EP41 – The Importance of Moderation in all Things

Matthew J. Brownstein hosts David Greenwalt in this special episode of Illuminated Mind®. David is a Certified Health Coach, fitness expert, and author. A husband, father, police officer, gym owner, competitive state-level bodybuilder, and powerlifter, since 1999, through his company Leanness Lifestyle University, David has been helping student members from every walk of life, lose excess fat, keep muscle and manage this life.

Welcome, everyone to the illuminated mind Podcast. I’m Matthew Brownstein founder and lead instructor of the Institute of hypnotherapy. And I always work to bring on guests that have a relevant topic to the field of hypnotherapy. We quite often deal with weight loss. So I’m here today with David greenwall. Two is a specialist in fitness and nutrition. So welcome, David, thank you for being here.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, right on. So with us today is certified health coach fitness expert and author David Greenwald, has been father, former police officer, gym owner, competitive state level bodybuilder and power lifter in 1997 at the age of 32, and a body weight of 235 pounds. David discovered an evidence based approach for getting off his own 50 Excessive pounds and keeping it off for 25 years and counting. Since 1999. Through his company, leanness lifestyle University, David has been helping student members from every walk of life, lose excess fat, keep the muscle and manage this crazy life. So congratulations on losing that extra weight. I don’t see that many clients anymore. But recently, I had a client who referred his girlfriend and we did one session hypnosis changed your mind lose 50 She lost four pounds within a week. So I know how when you get the right mindset, you can make major change. But new we can start just with your background first, before we go into some of our talking points. Your bio is pretty clear. But what can you tell us about you?
Sure, sure. Well, thank you. So for whatever reason, in my DNA fitness has always been there since I was a young boy in grade school. I remember wanting the President’s Council on Physical Fitness award I wanted that award. And you know, I wasn’t a good or a great athlete I be team CT, maybe I would definitely wasn’t the 18 kind of athlete. But I’ve always been interested in fitness. So you know, that President’s Council award was throw a baseball certain distance run, you know, a certain distance per time and broad jump a certain dish, things like that. And I got a couple of years and I’ve still got the patch and the sticker and certificate tucked away. I was just so proud to get that. And I don’t know it just it was just something that I found interesting, intriguing that I I admired. In my senior year of high school, a friend asked me to come train with him in the gym. And that started a bodybuilding adventure and powerlifting adventure that went for, you know, well, really through today. I don’t compete anymore. I’ve competed for a while now but, but in my 20s and 30s, I competed in bodybuilding, bodybuilding and powerlifting. And I was a police officer at the time. When I got out of the State Police Academy, I was an Illinois State Trooper when I got to the State Police Academy I at that time, I started a supplement company. And I started it with the intention of just making enough money to pay for my own protein powder that was in 1992 started in a tiny little room in my house, there was no internet, you know, I’d placed a little classified ads in the back of magazines bodybuilding magazines, and gave a toll free number and people would call and they had to leave a message because I was a trooper, and I was working 40 hours a week. Anyway, over the over about five years, I grew that company into about 5 million in rent and revenue and 45 employees. So it did much better than I ever imagined it would. And through that, I ended up with 10s of 1000s of customers. And the internet was just coming in. And so as the Internet came in, and people knew that I had done bodybuilding and powerlifting. And I would get down to five or 6% body fat for bodybuilding. And I would bulk up to 220 230 pounds for powerlifting and get back down and, and I wrote about it. And I and I wrote about it also from kind of a Ralph Nader perspective where I was like the truth seeker, you know, in evidence based nutrition and evidence based supplementation, and were the supplement companies really telling us all that we needed to know and all this kind of thing. So I was as a trusted source to that company, and they started emailing, hey, Dave, real quick, if you wouldn’t be too much trouble. Don’t want to bother you. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. But if you could just tell me real quick how I can lose 30 pounds and keep it off forever. That’d be great. Just you know, a couple of minutes, you know, if you could just, you know, a couple of sentences. Well, I wanted to help them so bad that I gave it the old college try. But I saw quickly that the answers were just incomplete. They were they weren’t taking into consideration the person enough. There wasn’t enough detail on either end. And so I wrote a book in 19 719 98 took a year to write the book. It was 500 pages. And I wanted to make sure that book covered nutrition exercise and the huge element that don’t that so few especially back then were talking about and that was the emotional fitness element. So I was so inspired and I was so enthusiastic. about wanting to help people get from someplace less healthy and heavy to someplace healthier and leaner. That I sold a supplement company. And I went all in on the company that we’re talking about now Linus lifestyle university or the company I run now, I should say now that we’re talking about, and I’ve been virtually coaching people through transformation since 1999.
It’s awesome. It’s so important. And there’s so many people doing this, but everybody has their own unique calling and way to do it and curious to learn more about your approach. Agenda. There’s so many people who are overweight, we all struggle with it to some degree, what do you think is fueling this? So what do you call it an obesity epidemic? And yes, your opinion, what do we do about it?
Absolutely. So, you know, in the United States, we’re sitting at about 43% of adults as obese right now, in 1970. We’re about 15%. So we’re about two and a half times more obese now than we were 52 years ago. We’re projected to be 50% obese by 2030, just seven years from now, and I don’t see any reason why we won’t be. And the reason I can say that is because of the trajectory we’re on. But we’re in an incredibly obesogenic environment, obesogenic just, you know, essentially meaning all of the contributory factors that promote the enhancement or excess, you know, consumption that leads to obesity, everything from consumption to output, but it’s a caloric balance, of course, but we’ve got incomplete and inaccurate messaging top down at the at the various highest levels, from government entities and from the highest level health educators. It’s incomplete, it’s inaccurate, and it is doing people a huge disservice, because it is not taking into consideration the incredible negative impact of ultra processed foods. Collectively, this isn’t a just a singular component. But if I was to say, what’s the single greatest contributor to our obesity position that we are in right now, I would say all factors that contribute to the excess consumption of ultra processed foods, including the fact that ultra processed foods are addictive in and of themselves. So, you know, so what are some of those factors? Well, number of fast food establishments in the last 52 years, exploded hundreds of 1000s in the United States, the availability cheap price, convenience, it’s all there across the board. With regard to ultra processed food, those factors hold true cheap prices, convenient availability. You know, 50, some years ago, there wasn’t 24/7 access stores closed. You know, if you didn’t get something to eat by eight, 9:10pm That was it. You know, there was no going out. It’s either what was in your house or you waited. And now of course, of course, that’s not the case. 24/7 Anytime you want it, hundreds of 1000s of convenience, Mart’s gas stations, mostly used to use to be gas used to be you know, and now they’re really convenience, Mart’s that also sell gas. And so, in the stuff that’s in there, you know, 90 95% of what’s in there is ultra processed food. You know, we look at we look at, you know, government subsidies, you know, what crops are being subsidized the crops that are being subsidized, you know, corn, wheat, soybean, so forth, are the ones most likely to be turned into Ultra processed foods. So I say it in this. Oh, I’ll just say everyday persons speak where I say, We’re just, we’re the Monkey Banana relationship. We’re all monkeys. So what’s the banana that’s driving us? You know, and driving the production of ultra processed foods and driving the messaging from Governor top government sources, top health educators, American Academy of dietetics and nutrition, so on and so forth. What is, you know, promoting them to give the message they do what’s promoting big food to produce the ultra processed foods they do? And that Monkey Banana relationship is money, money, money, profit, profit, profit. Now I’m not against profit. I’m not saying these are evil entities and they’ve got this malevolent base. That is not what I’m saying. But I’m just saying the relationship being what it is, and profit being the primary driver. It drives incomplete inaccurate messaging, moderation and all things, eat less exercise more. That’s the messaging, you know, moderation and all things, eat less, exercise more, take personal responsibility and try to limit your number of stops at McDonald’s and the story. I mean, that’s over simplified, of course, but that messaging overall is what has been put out generally speaking, and they don’t take into consideration At least three other major elements that that we strongly consider when we’re looking at how do we help someone that is wanting to get from that heavier place less healthy to leaner place and healthy? can pause for a second here and see if anything, is that come to mind?
No, it’s good. I mean, as a hypnotherapist, I’m very interested in the mental part of this. And I hear you that there’s just a lot of junk out there, like literally right and go to the fast food stores go to your convenience store. A lot of us though, are conscious enough. We know if you exercise more, if you eat less, if calories in calories out, but why don’t we eat from like the men? I imagine the answer is from a mental side. But why don’t we just do what we all know that we’re meant to do?
Yeah, it’s a great question. And that is, to me, that’s the, you know, the old game show the $64,000 question. That’s the $64,000 question right there. Right? It really is. Because if you if I was to grab a bullhorn, get on the tallest building in your city, I could just scream through that bullhorn, eat less and exercise more, and people would look up, some would look up and be like, yeah, no, I got it. I’ve known this for 50 years. You know, this isn’t anything new. But I’m just keep screaming that eat less and exercise more. But like you said, so why are people doing that? You know, if this is a, if there is, first of all, let’s make sure that we’re clear, calories are king but they’re not the only thing. And I want to make that up front, at least before I get into kind of why. You know, in my view, don’t people do it. It’s important that people don’t get so poor and the people know if all of the inaccurate misinformation that’s out there, they don’t glob on to its hormones, hormones, hormones don’t get me wrong, hormones are important hormones are impactful. Here’s a here’s a chicken and egg there’s a circular aspect to it hormones affect this this affects hormones and then we eat this and that you know, it kind of goes round and round and it’s a chicken egg thing. Hormones are important, but calories are king. I can get you to any body fat you want eating nothing but butter. If you’ll do it you know I can get you to any any body fat you want eating nothing but m&ms. Okay, so there is an equation a mathematical equation, you know that where we can find someone’s total daily energy expenditure Okay, big phrase there, but total daily again includes all of your the calories you burn sitting doing nothing the calories you burn, fidgeting, the calories you burn daily activity and exercise calories, you burn digesting food. And we can calculate that. And Matthew, If I was to calculate yours, and if I had your age and gender and weight and an activity level, I could get it close within a few 100 calories a day probably wouldn’t be off more than that. And I could tell you within 300 calories may be how many calories you need to maintain how many calories you need to gain how many calories you need to lose. And if you are a robot, and you would just do that calorie, whatever we’re looking for, you would get a gain or the same or the loss, whatever our goal was, and I over a six week period, if you said Dave, I want to lose about five pounds in six weeks, I could say okay, during the calculations, here’s what we need for output, here’s what we need for input. And if you were a robot didn’t have any feelings or emotions or anything at all going on. Just you were purely rational, and you did that you would be give or take a pound. Right there. So that, to me, uh, a refreshing aspect of this, or an encouraging aspect or something that is kind of good to just hang on to is, this isn’t a mystery, like the math of it. Since no one gets to violate the laws of thermodynamics. There is a math to this, but here’s the thing. That’s why I say calories are king, but they’re not the only thing. So calories do matter. They are the single greatest factor with regard to I’m gonna say weight loss because you could lose a ton of muscle if you just ate nothing but butter need to lose a ton of muscle if you ate nothing but m&ms, there’s no protein there and so forth. Right? So there’s lots of factors that go into it, but we’re just talking about getting rid of fat and didn’t care what the what the quality of the weight loss was. The calories will do it. So you go okay, so I want to get everybody to take oh, I want them to have confidence in knowing that there is a math to this and we can calculate you’re not terminally unique as I say, you know you we can figure you out all right. So then it comes down to So what is going on if that’s the case, why aren’t people doing it? There is in first of all, again that overwhelming for most people unless they’re educated and supported aspect of of obesogenic contributing factor. So external and internal factors that contribute to the excess consumption leading to obesity. People remember what I said way back when when the internet first came in and email was first here and people were emailing me. And they were saying, Hey, Dave, real quick, don’t want to be a bother, no big deal, but you helped me, you know, get off 30 pounds and keep it off forever. That is still a mindset to a degree of how people come at this. Everybody eats, everybody moves to some degree. And it shouldn’t be that hard. It’s just a little less, exercise a little more, you know, there may be a little secret I’m missing. But, you know, and so people come at it much less aware of everything working against them, that they’re going to need to, in my opinion, become aware of more aware of, so that they can have the tools and strategies to counter those elements and, and move forward in a progressive way. So if we, I say it this way, I don’t mean it literally, I can teach you what you need to know about nutrition for health and fitness in about an hour. I can teach you what you need to know about activity and exercise for health and fitness, general health and fitness in about an hour. Let’s assume that you actually have the real information, let’s just call it the Dave Greenwalt real information on nutrition and exercise, not something that’s come out half baked from some some, some source, but it’s good and it’s solid. And I asked you what’s what’s good nutrition, and you can regurgitate it back to me, and what’s good exercise and you can regurgitate tech, regurgitate it back to me, then there are three pillars that we focus heavily on. And this is kind of where it finally gets to the rubber on the road for your question. What’s what’s driving willpower. And so what I look at is intrinsic motivation, what’s driving willpower intrinsic motivation. And that primarily on a daily basis is going to come from what I call white power. So anytime we’ve done anything that has taken a long time, and has been hard, or is still ongoing, progressively requires our attention requires detail requires that we do things at a specific time and day and data data that we might not otherwise feel like doing. The reason we did those things is because our y was strong enough, let me give an example. And it’s just universally true. So for people that work for someone else, especially when was the last time you were late for work? Most people will go not, you know, are very rare. Okay? Because we don’t have to be perfect, but very rare, is the answer we’ll get most of the time are almost never haven’t been late in five years or something like that. Why? I mean, do you just love working for someone else so much, that you know, you just don’t when you’re always in a good mood, you know, when you go in, you’re never tired. You know, you’re never just had an argument with your spouse, you never had the kids, you know, three rug rats at home, you know, driving you crazy, and you still had to go to work. And you just, I mean, you had everything going on. You had financial things, you had relationship things, you had no sleep, you had extra stress, and you still went to work, you didn’t even you didn’t even just go to work, you went to work on time. And you probably produced pretty well, for your employer. Holy cow, right. And so willpower in my view. My kind of working definition is the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Whether you feel like it or not. That’s kind of my working definition. And so why power is driving that same thing. If you’ve got small children who are in school and need to be picked up after school or soccer practice or whatever. You know, when’s the last time you just said? I just don’t feel like it. I’m not going to pick you up today. You know, the kids still at school because you forgot them yesterday? You know? No, absolutely not. Well, again, same thing, were you always in a good mood. Why did you pick them up? You weren’t tired? You weren’t sick? You didn’t again didn’t just have the argument didn’t get chewed out by the boss didn’t get a financial statement that made your gut turn, whatever life is thrown. Of course, all that stuff has come and you still went and got your child and you were on time because your why was so strong to make sure that happened. You were absolutely going to make that happen. You got an advanced degree higher learning. There’s sacrifice there’s things that have to be done when it has to be done. Whether you feel like it or not the people that accomplish those things and anything like that have done it because their Why was so strong. It just said this is that important to me My why is that strong. So so many people come at weight management with a weak why? Because they You’ve minimized these other factors, they don’t, they aren’t aware, they’re oblivious to it to a certain degree of how many external factors and internal factors there are working against them to do this, you know, someone wants to lose 30 pounds and keep it off forever.
The process, once support supported appropriately and educated appropriately, isn’t harder than getting a PhD in psychology or something, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s easier. And I would rather have someone come at it with a mindset of Wow. So I need to take this with at least the seriousness and give it the level of importance and priority, not that it’s going to it’s never going to be number one, weight management, someone’s life is never going to be number one, nor does it need to be, but it might need to be in that number three position. Okay, so you know, earn a living, take care of our family, one and two, somewhere in there, you know, and then maybe the third position, if they’re, you know, if it’s going to be at a super high level of importance, I always say the third position is the highest it’s going to be and that’s as high as it needs to be. So, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot going on. So they minimize it, they’ll come in, and they’ll be like, Why do you want to lose 30 pounds, 50 pounds, 150 pounds, I just, I just like to feel healthier. I’m sorry, you don’t get it for that. That’s not going to, that’s not going to be enough. We’re gonna need more than a good start. I’m not saying that’s bad. It’s a good start. But we need to, we’re gonna need to build on that. We’ve got to get that why, you know, strong enough to drive willpower. So that you will do the things that need to be done when they need to be done, whether you feel like I’m or not. So that’s one of the three pillars. And there’s two more, and I’ll pause for a second. Because I know I can go into a monologue here, because I’m just so passionate about it. But that’s one of the three pillars beyond nutrition and exercise.
Yeah, well, based on my next question, you can maybe go into those other pillars. But I want to understand more about the how to tap into the why. Because in the hypnotherapy model, we clearly acknowledge your conscious mind, the subconscious mind. And we know your subconscious mind doesn’t necessarily necessarily respond to your conscious minds highest intentions, right? So the conscious mind says I want to lose weight. Even if I answer why from my conscious mind, which is essentially where willpower is, right? I don’t have the emotional drive or the deep seated why. So why is willpower the conscious mind? Just not enough? You may have answered that already with the first pillar, or use the other pillars to help to answer that. But yeah, how do we really tap into emotional motivation that makes this like I said, Not effortless, it can be challenging, but where we can prioritize it to be the top three?
Well, let me just say that it, obviously it gets gray and it gets there’s a mix of that conscious subconscious, you know, like, like, you know, and obviously, you’re the expert and anybody listening to this in hypnotherapy is by far, you know, an expert on hypnotherapy compared to me, I only have that surface level, you know, you know, basic understanding, and I’m a fan of it for the right person in the data data, I am nothing negative to say there, what I would say is that all manner of things psychologically, emotionally that we can do to get the subconscious working for us in an authentic way, or whether it where it feels authentic, you know, we’re going to do better. So some of this we got to we got to have this why. And if some of that gets deep enough and emotional enough where it hits it starts to support the subconscious and things start to become a little bit more automated and on autopilot because we’ve got the subconscious running the show here and and the in the conscious is got its mission and the subconscious is driving things. You know what, 90% of the time maybe more, you know, but there’s a to me they bleed into one another with regard to the why is that the whole answer on subconscious to why No, no, no, no. I just think that hypnotherapy for sure would be could be supportive of the why but I also think it’s over here on the emotional and the emotional fitness leg. Were in that emotional fitness leg. It’s there’s a number of factors there. And I and that’s where I would ordinarily say things that support the subconscious. Think you know that thinking that things that support the subconscious effort to carry out orders better than any soldier ever known to man ever has the subconscious in my view, based on my reading research and with my clients again. I think that when it comes to subconscious, you guys are far more an expert in that area, but from what I’ve seen Read and what my what I’ve seen with my clients that the subconscious is running the show 90 some percent of the time thankfully, our conscious has the freedom to think about other new things and novel things and pay attention to things that are not as ingrained in our everyday, you know, habits and things. But anyway, I would say that’s more than the emotional fitness side. So let me come over to the middle. And then let’s come over to the emotional fitness where, you know, maybe some of that subconscious can be which hypnotherapy to me fits right in there. So if the why if we get that really strong, we’ve stacked the odds in our favor, have we guaranteed success. Now before stacking the odds in our favor, if we’ve moved past, add just like to get a little healthier, or add just like to, if it’s if there’s a just, you know, then that’s just the start, like I just that’s just a start, it’s not going to be complete if it’s add just so that second leg beyond nutrition, or you know, the second pillar beyond nutrition and exercise beyond why, which is this explains a lot. And it helps explain why really rational, good, smart, successful people do really irrational, seemingly odd behaviors that don’t support their goals in this era. And that is compulsive, overeating, addiction, that type of thing. So Ultra processed food is incredibly addictive for certain people. And it’s a lot greater percentage than what any of the current research is, I’d say the current research, the published research, a lot of times it’s going to use the Yale food addiction scale, fine. You know, it’s been studied, it’s been verified. It continues to be refined, and in my opinion, 23 years working with food addicts, it catches maybe half the people with compulsive eating issues, maybe. And so the percentage of people that it’s finding the published research is finding in my view is much lower than it really is. I think it’s more in the line along the lines of 30% of people that are overweight, you know, and then if we get into obesity would just go up from there to a degree, although there are healthy weight people who are also addicted and compulsive overeaters. But as the weight goes up, and up and up the based on what I’ve seen empirical, the the food addiction, and the composable reading goes up as well. So that’s the thing, and here’s the thing, we can have incredible why. Let’s say it’s just like, wow, and that’s impressive to me. But to the person, they’re like, I would you rate this on a one to 10 or like it’s a 10 I just, I’m just ready to just go conquer the world. And each day, you get some How do you feel about this, I feel like I’m gonna conquer the world. If they’ve got a compulsive overeating issue, compulsive meaning there’s a negative consequence, but we still engage in the behavior. It’s irrational. If we were just again, dealing from a purely rational position, we will look and say, does that behavior support your goal? Absolutely not? Well, then let’s stop it. Okay. I mean, but when we’re talking about addiction, anybody, you know, everybody knows in the addiction space, we’re not talking about just a, you know, objective, rational, you know, position. And so we have to address that if we don’t, we’ll have a great why we’ll have the person trying, trying, trying. And because they continue to get the message of moderation and all things, moderation and all things. Well, a quote is moderation in all things, including moderation. And that’s one I subscribe to. Because for certain people, in certain instances, in certain situations at certain times a day, with certain emotional triggers. With certain food like substances, it isn’t going to be real food, no one’s addicted to chicken, breast and broccoli. No one, not one person is addicted to chicken, breast and broccoli, it’s always going to be an ultra processed food. If I ask anybody listening. One of your favorite, we’ll call it treats, whatever you want to call it, you know, whatever it is, whatever that thing is, you’re gonna have to give it up forever. And I’m not saying people have to, but if I plant that, and I say you have to give that up forever. Some people will literally break into tears. No one’s breaking into tears over chicken breast and broccoli. And the thought of oh my gosh, how would I live without? Fill in the blank? Right? brownies, cookies, cakes level, whatever it may be chips, you name it. If we’re not addressing that, if we aren’t taking that and considering how we can help that person get their own I call a personal abstinence plan. Which doesn’t mean all right, that’s gone forever. It may mean at this time of day. It may be a window where it doesn’t work for you because it seems to be after work between four and six you’re vulnerable. All, but it’s something you can have at 10am. It’s something you can have at a restaurant, but you can’t really do it at home because you overeat it, and it does it and it leads to more and more and more, there can be quite a variety of situations times the the ultra processed food itself, that has to be addressed. It can make it seem like the Why isn’t strong enough. But really, we’ve got a compulsive eating issue. And addiction makes things not make sense until you know what you’re dealing with. And I have found that, you know, my clients so often are successful in other areas. They’re, they’re smart, they’re good people, they’ve got plenty of willpower. They have demonstrated in so many areas of their life, they have willpower, you know, coming out of their pores. But they’re still doing these, you know, irrational behaviors. So we’ll sometimes we’ll find it in the compulsive eating side, okay. Let’s say that’s addressed. Well, now it’s about growth on the emotional fitness side. And to me, the way I define emotional fitness is to help people feel authentically good more often, rather than regretfully good. If you binge on 1000 calories, it might feel good for a couple of minutes, and then you regret it. You can do retail therapy, or you can go out spend $500, put it on your credit card that you didn’t have. And then you get home, you’re like, oh my gosh, I got the bill. And I gotta pay this off and you feel bad, mourn. It feel good in the moment feel, you feel you regret it later things, whatever it may be, there are things that people may do, where it’s, they feel regretfully good if you’re good in the moment, they regret it later. emotional fitness is about strengthening self strengthening behaviors and strengthening growth within oneself so that you do feel authentically good more often. And you’re better able to manage life. All that life throws at us, a phrase I use is we want to eventually become emotional, or lifestyle ninjas. You know, it’s like whatever life throws at us, it’s like, I’m, I’ll use this strategy, I’ll use this element of emotional fitness, I need, I need to focus more on what I want, rather than negative and what I don’t want, which is where my mind has been for the last two weeks or whatever. Gratitude, connection, compassion, maybe I just need more sleep. Sleep is a huge, huge component of emotional fitness. I tell anybody give me three, four or five days of five hours or less sleep, and you’ll find me under a laundry basket sucking my thumb. Me, I’m just a wreck. And most people are there even though they may not admit it, or they may not think they are they’re not functioning.
I tell you know, I say to some people, you know, when I get to know them, sometimes I’m like, you know, I’m not really talking to the real Matthew right now, you know, if you were my client, you know, and you haven’t slept in five days. I’m not even talking to the real Matthew, you know, Matthew needs to get sleep. Before we can say I’m talking to the real Matthew. So anything you say, whatever you say about life, whatever you say about anything, you have to just take with a grain of salt when someone hasn’t slept. So I’m waiting. I didn’t mean to get out on the sleep thing. But it’s a big part of emotional fitness. So if we’ve got nutrition and exercise solid, we’re putting a lot of focus on it. Why really drilling down trying to get to the heart of the matter, really trying to get it as emotional and driving as possible. really figure out why does this why who cares if you lose 30 pounds, or 50? Or 80? Or 150? Well, they’ll go well, I do I know. But why. So we drill down, we get that great. But if if we’ve got compulsive eating, and we are aware of the things going on there, and here’s the thing I want to say about compulsive eating or addiction, people generally fall down with the same thing, give or take, same time a day, same general circumstance, every time. It’s not 100 different things. They don’t have 100 Different trigger foods, ultra processed foods, time of days, that kind of thing. There’s 567 You know, maybe 10 And so a really nice again, to me comforting and encouraging thing there is we can identify if we can identify those things, and we can get to acceptance quicker, because there’ll be some grieving that makes sense, right? denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. If we can get to acceptance quicker, then we can get through the process of figuring out that person’s personal abstinence plan. Now we’ve got to why now we’re addressing the stuff here that makes it helps us understand why there was so much irrational behavior. And we can flow that we can do at least reduction if not elimination I don’t mean of the food itself, but you know of the behavior. And all the while strengthening the emotional fitness so that, as you know, Viktor Frankl, you know, is so famous for saying, between the stimulus and the response, there’s a space. And in that space, we retain the right to choose what our response is going to be. And that is, there’s a level of maturity and emotional maturity, emotional fitness to be able to do that, because for a lot of people, they’re unaware, they’re unaware of what’s going on. And it’s this. It’s just stimulus occurs. And it’s conditioned automated response, Pavlov’s dog ringing the bell, they salivate, the thing happens and boom, they go right to the food, they go right to the alcohol, they go right to the whatever. And it’s part of it is because it’s habit, it’s part of it is because that’s just what they’ve done. They’ve conditioned themselves to believe to a certain extent that they can’t handle the situation. The elevated the situation beyond what it is, you know, a saying and personal growth is, let’s accept the situation for what it is, but not make it worse than it is. And a lot of people will go to catastrophic acts and things like that. And again, that’s all part of the emotional fitness, bringing the temperature down, bringing the volatility down, bringing the the the excess language and negativity down to more appropriate for what it is that just occurred, you just had an argument with your spouse, you’re not now alone for the rest of your life, divorced, broke, you know, living in hobble or whatever I mean, that, you know, we, we pay so much interest on events that never occur, you know, it’s staggering. So when we can do better with that, and that’s all on that emotional fitness side. All of it then supports the nutrition and exercise behaviors, which are those mechanical components that get us that fat loss while keeping muscle or we can take our body to any place we want to go, because we’ll have the consistency.
Yeah, your incense? No, you’re not preaching that I’d say you’re preaching to the choir, in the sense of it all leads back to the mind, whenever I’m speaking about any type of change because of my field. Like, it’s just your mind. So the mental emotional side of it. So let’s say somebody’s working with you, or through your course, and they’re, they’re getting the why. And they’re getting the emotional side of it. How do they even know what do you go in? I’m sure you do. Like I said, like an hour, you can teach somebody? Yeah, you know, what’s, what the right food is for you or not? I can hear stay away from the process stuff. But yeah, how do we discern that?
That’s a great question. So I, I have a working definition of real food and, and I like to go, I like to describe or define real food rather than trying to say, stay away from this chemical, or stay away from this or stay away from them. Because in the United States alone, we have over 3000, industrial additives. So try to memorize 3000 attitudes to stay away from or maybe you need to stay away from caramel color. Or maybe you need to stay away from you know, I’m not even gonna get into that, because there’s just too many. So if we come at it the other way, we say what’s real food? Then I think we have a better view. And then everything else is processed for sure. And probably Ultra processed. So this working definition doesn’t have all the nuance of the science. Where did it originated from? My working definition is adapted from something called the Nova food classification system. Nova food classification system was developed by a professor in Brazil about 1012 years ago, it is heavily being discussed and used in research current today is what’s very current. It’s very, it’s progressive in the sense that it’s evolving. And it’s in and I like that there’s a number of food classification systems. This one isn’t perfect, but in my view, it’s the best one because it looks specifically at classifying foods based on their processing. Okay, there are other food classification systems get very specific on nutrient density, and that’s a nutrient centric approach. Does it provide the vitamins and minerals and fiber that we need and essential fats? And if it does, then no matter how its processed, give it a thumbs up, you know, and I don’t follow that. I don’t subscribe to that because there’s too much research that has to me it’s overwhelmingly strong. There’s not a single piece of research I’ve seen in the last 10 years on ultra processed food where those who consume the most did the best. It it’s the exact opposite of course, universally across the board and that’s so rare to be able to say where you go there isn’t there isn’t a study that said this one up if it Did somebody’s gonna find a flaw on it later, but I haven’t seen it. So real food from adapted real food whole or minimally processed, edible parts of plant and animal support with that, where, if anything has been added to it, it’s only whole or minimally processed ingredients commonly found in kitchens. So if we just make this, let me say it again first. And now let’s make it so that it’s like someone can wrap their head around and go wait a minute, you know, whole or minimally processed edible parts of plant and animal, where if anything’s been added to it, it’s only whole or minimally processed ingredients commonly found in kitchens. So, think of all your single ingredient things plant and animal, it had to be removed from the plant, out of the ground off the tree off the bush, whatever. And it had to be processed to an extent at least get it to us, so we could eat it, right. So whole or mentally processed. And same thing for the animals, you know, chicken, beef, fish, whatever it may be. Got to get it out of the animal and get processed, get it safe for us to be able to consume and hopefully, if it’s animals, then they were raised, right, because everything they eat, we eat and so on. Alright. Once you’ve got that, you’ve got that kind of single ingredient, plant, single ingredient animal so to speak, you know, then if anything’s been added to it, it’s only holer minimally processed ingredients commonly found in kitchens, spices, vinegars, oils, things like that, you know, once you go beyond that, you’re probably getting into Ultra processed. And so that’s kind of the, that’s a general guide, what I strive to have my students work towards, if that you’d never get there, that’s okay. But it’s trying to get to about 90% real food. That may seem crazy, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna propose that not trying to get there as what’s crazy. Because for 10s of 1000s of years, that’s just way we ate. I mean, you know, how long has it been that we didn’t eat that way? 100 years. You know, I mean, 70 years, somewhere in there. And I’m not saying it was perfect. And I’m not saying someone didn’t have something that had a little something, but it was so rare. And it was so little compared to what it is. Now what’s happened is, my my proposition is work towards 90% Real food that gives you that 10% For one being human having an error or just being like, I just want them whatever, you know, okay. 10%, okay. And as long as it doesn’t interfere with your goals, and your your health and your life and all that stuff, alright. So, because what’s happened is it’s upside down. So the research is showing that 60 to 90%, of what adults consume in the United States is ultra processed food. So it’s so it’s not a, it’s not a wonder that we’re in this shape that we are, which is, by the way unsustainable that the system is going to break. We can’t keep going in this direction. It’s so costly, to be obese, especially morbidly obese. It’s so costly, financially, and just in all of the ways health care, especially, it’s unsustainable. So I’m just like, really just wanting to get the message out there that at least if nothing else, just start moving toward the 6060 to 90%. Real food. As crazy as that sounds, no one can possibly do it. I can’t imagine I can’t. It’s what we’ve done. For 10s of 1000s of years. It’s what our body knows how to process what what to do with it. It protects our liver feeds our gut and all the things that you know, in our mind, and all the things that we’re wanting to do with regard to healthspan and lifespan. So I don’t know if I, if I said so much that I missed the answer to your question that you asked her if I if I addressed it in that real food definition.
Yeah, well, well, there’s obviously so much for you to share. So we’ll just take we can get in this limited amount of time we had, I think he did answer the question is essentially avoid the processed foods, but go towards the whole foods, plant or animal based when I was in Chinese medical college going through nutrition classes. I remember one takeaway that was similar to what you’re saying is only buy foods on the outside of the supermarket, like perimeter, but all those processed foods in all those aisles you can pretty much avoid. But yeah, basically the theme is healing with whole foods. We’re getting towards the end of time. So if you had some closing words, maybe something you didn’t get to say that would be important for you to share a message what might that be?
If you are, you know, someone who has struggled in despite best advice, guidance attempts, their attempts to just eat less and exercise more, they haven’t. And it’s been a battle whether it’s the person listening or someone they know. I can’t encourage you enough to keep going and and never give up. Because, to me, it’s not a wonder. It makes perfect sense. In fact, which to me, is encouraging. It’s, you know, for about seven or eight years ago, I had an in this inexplicable mid back thoracic back pain. Okay, that’s good. I went to 15 specialists couldn’t figure it out. So I didn’t know, I did the basic stuff. Of course, I did. I mean, health and fitness did all the in some ancillary stuff, and extra, you know, nobody could figure it out, couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense with all that I do, and all the good things and then nutrition and that, you know, everything exercise, it couldn’t figure it out. Finally, someone figured it out. And even though the process was not easy, and even though the process took time, and it took money, and it took everything took energy on my part to do it, I was so relieved to have the answer. No. And that’s what I wanted the message, I want to get out to everyone here. It’s not a wonder if you’re struggling or you know, someone who is it with the right education, and the right support in all of the areas. You can win this. And that’s the message I really want to say I would I would want to close this. This can be one don’t give up. You don’t want to keep repeating the same behaviors and expecting different results, as we all know, you know, definition of crazy. But if you get the right information and the right support, it absolutely can be one. And that’s that’s what I would want to say. It’ll keep going.
Yeah, I appreciate the optimism. So if somebody wants to get in contact with you to go through your program, your training, what does that look like? How does that work?
And the easiest way is, you know, 20 some years ago when I wrote the book, and I called it the leanness lifestyle and the program lean this lifestyle university, because we’re an education based platform. That’s a mouthful to NS two s’s. So just what I would say is, the easiest thing to do is just go to the website and the website is L L. university.com.
L L university that awesome. Thank you so much, David, for being with me. I wish we had more time we’re pushing towards the end of a lot of time. So thank you so much. I’m glad you’re able to get your message out there. And yeah, they will talk about other ways to collaborate with our school and how hypnosis can help or you can help our graduates or whatnot. So thank you very much. And yeah, like gorta possible future work within the future.
Thank you so much. Been a pleasure.
Thank you. Absolutely