEAKER_01It's it's kind of boring.
SPEAKER_02What is that type?
SPEAKER_00I will I will do an endorsement here.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, okay. So I don't know what it's called. We call it in my family, we call it papa bread. My husband grew up in Germany. He came here as an adult. And so he will only eat that kind of bread that's dense and you know, I thought it was kind of boring at first, but now over the years of having papa bread, I've come to really appreciate the taste of it. It's just a more simple taste. And it took some time to get used to that. As I did taste bud rehab and got rid of that ultra-processed bread. But if your listeners want a type of bread that they can just get at any grocery store in the freezer section, I recommend Ezekiel bread. The Ezekiel sprouted bread. Those are not ultra-processed. They're in the freezer section because they would get hard, stale, moldy if they sat on the shelf because they don't have all of the chemicals to, you know, to expand their shelf life. So I think Ezekiel bread is a really good toast bread. Um great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna sneak in one other one I meant to add is dairy. Dairy, dairy, dairy.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so okay, this is really interesting. So I don't think you have to eliminate dairy to lose weight. I don't. I have dairy. I try to have less dairy now than I used to. I really have dialed back my dairy quite a bit just for environmental reasons. I think it's not good for our planet. And um, so I am evolving in terms of my own personal relationship with dairy, but there is data from the nurses' health study looking at approximately 93,000 women over the course of many years. And these women tracked, and the reason the nurses' health study is all women, and there was then a physician's health study that was all men, a nurses' health study was started in the 70s when pretty much all nurses were women and most doctors were men, and so these were gender uh segregated studies. So the nurses' health study looked at, you know, tens of thousands of nurses who kept meticulous dietary records or filled out dietary surveys on a regular basis and filled out surveys about their health issues. And from that, we have just a treasure trove of data about correlation between certain foods and food groups and drinks and things and health outcomes. So we can't prove causation, but we can show correlation. So here is what we know that might be a surprise to people. Among women who consume dairy, those who have higher fat dairy do better with their weight than those who have fat-free or skim. The old school skim. Interesting. I know it's not called that anymore. Yes, um, no, no, no. I remember Skim Mill. We all know Skim. So this another fascinating eye-opener to me. And why I really like to say we can't just do coaching, we have to do coaching blended with the science. Because, you know, how would we know then that we should stop drinking that zero percent fat milk or zero percent fat yogurt or zero percent, you know, fat-free cheese, fat-free yogurt? You can't buy one of those zero. I mean, I don't know if you can't, but when you buy fat-free and sugar-free yogurt as an example, guess what? They have to put something in there to make it palatable, to make it taste good. Chemicals go in. And those chemicals cause weight gain. That makes a yogurt ultra-processed and you will gain weight. So instead of doing a Dan Enlightened fit, zero, you know, sugar, zero fat type of yogurt, strawberry yogurt, let's say, a better choice would be a Faye 5% full fat plain Greek yogurt with chopped-up strawberries. There's a world of difference between those two products. So for women who consume dairy who are trying to lose weight, please make the switch to higher fat dairy. And just recognize that when you are having more fat in your dairy, the way it helps you with your weight is, you know, we think we think a couple of things are happening. Number one, there's no requirement to add a bunch of chemicals in to make it taste better. So that helps with weight. Number two, that rich creamy fat in your yogurt, in your milk, in your ice cream, and your cheese, whatever it is, like a triple cream cheese. Why are the French women eating triple cream cheese and not gaining weight? Well, they're satisfied with a smaller portion. A much smaller portion will carry you a longer way because it is so rich and creamy and satisfying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds like what you were talking about with the slow release when you eat fruit. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So before we um wrap this up, I do have a few wrap-up questions at the end for you that are fun, but I want to be sure that you can tell our listeners how they can reach you, the best way to reach you for being treated medically or in weight loss coaching or both. Oh, thank you so much for asking.
SPEAKER_02So, my name is Lisa Oldson, O L D S O N. People can find me on Instagram under Lisa Oldson. I also have a medical practice in the state of Illinois called oldsonmedical.com. It's a concierge practice where I just see people one-on-one, take a very small number of clients to work with one-on-one. Really, where my heart is is reaching as many people as possible through my coaching program because I believe we can help primary care doctors to figure out how to prescribe weight loss medication, just like they learn how to prescribe medicine for diabetes and high cholesterol and so on. So I hope women with a BMI of 30 or higher will talk to their primary care doctors about weight loss medication to see if it's appropriate for them, if it would be helpful. And then join me at smartweightlosscoaching.com. Smart Weight Loss Coaching is where I have a group coaching program that's all online, and that's nationwide. I can see people from all across the country for that. And I would love to help your people, but I'd also love to help you help your people because you are helping people not just with weight loss, but with so many other areas of their life when they are our age. And I think that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Well, I certainly do hope you will come back again because I thought of, you know, a hundred other questions while we were talking.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_00And so you are the expert in all things. It's been so great to hear your knowledgeable and balanced um responses. You know, they made a lot of sense. When you were talking about hormones, I thought, oh my goodness, she's not going to ask me to remember leptin, grill, and all the different names. She's just going to explain how it works, which was much more enlightening for me today.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. You know, it's funny. You had asked me when we were talking before if I had any favorite books that I wanted to recommend. And for people who love to geek out on the details of the hormones, there is a great book called The Obesity Code by Jason Feng, F-U-N-G. He's a physician. That is really like a fun dive into the science. But I think, you know, there are some lighter reads that are meant for, you know, meant for all of us. Michael Pollan is a journalist who years ago really focused on food. He's subsequently gotten into other areas of journalism, but for a long time he wrote books and articles about food. And I love this little tiny book of his called Food Rules that's just filled with little advice. And then he has a bigger book called In Defense of Food. And the subtitle I love so much: Eat Food, not too much, mostly plants. From a habit uh angle, I love Atomic Habits by James Clear or The Power of Habit by Charles Do Higg. So hopefully I'll be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've read a few of those. Yeah. So good. So good. So the other fun questions I was going to ask that I try to ask all my guests now is um you've mentioned some uh weight loss books and habit books, but what do you um I just love books, so I have to ask this question. Uh, what is a personally meaningful book or fiction, something maybe you've recently read that you would recommend just for fun?
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's such that's such a good idea. I feel like I'm always reading books about weight.
SPEAKER_02So let me think. I really loved a book by Karen Joy Fowler called We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. It's such a hidden gem of a book. It's an older book, and boy, did it catch me by surprise. I also really enjoyed a book called Um The Love Department by William Trevor. I enjoyed, let me give you a couple more. Since you love books like I do. Yes. Five Skies by Ron Carlson. I'm trying to give you some that aren't like trendy on the, you know, Oprah recommended book list. Just some different ones. Here is a somewhat trendy one that I read back in 2020: Where the Craw Dads Sing by uh Delia Owens. And it's so funny. I loved her writing back in the 80s. I took a class on African studies and she was living in Africa and wrote this amazing book about studying hyenas. And I read a bunch of her writing back then and loved it. So I was so excited when she went into fiction. And also one last one, Educated by Tara Westover. I think a lot of your listeners probably know that book. So those are a few favorites that I read during the pandemic. I have many more.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. And so I would also love to hear what is a morning routine or other habit or hobby that you do on a pretty regular grace basis that helps ground you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, great. Well, I do have kind of a morning routine that I created by design. Like I really curated it. My days were not off to an easy start in years past when my kids were little. I was frantic. I was handing them off, you know, to a babysitter or a nanny or my mother or to school, racing to get to work, long commute, and so on. I feel like I have reclaimed my mornings. So I have two teenagers, and as people probably know, it's no easy feat to get two teenagers up and off to school. So it does sometimes feel a little bit hectic. But I get up before them, I just have my mug of black coffee, which by the way, took a little getting used to, but if I can do it, you can do it. Black coffee. Um, so when I go to wake them up, I am peaceful, I am awake myself. I've had a little coffee, and then I get them off to school. I love to walk them to school, even though, you know, that makes the morning a little busier. It takes a chunk of time. There is something about just starting the day with a walk that's wonderful. Now that they are less likely to walk with me, I will usually get them to school and then I will take a walk and then I work. And so I have curated my morning so that it starts slower, even though that means I might work a little later or I might work a little more on the weekends. I treasure that morning walk with some, I was gonna say sunshine. I mean, in Chicago, it's not always sunshine, but at least fresh air, a sky, better than being on the treadmill, you know, at 6 p.m. at the end of a workday. So I love that. Starting off my day with more of a peaceful, calm routine makes a big difference. I do make a plan or set an intention for my food each morning, what I'm going to eat. So I really admire the people who plan their meals out on Sunday for the whole week. I'm not that organized, but while I'm sipping my coffee in the morning, I'm just writing down. I do it on a whiteboard and then at the end of the day, I just erase it. But I just write down what my plan is for my food. That takes the decision making out of the moment when I might be hungry or busy or whatever. So it's planned in the morning while I'm sipping out my coffee. My day starts off so peaceful, and I always get a walk in. And even if I can't do an hour walk, I will do a 10-minute walk. You know, like I don't have that all or none mentality when it comes to walking. And how do I do a 10-minute walk? I walk five minutes that way, and then my little alarm on my phone goes off, and I walk the five minutes back. So that's that. And then in terms of something I do, like I have something that kind of fills my bucket for me, and that is I learned how to tango dance. So I'm a somewhat mediocre, intermediate tango dancer, but I will tell you what that brings to me mindfulness, because you cannot be doing three different things while you're tango dancing. You have to be in the moment, you have to be present, you have to be open to receiving some direction when you're a follower. I'm a follower. And so I really love it. So interesting. Yeah, it has been, it has been great. It also creates a sense of community. Like I don't do my husband, doesn't want to dance tango. That's okay. There's a community of people who just all meet, and you know, you trade partners every three minutes or so. And so I have community, I have a social connectedness, I have some movement that is relaxing and fun and um and very mindful and meditative. So I love that. That's my hobby for about the past seven years now.
SPEAKER_00That is so great. And I want to say this before I forget: when you go onto Lisa's Instagram account, you're gonna see just how much fun she is. Oh my gosh, I love your posts. And we talked a lot about serious things today, and I think that your personality did shine today, but even more so if people follow you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you. I want to give credit. Can I please give a shout out to Dina who helps me with my social media? She is my, I say she's the band leader of my program. She helps bring the fun and does all the social media with me. So I really couldn't do it without her.
SPEAKER_00Great. Well, thank you, Dina, too. So I think we're about finished with our conversation for today, but I sure hope we can continue in the future. You know so much, and it's been such a pleasure to have you. So thank you for enlightening us today, Lisa, and we will talk to you again.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, Lori. It's a pleasure, it was mine, and I'd love to come back anytime.
SPEAKER_00Hey, thanks for listening. To contact me directly, please reach out via email to hello at laurieadamscoaching.com. And I invite you to take a look at my flaming hot webpage, fireup at fiftyflus.com. That's fireup, the word at 55plus.com. And until next week, make the most of your sizzling second act.
