85//Using Nutritional Seasons to Restore Your Metabolism with Ben Brown

Ben Brown is the owner of BSL Nutrition, an online nutrition & fitness consulting business specializing in designing individualized nutrition, lifestyle, and strength training programs. Ben currently works with both local and long-distance individuals and businesses, and has worked consulted with numerous sports teams, including the Arizona Diamondbacks and Golden State Warriors organizations. He holds two Masters degrees, the first from Arizona State University in Exercise and Wellness with an emphasis in strength & conditioning, and the second from The University of Bridgeport in Clinical Nutrition. Most importantly, Ben is a husband and father to 3 young children who provide the daily love, motivation, and humility he uses as a driving force to continue to learn and grow as a man, mentor, and coach.

 

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The most important factors that influence fat loss What is the best type of exercise for improving body composition Which supplements should I be taking?

Which is the best diet? How sleep impacts health and weight loss How to know if your metabolism is "damaged" (hint: it's not) How many calories should I be eating?

How should exercise and nutrition change after 40 yrs old?

Why is muscle mass so important as we age? The #1 way we should take control of our health

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FULL AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION

Speaker 1 (00:00):

This is episode 85 with Ben brown. Ben brown is the owner of BSL nutrition and online nutrition and fitness consulting business specializing in designing individualized nutrition, lifestyle and strength training programs. Ben currently works with both local and long distance individuals and businesses and has worked in con has consulted with numerous sports teams, including the Arizona Diane index and the golden state warrior organizations. He holds two master's degree, one degrees, one from Arizona state university in exercise and wellness with an emphasis on strength and conditioning and a second from the university of Bridgepoint in clinical nutrition. Most importantly then is a husband and a father of three kids who provide the daily love, motivation, and humility. He uses as a driving force to continue to learn and grow as a man mentor and coach you guys. This is one of my most, I say that about a lot of episodes, but I really enjoyed this interview with Ben. I feel like he has a really great understanding in terms of weight loss and nutrition and how we go through phases and, and nutritional seasons to support the body. And this is something that I fundamentally believe that we are always progressing more and more, and it's important to listen to our body and understand what our bodies need at this same and age as we go through these different phases and seasons of life. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode as much as I have

Speaker 2 (01:44):

Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast, where we choose to become empowered patients and take our health into our own hands. Hi, I'm Shannon Hanson, a Christian entrepreneur, a mom of three. And after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid. I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more after that, I founded the revolutionary thyroid program, the Hansen method as a health professional and a mom, I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a responsive thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once. And for all each week, I will be here for you along with my guest experts, we will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the thriving thyroid podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:06):

Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast. You guys, I have Ben brown with me. I am so excited to be having this conversation with him as we are gonna be talking about nutrition and fitness and how that relates to just lifestyle and how to use those things to improve energy. All of, all of the things. So Ben welcome.

Speaker 3 (03:28):

I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me Shannon.

Speaker 2 (03:31):

Yeah, absolutely. So give everybody a little bit of background as to who you are, what you do.

Speaker 3 (03:38):

Yeah, absolutely. So we have a company called BSL nutrition that stands for body systems labs and we are a fitness and nutrition and kind of supplement coaching company. We've got a number of different supplement products, but most importantly is we are a kind of a nutrition driven coaching company and we believe that your health determines your freedom. And so by virtue of that, we wanna give people the tools and the skills and the knowledge to be able to not only reach their health and fitness and lifestyle goals, but also to be able to maintain those for life. And, and so just in terms of background, I have a couple different master's degree, one in exercise physiology, another one in clinical nutrition. And so I I've been involved in, in strength and conditioning for athletes. I've been involved in physical therapy for just the general population and a long line of personal training with individuals over years and years, and then starting to really study more about nutrition and the implications of nutrition on our health, on our wellbeing on our you know, community and so on and so forth.

Speaker 3 (04:45):

And so what we've done with our, our coaching program now is really leveraged the best pieces of the fitness of the nutrition of the lifestyle coaching to try and create individualized programs for someone depending on their goals.

Speaker 2 (04:59):

Yeah. Were you always like an athlete or did the, that kind of shift for you later? Or what, what was that journey like for you?

Speaker 3 (05:09):

You know I did grow up a bit of an athlete. I I'll albeit not a great one. But by virtue of, of going through sports so in high school I tore my ACL which got me really, really interested into the physical therapy process and into the sport performance process. And then similarly is I suffered from a number of gastrointestinal issues when I was 15, 16 and beyond to the degree that I was very limited with the types of foods I could eat, I was getting sick all the time. I was in a number of different an acid medications, and the doctors couldn't really figure out what was going on with me. And so that also led me to really starting to try and understand how my nutrition impacted my health, right. And through the years of studying undergrad and I actually played rugby for university of Arizona undergrad.

Speaker 3 (06:06):

And then I went to Arizona state university for graduate school for exercise physiology or exercise and wellness, and continued to play some, some higher level men's club rugby. But throughout that process, I was, I was obviously personal training. I was studying fitness and then I really had to continue to dig deeper, deeper into the realm of nutrition and clinical nutrition and diagnostic nutrition, and supplementation, as a means to frankly, just figure out my own issues. And fortunately, I was able to do that. It took you, I wasn't until about 2006, 2007, that I figured out that I had some nasty bacterial infections going on in my stomach, that I had a number of different food sensitivities that were going on. And so by virtue of kind of healing, those, it helped me venture off into into our, our nutrition coaching program as it stands today.

Speaker 2 (06:57):

Yeah. So how did you find out that you were having those issues? Food sensitivities, and you said gut pathogen, so like a microbiome issue. So how did, did you do functional testing or how did, how did you kind of land on that?

Speaker 3 (07:14):

Yeah, great question. So obvious I went the, I guess the route of academia, I went and got a master's degree in exercise and wellness and, you know, we think we're gonna learn all of the things that we need to do our job appropriately. And it's not that way. I didn't, I mean, again, I was involved in sport performance. I was involved in personal training, but I still couldn't figure out what was going on with me. And then at the same time, I was working with a number of clients whose goals were to improve their energy, to to experience fat loss, right. To improve their performance and so on and so forth. And we know the role that nutrition plays in that yet the, the training alone wasn't getting the job done. And so I, I really needed to continue to study. And so I started doing advanced different advanced certifications.

Speaker 3 (08:04):

I studied through the check Institute. I studied through Charles Quin. You name it. I mean, I was just trying to learn everything I possibly could about nutrition and the implications on health and wellness. And, and I was introduced to a clinician in San Francisco named Dr. Dan Kish. And again, this was in 2006, so this was at the very forefront of the sort of functional medicine revolution. And I signed up for a six month kind of intensive functional medicine certification course. And that really led me down the road of, okay, thyroid function adrenal fatigue, gut function organic acid profiles and understanding how all of these biological organisms and body systems. And, and, and really that was the impetus for, I haven't thought it's funny. I haven't thought about this stuff in a long time, but that was really the impetus for how I came up with the name body systems as my business, because really what we were doing is we were looking at all of these different body systems, right.

Speaker 3 (09:13):

We were looking at the adrenals and the liver and the gut and, and, and the thyroid and the musculoskeletal system and the brain. Right. And trying to understand all of the nuances of how they're all intertwined. But by virtue of the functional medicine course that I took, we did a you know, a gut pathogen test. I tested positive for H pylori, which is a bacterial infection that houses itself in your stomach lining and can be a really, really nasty infection that can suppress stomach acid and, and cause a host of other issues. So I think it was a product of that and conjunction with just poor eating habits, too much partying in college. And, and, and frankly, growing up, having just been exposed to tons and tons of different antibiotics, like my parents were always the, the people that are like, oh, he's, he's got the sniffles, put him on an antibiotic, you know, and yep.

Speaker 3 (10:05):

I think which a lot of us a lot of us were perhaps growing up in the eighties and nineties. And so there was a lot of work to be done once that was diagnosed. It was really starting to wind the clock back, take herbal products, to get rid of the pilori start to heal my gut, the mucosal barrier, get rid of gluten and dairy and some of the offensive foods at the time to allow that process to happen. And then just start to figure out how to be my own best nutrition detective from there on out.

Speaker 2 (10:36):

I love this and I can totally relate to the antibiotics . So I grew up in a family of like physicians and doctors. My dad is an O he was, he passed away an OT. But his brother was a podiatrist and had access to all kinds of pharmaceuticals. So it was like, oh, your throat is scratchy here. You know, we'd have here's

Speaker 3 (10:59):

Amoxicillin.

Speaker 2 (10:59):

Yep. Yes. We had the, you know, the big pharmacy pill bottles with, you know, thousands of them. And so it was like, oh, anytime, like you said, the sniffles and the throat, here you go. Here you go. so, yeah. Yep. Definitely leading to that imbalance in the gut. One of the things that I find really interesting about what you talk about in your work is nutritional seasons. So how does that relate to approaching our health weight loss in a realistic way?

Speaker 3 (11:34):

You know, what's so important that I've come to realize over the years because I've been doing this you know, I've been coaching individuals really since 2003, 2004, 2005. That's when I was in graduate school. And then of course as a full-time business, really since then is that we can't ever take just this myopic one size fits all approach to our nutrition now to be fair, most people most for, for most people, let's just say they, they come and see us and, and they wanna lose weight. Well, that's all good and well, and there's certainly things that we need to focus on in order to help them move the needle. And, and clearly there's, you know, improving their nutritional intake and the quality of food and the amount of movement that they're doing and the type of movement that they're doing and their lifestyle and their stress management and their sleep.

Speaker 3 (12:25):

But the reality is that there also needs to be like I said, there needs to be seasons to how aggressive we are and what we're focusing on these respective seasons. And so, whereas they might show up with a weight loss goal, for example, you work with women with thyroid dysfunction, right? And so you might be presented with a woman who is experiencing low thyroid, and she's been consistently under eating for a significant period of time. And perhaps she's been over exercising and she has extremely stressful lifestyle and maybe she doesn't sleep enough and maybe she's got some gut dysbiosis. This probably doesn't sound like a terribly unfamiliar picture for you.

Speaker 2 (13:11):

No, not at all. I would say like 90%,

Speaker 3 (13:15):

The way that right. Exactly. And, and that's often, right. That's, it's why the hypothyroid is present to some degree. Now what we're gonna do is, is, is invariably is we're not just gonna take someone like that. We're gonna say, well, you know what, you're only eating 1200 calories. So let's just, let's just knock you down to a thousand calories, right? Because it's all about calories and calories out that would be illogical. And we would end up further pushing her down you know, down the down the rabbit hole of dysfunction, right? Any good practitioner is gonna look at that list of issues and, and kind of her lifestyle dysfunction and say, you know what, before we go there, bef what we need to do is we need to create balance in the body. And so the first season for her, perhaps the first quarter, or maybe even six months of her program might very well be, you know what?

Speaker 3 (14:09):

We actually need to do everything we can to support your metabolism, to support your thyroid. We need to get you eating more frequently. We need to get you eating more nutrient dense food. We need to get you to understand that carbohydrates are your friend. We need you to get you to sleep more. We need you to get you manage your stress. And so it's really understanding that there's so many nuances to this journey that someone's on to the degree, that by first and foremost, assessing what right, where they are, what their goals are, what their current lifestyle habits look like, what their readiness and commitment level for change are by virtue of then understanding all of those. Then we can come up with a game plan, just like we were training for an event, just like we're training for the Olympics, or the super bowl is to say, we wouldn't expect an athlete to come out and perform at their peak level on day one of training camp.

Speaker 3 (15:02):

We're gonna have to build them up. And so it's that same idea as when we have clients come to us, you know, men and women, mothers, and fathers come to us and they say, you know what? I wanna lose the weight. Well, we need to understand, well, what's gonna be the best for them in the context of their long term goals, say, I'm gonna make sure that when you walk away from this program, not only are you gonna be the leanest that you've ever been at at, at any point, certainly during this program, but you're also gonna be eating the most amount of food you're gonna have the most energy, your hormones are gonna be the most aligned, right. And you're gonna have all of the tools and skills to be able to maintain that for a lifestyle while also understanding that, you know what, the first three months we actually had to get you eating significantly more to help support metabolic function, or maybe we needed to help support lean muscle mass for that period of time, or maybe it was just the holidays.

Speaker 3 (15:57):

And for people that are signing up right now, or maybe signed up, you know, around Thanksgiving, the last thing we're gonna do is diet them down during perhaps the most difficult time of year for anyone to be in a diet. Right? So I think it's, that's the idea around this, what we call nutritional periodization or nutritional seasons or nutritional cycling is understanding that there's gonna be periods where we're gonna diet. Sure, absolutely. Invariably it is necessary to create a calorie deficit if we're looking to lose weight, lose body fat, but it doesn't mean that we don't need to spend periods of time in a growth phase, in a maintenance phase, in a quote unquote metabolic repair phase. Right. It's just understanding that when we project out for however long, the goal is, or however long the journey's gonna look like we need to make sure we're, we're approaching the right things at the right time.

Speaker 2 (16:52):

Yeah. I, I like that. So speak to metabolism because I feel like that is one of the words that's kind of thrown around in health and wellness and can be really confusing for people, especially when especially for women, because I feel like what, what you're kind of speaking into is they're at 1200 calories and they're doctors like, Hey, cut your calories and they're gaining more weight, they're getting more puffy, they're getting more inflamed. So maybe, maybe speak into that a little bit for us.

Speaker 3 (17:27):

Yeah. I appreciate how you, the, the example you just gave, because the way that I like to think about it and the way that I was taught and one of the, one of the mentors I've had throughout my career as Dr. Jade TIDA, who's, who's really brilliant with sort of looking at the metabolism and, and the functions of the metabolism, but essentially what we're talking about is a stress barometer. Mm-Hmm right. And so when we do things that are stressing, the body out is the body's gonna respond in certain way. Now this has to do with our body temperature. It has to do with our ability to, to burn body fat. It has to do with our gut health. It has to do with our blood sugar regulation. It has to do with our weight and how we are manipulating fluids on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 (18:13):

All of these things come from our brain function from our get health function. And I would say that all of these work together to create this quote unquote this metabolism, this, this stress barometer. And so one of the things to understand is when we push on the metabolism, when we go out and we do a, a a spin class, when we go do a boot camp a boot camp workout class or something, that's really high intensity our body's gonna respond because you know, we're obviously gonna burn some calories during this workout, but what we don't, what we don't acknowledge in the realm of exercise is that the metabolism is gonna push back to the degree that what the body really cares about is survival, right? It cares about maintaining blood sugar levels. It cares about maintaining body temperature. It cares about procreation and keeping you alive.

Speaker 3 (19:06):

Now, when we go and do things that are stressful on the body. So it's not just exercise, but it's also under reading is a, is a stressor on the body, just our daily lifestyle, being surrounded by cam you know computers and phones and the news and the kids yelling, right, and waking us up early and all of our financial obligations and work. These are all stressors that put us into this, this level of sympathetic nervous system overload, which in and of itself is a major stressor, but what's important to understand is the body has an adaptive and sort of reactive response to all of these things, because it cares about survival. So when we push one way, it has a very unique and complex system for pushing back the other way, right? To the degree that when we go and do that boot camp, high intensity, you know, huffing and puffing and sweating and in a puddle of sweat just done.

Speaker 3 (19:59):

So after the workout that we think is so great for us, well, what we know now from the research is that one of the, and actually a couple of the unique mechanisms that the body undergoes is almost a down regulation of metabolic function, right? To the degree that we can suppress our meat, which is our non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So basically all that means Shannon is that when we go do stuff that burns a lot of calories, depending on what it is that we're doing, our body has the ability to say, you know what, dude, we don't know how we're gonna, if we're gonna be taking in enough calories later on, we're gonna make you slow down, right? We're gonna make you more tired and we're gonna make you more lethargic. We're gonna make you less likely to just fidget and Twitch and, and, and want to get up and, and go to the refrigerator or, or fill up your water cup or go over to the water cooler or whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:54):

And not only that is, we may actually make you hungrier by a virtue of the calories that you just expended, right. To the degree that you might crave more foods. And, and what we see from the research is that when we do these types of high intensity exercise most people end up making up those calories and then some throughout the rest of the day and or throughout the rest of the week. So that's one small example of the metabolism at work. But essentially that's what we're talking about is, is just this highly dynamic reactive mechanism that helps the keep the body in homeostasis. Hmm. Right. Does, does that answer your question?

Speaker 2 (21:37):

Yeah, absolutely. And part of my reason for asking this, and I I've talked about this multiple times on the podcast and then, you know, webinars and things. I, one of the big mistakes that I made early on was I was trying to lose the weight and I wi I did all the things that you're supposed to do. I went to the gym, I hired a personal trainer. I was in the gym five days a week. I was cutting calories. And that first month when we're taking measurements and doing weight and checking in, and I gained 10 pounds, I gained inches . And I was like,

Speaker 3 (22:14):

Interesting,

Speaker 2 (22:15):

What is going on with me? And that was the big clue for me that my hormones were way off balance. And I remember my personal trainer, he is a guy probably didn't know much about women's hormones. at no offense to him. But he was like, well, you didn't go up that much. And I'm thinking 10 pounds, no wonder my clothes are fitting terribly.

Speaker 3 (22:39):

You'd have been devastated. Had you gone up two pounds, especially after all that hard work. And I think it's a perfect example, not to interrupt you, but I think it's a perfect example of how the body pushes back against stress mm-hmm and understanding that it's not always about just reducing your calorie intake. And it's certainly not always about ramping up your exercise and sometimes doing the two of those simultaneously, depending on where you're at, especially if it's like postpartum, when you already have enough stress to deal with, and your body's recovering can create can, can just create a cascade as you're experiencing of issues of inflammation, of suppressed thyroid function, suppressed what we call metabolic compensation, or sort of metabolic down regulation if you will.

Speaker 2 (23:26):

Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly what I was experiencing at that time. And you did talk about briefly about the adrenal portion. And so for me, after having that experience, I went, whoa. Something is way, way off. And I went in, started having hormones tested, and my cortisol was super, super low. It was very, very low. It was, I was kind of in that burnout phase,

Speaker 3 (23:52):

You would, did salivary salivary cortisol.

Speaker 2 (23:55):

I did. Yes.

Speaker 3 (23:56):

Yeah. So you were in like a stage three or like at all the way down. Yeah. Past the level where you you'd experienced periods of high cortisol almost in this, as you said, burnout stage.

Speaker 2 (24:07):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at it. Most people probably won't understand what this means. You probably will. I was at 0.02, so I was like nothing. So , it was a very fun time for me. And I had to really do a lot of like what you're talking about, changing my diet, going back to just walking for movement, you know? Yes. And hitting that nutritional season to get further ahead,

Speaker 3 (24:39):

Of actually feeling yourself, giving yourself the right nutrition, allowing your body to stay in a parasympathetic or a, a rest and digest phase to mitigate the amount of sympathetic stressors so that you can recover so that your adrenals can recover so that your blood sugar can recover. Right. So you can drive the nutrients, improve gut health, right. Brain function, and sort of that whole hypothalamus, pituitary access reset if you will. Yeah. Mm-Hmm . Yeah. And that's what most people don't understand is we, they just think, okay, well, look, we're coming up on the new year. Okay. It's time to diet. It's time to grind it. It start over exercising. And it's really just for a lot of people it's backing 'em into a corner because they're already in a state of, of sympathetic overload. So one of the things we do with in, in our, in our coaching program is, is we actually don't even start with structured exercise, structured strength training.

Speaker 3 (25:31):

We just start with observing nutritional habits, lifestyle factors, and walking. And it, it doesn't even matter. I mean, we have people that are in, are already coming in, in great shape. But the reality is that most people are in some level of, of stress overload. And, and, and then also, as I was alluding to in explaining the metabolism is exercise is not a good driver of weight loss. Mm-Hmm , we already understand that very clearly from the research. And so it, it would be illogic for us to just blast someone, even though people want it, like they think they wanna go in and, and start doing all of the things, all of the exercise, but who would be iLogic and, and unreasonable and irresponsible for us to do that. Instead as we know the big needle movers for people, whether they understand it or not, and whether they're resistant to it or not, it's gonna be, you know, what, let's figure out where your calories are. Let's figure out what your lifestyles are, and let's identify the low hanging fruit. Maybe we just need to move more right from walking. Maybe we just need to drink more water. We need to get better nutrition in manage your calories more effectively and give you the opportunity to actually de-stress before we go into the season of, okay, let's, you know, start driving the strength training.

Speaker 2 (26:43):

Yeah. I, I really appreciate this. So for the way that you work with people is you mentioned something about kind of evaluating where people are at before diving into a whole plan. So give us a little bit of idea as to like, how do you get a baseline for people

Speaker 3 (27:02):

Mm-Hmm yeah, we I've developed a whole process called what I call the pure science proven results process, which is a very clear cut methodo excuse me, methodical system that we put together over the last several years by virtue of frankly spending years and years, not getting people the results that they deserve and learning the hard way of saying, okay, we did this, we did the 30 day fast tracks. We did the detoxes. We did the, the 12 week plan. So not all of our coaching programs are minimum of six months. And most clients stay on for at least a year again, because we're identifying that there's gotta be seasons to change, but the way that we understand what someone's really gonna need is by doing a complex and in depth assessment. And, and so through this process, through this pure science proven results process, we collect data, both objective and subjective data Shannon.

Speaker 3 (27:52):

And so what that looks like is really very simply it's like, Hey, can you track your calories for a couple weeks? Just so we have an understanding of how much you're taking in, because, you know, we understand that one is when you are tracking, you are going to make better decisions. Yeah. Right. So you've already got built in accountability right there. You're already like, Hmm, probably shouldn't have that second glass of wine. I probably shouldn't grab that second handful of M and Ms or whatever. Right. And secondly, is that you are creating more awareness by virtue of the process you're starting to acknowledge. Wow. I didn't realize like how many calories wine was. I didn't realize that, you know, the, the butter on my toast in conjunction with the orange juice in conjunction with the, the pastry that I have every morning ends up being 700 calories.

Speaker 3 (28:45):

Right? Yeah. So we're giving you the opportunity and the autonomy to start to identify some needle movers on your own to allow you to start to make better decisions. In addition to calories, we track steps. We track hours of sleep. And then we, we, we do, depending on what someone's goals are, we wanna know what's going on with weight on a daily basis. And what's going on with circumference measurements every couple weeks. Because as you know, and as we know, based on the metabolism and how the body functions is, it's always in regulation, it's always trying to maintain homeostasis and there's always levels of, of fluctuations around fluid. So if, and when you do weigh yourself I'm sure as, as, as yourself and plenty of your female clients have observed that if they've ever weighed themselves on a daily basis you're gonna see that weight constantly fluctuating, right?

Speaker 3 (29:38):

Yeah. And, and that's for a myriad of reasons having to do with certainly not only fat loss, but having to do with menstrual cycle, having to do with carbohydrated intake, having to do with salt, alcohol intake previous food, sensitivities, food sensitivities, thank you, stress levels all of those types of things. And so we find that that's a very good metric. It's not the end all be all, but it's one good objective metric for us to keep an eye on, to help the individuals start to become their own best nutrition detective, to understand, you know, what, every time I eat that spaghetti sauce, the, the scales up a couple pounds. Isn't that interesting? I don't know if it means anything, but it's certainly an interesting observation. And then subjectively is what we call biofeedback things like hunger, energy, cravings, mood, libido, digestion, cognitive function, right.

Speaker 3 (30:30):

If we're talking about thyroid, this is everything. These are all of the things that our hormones are going to influence. So we need to understand that one of the things that we see frequently, Shannon is by virtue of giving someone the opportunity to actually de-stress to say, you know what? We're just not gonna worry about tructure to exercise right now. I just want you to walk. I just want you to drink water. I just want you to maybe eat three square meals a day or four square meals a day. One of the things we see, especially with women like your clients, is we start to see that hunger starts to come back, you know, whereas they might have been like, you know, I just never hungry for breakfast. Like I just wait till 10 or 11 or 12, and cuz I'm running around with the kids and, and I'm just not hungry.

Speaker 3 (31:20):

And then one of the things we start to see is, you know what, I'm starting to identify that I'm experiencing hunger mm-hmm . And despite the fact that the scale's not moving, we're actually starting to see that body composition is changing. You're perhaps becoming less inflamed, retaining less fluids, retaining less water. You're starting to have more energy. You're starting to think more clearly sleep quality is improving. Libido's starting to come back, right? These are all fantastic signs that the body's actually starting to heal and, and, and respond effectively from this process. And so this is what we call kind of part of our onboarding or calibration period, right. Where we're just getting an idea, Shannon of what you typically do right throughout the first few weeks of the program by, and then based on that, then we can make informed decisions around, okay, what's gonna be the biggest needle mover that we can plug in with the least amount of resistance.

Speaker 3 (32:16):

You're a busy mom of soon to be four, right? Yeah. For me to say, Hey, Shaheen, I need you to eat six meals a day and I need you to hit, you know, 170 grams of protein a day. And you'd be like, I don't know what your current habits look like. But the point is, is say there's no cookie cutter approach. It's like, we need to understand what your lifestyle, what your eating habits look like, so that we can start to plug things in that are gonna be easy for you to, to plug in consistently.

Speaker 2 (32:47):

Yeah. I remember working with a naturalpathic doctor and he kind of did something similar to you where he is like, I need you to do all of these things. And I just looked at him and I was like, I, there's no way, like I had three kids five and under, and I was like, I'm gonna need a full time. Live-In nanny and a housekeeper to try to do this thing. And I'm already running on fumes, you know, that's it. And we have a similar process where when our clients come in, we evaluate, you know, very similar, how your sleep, how are your bowel movements? Yeah. How stress levels, what are you eating? How frequently are you eating? What types of things are you eating? and then like you said, Hey, some of the women that are coming in to work with us, aren't even eating, you know, let's say three servings of vegetables. Mm-Hmm , that might be an easy thing to change and incorporate just, just a little bit more veggies, first thing in the morning or whatever it is. And that will make yeah. A big impact, you know,

Speaker 3 (33:54):

A hundred percent. So I that's, it, it, it love it. It's just so important to meet someone where they are, I've been doing this long enough. And it it's interesting because when I first figured out what was going on with me and, and I'm sure you've been down this road, but it's like, you have the, you know, golden ticket. It's like, I know what to do. I fixed myself. Therefore, this is what should work for everyone. And to be clear, I was like a hundred percent gluten free, a hundred percent dairy free paleo, like, you know, and so I'm sitting here preaching this to new clients. I'm like, you gotta eliminate we're, I'm gonna come over. We're gonna clear out the cabinets. And people are just like, whoa, whoa. Like this is overwhelming. Right. And I'm like, yep. Well, and then I would lose. And then they would, you know, I wouldn't hear from 'em again. And I'm like, well, they clearly were not committed enough to the process. When in reality it was a hundred percent my fault for not understanding the psychology of how people really actually change.

Speaker 2 (34:51):

Yeah. Yeah. The I can relate to that so much where I was gluten free, dairy free for five years, a hundred percent, you know, it very similar to you, paleo. That was kind of the big thing at the time when I started my journey, when I started my journey. And then I got to the point where I was like, this sucks, like sucks. I even hate this. Yeah. You know, and having to shift a little bit and find you know, just a happy medium where I felt like I was supporting my body and I was happy with the things that I was doing and I wasn't burning myself out. And you know, all of, all of those wonderful things. Yeah. In kind of like in starting to wrap this up, then what are some great places for these women to start? If they're struggling, you know, just maybe getting motivated or, you know, restoring their mm-hmm, their metabolism,

Speaker 3 (35:50):

You know what, Shannon, I think that it's really, really important for someone to identify what they really want and why they want it not to get too meta or or anything. But I, I, what I've experienced in, in having hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of conversations over the years is I, I just don't know that people are very clear on exactly what it is that they want and why they want it. And oftentimes we have conversations around, well, I wanna feel better and I wanna look better and I wanna lose weight and I wanna be stronger and I wanna have more muscle mass. And I wanna do all of the things and I wanna run a half marathon and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. In coming back to this idea of seasons, it's like, there certainly is a season for all of those things.

Speaker 3 (36:35):

There's a season for performing at your best and looking your best and feeling your best. But perhaps it would be reasonable to acknowledge that maybe you, it's not necessary to do all of those things at once, right? Because truly, if we're talking about being at our optimal health, then maybe it's not gonna be advantageous for you to be the leanest that you've ever been at any time during your life. Similarly, is if we wanna perform well, then maybe it's not gonna be, you know, you know, for you to perform at your best. Maybe you're just not gonna be the healthiest version of yourself. And so I guess it really comes down to what someone really wants and then giving themselves permission to be okay with, you know, what, I just wanna feel better. I wanna have more energy. I wanna get my libido back. I wanna start to have some consistent bowel movements.

Speaker 3 (37:26):

I wanna be able to think clearly I wanna be present and set a good example for my kids. In which case, how important is it for me to be beach, body lean mm-hmm . And, and perhaps I could absolve myself of, of the stress and guilt and responsibility that I'm putting on myself to try and do all of the things at once. And instead just say, you know what, for this season of my life, I'm going to eat the food and I'm gonna be okay with being a little bit heavier on the scale than I'd ideally like to be, because I know that this is setting the foundation and the precedent for really how I wanna feel in perpetuity. And then once you've taken the time to do that and acknowledge the things that are going to move that needle well, then it it's, it's liberating, right?

Speaker 3 (38:15):

To the degree that then you can say, okay, now that I've been in sort of this quote unquote maintenance mode, and I've enjoyed myself and, and absol again, absolved myself of that ROS responsibility and guilt of not always trying to be the leanest ever I can actually identify and say, you know what? I feel pretty good to know that I didn't stress myself out over all of this stuff. And then if, and when the opportunity arises, then you can shift the focus. So I think it all comes down to always setting some realistic expectations. And then really just focusing on the things that you can actually control that are gonna help you work towards said set goal.

Speaker 2 (39:00):

Yeah. I, I really appreciate this in the context of setting, setting your goals and your intentions and your why as to what you're doing. Mm-Hmm because that will keep people more focused, because like you were saying, you work with people for six months to a year, that's a long time to commit to something. And if you have a clear goal and direction at the end, that's gonna keep you motivated because things are gonna get hard. Things are gonna get uncomfortable. You might , you know, the scale might go up and then down and then go back up again because the body is changing and we have to, we have to work through those seasons and make those adjustments as the, as the body adjusts to re repairing your metabolism or whatever it is. Yeah. So I love that. Where can people find you? And I know you do have a a gift or a freebie for everybody. So if you wanna tell 'em about that, that would be fine

Speaker 3 (40:01):

Too. Yes. absolutely. So our website, so we're, we're on social media, on the, all of the social media at BSL nutrition. I'd say we're probably most active on Instagram. So come on over and gimme a follow there. I try and provide as much value as possible. We've also got a free nutrition community. It's what is it? Smart nutrition made simple.com. That's our free Facebook nutrition community. So come on over there, we've got an incredible group of people. I'd love to see you in there. Shannon. And and then I've got a podcast that is the smart nutrition made simple show. So you can see the recurring theme here. Yeah. and then let's see our, our freebie, if I can remember correctly, I believe that's,

Speaker 2 (40:56):

It's just fat

Speaker 3 (40:56):

Loss, fat loss fix guide. Yeah. And I think it's fat loss fix guide.com and that's a, a pretty easy to digest guide, no pun intended around your meal frequency and how many numbers of meal, or how many meals per day you should be eating. Kind of, I've got like my favorite morning energizing smoothie in there all based on science. And so it's got a number of, of really good kind of clinical pearls that someone can read through in, in, in just you know, 15 or 20 minutes, take some good gems from it and be able to implement immediately. So you can head, you can download that for free at, at fat loss, fix guide.com.

Speaker 2 (41:37):

Perfect. And we will have all of this linked up in the show notes for you guys. Thank you, Ben, for being on, I really appreciate this conversation. And I think you lended a lot of good insight to these women from a different perspective, right? Cause I I'm a woman and, you know, hearing it from a man I think is sometimes also really good

Speaker 3 (41:59):

So, you know what, I'm, I'm always happy to, to talk shop and I, I'm very grateful and appreciative for, for you having me on and also to appreciative to have people like you out there helping, helping PI people alike.

Speaker 2 (42:11):

Yeah. All right, guys, we'll see you on the next,

Speaker 1 (42:15):

Before you go. I wanted to remind you guys of the Hansen method, wait list that we have going on right now. This is an opportunity for you guys to get in touch with us and get contact with us and learn more about the Hanon method and working with us in our VIP setting one on one. And we are only opening this up two to three times per year, and we take a very limited amount of people so that we can serve our clients to the highest degree. So head over to the show notes, get on the wait list so that you can be notified in at the end of may with these updates. I'll see you on the next.

Speaker 4 (42:59):

Wait, before you go, please subscribe. If you found value in today's episode, leave us a review and share on Instagram and please tag us. We love your pretty please.