Lynn Thier's Blog, page 9

Why is it so difficult to change even though we know we should?

Why Is It So Difficult To Change – Even If You Know You Should Part 1

 

Change of old habits is often necessary – but are you finding difficult to change what you’re so familiar with?

 

If you’re like many people, the answer is “yes”. And this example reveals why (despite what you know it would be good for you) this “tinker-toy” type of thinking is not useful, satisfying or productive.

Many times, when you ignored required change, you ended up racing towards great turmoil.

I talked the other day with a gentleman in his 40’s. He contacted us reluctantly for NLP Coaching. He said that his wife thought it might be a good thing to hire a coach, and one trained in NLP because he is stuck.

Very intelligent man, an engineer with great credentials and a pretty impressive bio, this man is really a good and honest member of society. So, we’re not talking here about somebody who has no capability to think correctly.

But there was something really interesting about this man. He got married, in his early 20’s, and set up his house in a certain way. Since then he has not changed anything (even in the way his furniture is arranged in the house) in almost 40 years.

He has the same furniture arranged in the same way in the house, the same old rugs and decorations, the same appliances (which he changes only because they break down eventually) and… the same thinking as he did when he grew up.

Now, this is really interesting – because our environment has changed tremendously only in the last 20 years – and it continues to change at an increasingly faster rate. The more and more computerized industry, the way we eat, the proliferation of electromagnetic pollution, not to mention the geo-political outlook of the whole world (and your country, wherever you might be) have all changed.

Of course, this is not a problem in and of itself. We’re talking about people’s taste and just that – their personal taste. However, his coaching presenting problem was that where he works right now, he does not feel safe. He feels his job is in jeopardy, and this in turn will have repercussions on his ability to pay the bills, his mortgage, and so, overall in the quality of his life.

Because he wasn’t feeling safe, he felt he was under a great deal of stress, and in our initial discussion, he brought up another important point, which was that his relationship was also feeling the strain and his overall quality of life suffered.

But the main complaint from him was that he wasn’t feeling safe. He knew that he should look at changing his job, and finding another safer place (with his credentials, this was not so difficult) but he could not get himself to take any action at all.

The Question Is Then, Why Not?

Why, in spite of being very evident that this would be the solution, he could not bring himself to change anything?

In our NLP Coaching Master Practitioner training, there is a section dedicated to what we call Meta-Programs. No, these are not the Myers Briggs Meta-programs some of you may be familiar with.

Meta-programs are simply content free inner filters, by which we automatically – and unconsciously of course – filter how we perceive the world. Yes, not everybody perceives the world around them in the same way. There are significant differences in behavior from person to person, and the Meta-programs influence and guide our strategies or thinking styles.

Now, I hope you caught the fact that these inner filters are unconscious – so it’s not something you do with volition… and yet, others may have a problem with the way you do things, because their “filtering”may be different from yours.

These little but important filters, determine among other things also how we behave, take or not take action, relate and communicate to others.

They have an extremely important role in business –for which they have been expertly adapted.

These filters (the Meta-programs) can be successfully employed in marketing, selling, team building, presentations, negotiation, staff hiring, what have you. But they are also equally effective in personal relationships like interacting with your life-partner, or your children, in determining how you purchase stuff, and how you relate to time in the sense that you cold be late and disorganized or punctual and extremely meticulous.

To learn more and find out about Meta Programs contact Lynn.

Written by one of my trainers, Dr. Adriana James & brought to you by NLP Trainer Lynn Thier.

NLP Master Trainer, Hypnosis Master Trainer and NLP Coaching Master Trainer. She is the author of the book Values And the Evolution of Consciousness – a book about how to take advantage of the massive changes which the world is going through and  Time Line Therapy® Made Easy – an introduction to Time Line Therapy® techniques easy to master by everyone. 

 

 

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Fasting 4 Women & the Hormone Connection

The Fasting and Hormone Connection

To put it simply, intermittent fasting can cause hormonal imbalance in women if it’s not done correctly. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23382817) Women are extremely sensitive to starvation signals and if the body senses that it is being starved, it will ramp up production of the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin

So when women experience insatiable hunger after under-eating, or even after they’ve done a show (competed in bodybuilding) they are actually experiencing the increased production of these hormones. It’s the female body’s way of protecting a potential fetus — even when a woman is not pregnant.

Of course, though, many women ignore these hunger cues causing the signals to get even louder. Or, worse, we try to ignore them, then fail and binge later, then follow that up with under-eating and starvation again. And guess what? That vicious cycle can throw your hormones out of whack and even halt ovulation. 

In animal studies, after two weeks of intermittent fasting, female rats stopped having menstrual cycles and their ovaries shrunk while experiencing more insomnia than their male counterparts (though the male rats did experience lower testosterone production). http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0052416

Unfortunately, there are very few human studies looking at the differences between intermittent fasting for men and women, but the animal studies confirms that: Intermittent fasting for long periods of time can sometimes throw off a woman’s hormonal balance, cause fertility problems and exacerbate eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia and binge eating!  Something i’ve experienced myself after dieting restrictively for 4 months to compete.

And, the solution is to practice intermittent fasting 1 to 3 days a week for women, not everyday.  This way your body doesn’t think its starving each day… I sometimes will do a Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Perhaps i’ll only fast for 16 hours 2 days a week depending on my weekly schedule of clients and meetings.  Listening to your body is important.  

Remember to drink plenty of water, if you feel hunger coming on during your fasting days, tell yourself it will pass, have some black coffee or tea, or herbal teas to wait it out.  Telling yourself this is easy, you’ve got this will also help!  And, if you feel you can’t wait another hour to eat, then don’t.  15 hours fasting is still great.

Upcoming Programs & Seminars:
Gastric Band Hypnosis Specialized Program for W-Loss

Change how you think about food forever! The Virtual Gastric Band is a remarkable weight loss program which was pioneered by Sheila Granger in the United Kingdom. Clinical Trials were very successful, 95% Success Rate.

This program uses hypnosis to condition the un-conscious mind into believing that a band has been placed around the top portion of the stomach in order to create a small stomach pouch thus reducing the amount of food that one needs to eat in order to feel full. And, because it’s not a diet, you won’t feel deprived, miserable or hungry,   Details can be found HERE

Learn Self Hypnosis! 

Did you know that you process over 70,000 thoughts per day! That is on average about 48 thoughts per minute or just about 1 thought every second. As you think your usual thoughts, you create patterns in your brain that either supports you or hinder you. What kind of story are you creating for yourself?

Are you thoughts mainly negative or positive? Do they inspire you or depress you? What’s your self talk like these days? Remember that every thought you think goes directly to your unconscious mind…and the body responds to the thoughts that you think. hypnosis is, in fact, a serious therapeutic tool that can help people overcome many psychological, emotional and even some physical problems.  Full Details can be found HERE!

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

 

 

 

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Wellness Wednesday~Our Thoughts, Mediation & Self Hypnosis… Did you Know?

Did you know that you process over 70,000 thoughts per day! That is on average about 48 thoughts per minute or just about 1 thought every second. As you think your usual thoughts, you create patterns in your brain that either supports you or hinder you. What kind of story are you creating for yourself?

Are you thoughts mainly negative or positive? Do they inspire you or depress you?  What’s your self talk like these days?  Remember that every thought you think goes directly to your unconscious mind…and the body responds to the thoughts that you think.   

Every thought you think manufactures a protein that talks to your genes. Your happy thoughts tell your health-promoting genes to turn on. Hooray! But on the flip side, your sad, fearful or stressful thoughts tell your dis-ease promoting genes to turn on as well.

 What can you do to change this? A simple tool that is FREE and easy to do is to meditate. Meditation involves deep breathing while you relax your body and your mind.  Hypnosis is quite similar but not the same… Self hypnosis is normally induced by verbal self suggestion (spoken or in your mind), you may use affirmations, imagination, visualizations to create certain states and to help change habits.  It works from within and similarly, many “guided meditations” videos and audios are mostly a type of self hypnosis or relaxation.

 The Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General in Boston studied the effects of meditation on gene expression. They found that after only 1 meditation, 1561 genes were affected – 874 were up-regulated for health and 687 were down-regulated for stress and inflammation.

 

People who meditated or use self hypnosis on a regular basis positively

affected 2209 genes in just one sitting!

 

When you live in a constant state of stress mode, this is telling your body that you are barely surviving – that your wheels are spinning. Meditation & Self Hypnosis is simple and easy to do. The most difficult thing to do is making the time for it – taking the time for you.  Give yourself the gift and commit today to taking 15 minutes every day, to turn on those happy hormones, which will turn on your health promoting genes too! 

Want to learn how to do self hypnosis?  Its easy ~ i’ll teach you techniques you can do anytime, anywhere without having to go to a dark room for 45 minutes! 

Self Hypnosis Seminar is just $39.00 and is Sunday July 8th at 1pm  Please register in advance by contacting me here!

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

 

 

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Are you making these Common Breakfast Mistakes?

Do you ever find that eating breakfast makes you hungry soon thereafter? If so, you’re likely eating the wrong kind of breakfast. According to the featured article, many are confused about what makes for a healthy morning meal.

The featured article is a great example of what most of the media and conventional health “experts” recommend. It lists five of the most commonly believed breakfast “mistakes,” including:

Not enough protein
Too little fiber
No fat
Not enough food, and
Eating too late in the morning

While most of these have their merit, these points fail to address what may be the biggest mistake of all, which is eating breakfast in the first place.

Omitting breakfast, as part of an intermittent fasting schedule, can actually have a number of phenomenal health benefits, from improving insulin sensitivity to shifting your body into burning more fat instead of sugar for fuel.

But before we get into that, let’s take a quick look at the five breakfast mistakes listed in the featured article. If you DO, for whatever reason, choose to eat breakfast and are not yet convinced to change, you might notice you tend to feel hungry shortly afterward. If so these recommendations might offer some relief.

Common Breakfast Mistakes

The most common mistake people make with their breakfast is to eat typical breakfast foods, most of which are highly processed and loaded with sugars. This includes waffles, cereal, toast, muffins, bagels and other breakfast sandwiches. These are some of the absolute worst foods you can eat. They satiate your current hunger but set you up for metabolic disasters and fuel excess body fat and obesity-related diseases.

There are many thousands of well done peer reviewed studies that support the harmful effects of sugar on human health and many are listed on this site. For a quick review, read the “76 Dangers of Sugar to Your Health.”

Unfortunately, many recommend the need for more protein, and fail to address the excess carb issue. They also fail to address the health problems related to pasteurized dairy, including milk and yogurt. They are also clueless about the fact that most commercially available yogurts are absolutely chock-full of sugar! Whether it’s full fat or low-fat (which is even worse), these commercial pasteurized yogurts are simply not a good source of either protein or fat.

Yogurt made from raw organic milk on the other hand, can be a helpful health food for many, and is something you can easily make at home. This kind of yogurt contains both beneficial protein and healthful fat, but most importantly loads of beneficial bacteria, making it an ideal breakfast food if you are going to have breakfast.

One of the other challenges with many breakfasts, and for that matter, most other meal recommendations, is that too much protein is recommended. There is an emerging consensus that excess carbs are deleterious but many simply substitute protein for the carbs and ignore the fat. For most, this is a serious mistake. So rather than replacing carbs with protein, consider substituting it for some of the healthy fats listed below. It will go a long way towards helping you transition to fat burning mode discussed below.

Olives and Olive oil
Coconuts and coconut oil
Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk


Raw nuts, especially macadamia
Organic pastured egg yolks
Avocados


Grass-fed meats
Palm oil
Unheated organic nut oils

What Can You Have for a Healthy Breakfast?

Again, I am not convinced that most people benefit from eating breakfast, but if you are in transition to phasing this meal out of your schedule, or for whatever reason choose to eat breakfast, then organic pastured eggs are an excellent breakfast option. The less you cook them the better, as many of the nutrients in the yolk are susceptible to heat damage. So soft boiled or poached are your best options. One other option is to prepare a lunch or dinner option for breakfast, or even use leftovers from your last evening’s meal.

The Strong Case for Skipping Breakfast

The interesting aspect about eating first thing in the morning is that it coincides with your circadian cortisol peak, that is, the time of day when your cortisol (a stress hormone) levels rise and reach their peak. The circadian cortisol peak impacts your insulin secretion, such that when you eat during this time it leads to a rapid and large insulin release and a corresponding rapid drop in blood sugar levels, more so than when you eat at other times of the day.

If you’re healthy, your blood sugar levels won’t drop to a dangerously low level (such as can occur with hypoglycemia) but they can drop low enough to make you feel hungry. So, although skipping breakfast goes against the conventional idea that you should not skip meals, omitting breakfast could actually make it easier for you to control food cravings and hunger throughout the day. That said, there are also many other reasons to consider skipping breakfast.

However, it is important to remember that skipping breakfast is a process, not an action. You don’t simply stop eating breakfast one day and you are golden and reap all the benefits. It is a major commitment that may come with some discomfort, and it typically takes several weeks to successfully transition from being a primary carb burner to using fat as your primary fuel.

How to Implement Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting, also known as “scheduled eating,” does not necessarily mean abstaining from all food for extended periods of time. Rather it refers to a dramatic reduction of calorie intake, or limiting your eating to a narrow window of time each day. Some recommend cutting your daily calories at least in half, but you can go as low as 500-800 calories. Another alternative is to simply eat all meals or snacks during a limited window of time.

Ideally, you’ll want to limit your eating to a window of about 6-8 hours each day, which means you’re fasting daily for 16-18 hours. This is enough to get your body to shift into fat-burning mode, and applies whether you’re restricting the number of calories you consume during this time or not. Say from noon to 6 pm.

As mentioned previously, this is a gradual process. Typically you start by not eating anything for three hours prior to going to sleep. This will give you a head start to the fasting process so if you sleep for 8 hours you’ve already fasted for 11 hours when you awake. The next step is to wait as long as you can before you start your first meal or “break” your fast. You can gradually extend the time that you have your first meal by 15 to 30 minutes a day. So after several weeks you will be having your first meal at lunch. Typically the more your body uses carbs as its primary fuel rather than fat, the longer this will take. Once you shift to fat burning mode, modern research has confirmed some of the benefits to be:

Normalizing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as “the hunger hormone”
Promoting human growth hormone (HGH) production, which plays an important part in health, fitness and slowing the aging process
Lowering triglyceride levels
Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage

Fasting also inhibits your mTOR pathway, which emerging science and many experts believe plays an important part in driving the aging process. Furthermore, while it’s long been known that restricting calories in certain animals can increase their lifespan by as much as 50 percent, more recent research suggests that sudden and intermittent calorie restriction can provide similar benefits as constant calorie restriction, which is very difficult, if not impossible for most to implement as it violates a primary powerful hunger drive that, for most, is virtually impossible to override for the long term.

Omitting Breakfast 3 days per week Helped Me Lose Fat and Gain Muscle

Many may know that about nine months ago I revised my personal eating schedule to eliminate breakfast and restrict the time I eat to a period of about six to seven hours—typically from noon to 6 or 7 pm. I typically exercise in the morning, and most of the time I am fasting, as exercising while in a fasted state has been shown to produce many beneficial changes. I find that it works particularly well to exercise first thing in the morning and delay your first meal until later in the day.

However, 4 days a week,  I will make certain I have some food about 30-60 minutes after I work out. Pure Protein powder can be a convenient source of protein for many, but I would restrict the dose to one scoop, or about 20-28 grams.

Remember, your ancestors rarely had access to food 24/7 like you do today, and it makes sense that your genes are optimized for this type of intermittent fasting. It takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and after that you actually start to shift to burning fat. However if you are replenishing your glycogen by eating every eight hours, you make it far more difficult for your body to actually use your fat stores as fuel.

 

Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?

If you’re already off to a good start on a healthy diet and fitness plan, then intermittent fasting might be just the thing to bring you to the next level, like it did for me. However, you need to pay very careful attention and listen to your body, and your energy levels. This is especially true if you’re overweight, diabetic, hypoglycemic, or pregnant.

Please keep in mind that proper nutrition becomes even MORE important when fasting, so focusing on your diet really should be your first step. Common sense will tell you that fasting combined with a denatured, highly processed, toxin-rich diet is likely to do more harm than good, as you’re not giving your body proper fuel to thrive when you DO eat.

If you’re hypoglycemic, diabetic, or pregnant (and/or breastfeeding), you may be better off avoiding any type of fasting or timed meal schedule until you’ve normalized your blood glucose and insulin levels, or weaned the baby. Others categories of people that would be best served to avoid fasting include those living with chronic stress, and those with cortisol dysregulation or “adrenal fatigue.”

As for pregnant and/or lactating women, I don’t think fasting would be a wise choice. Your baby needs plenty of nutrients, during and after birth, and there’s no research supporting fasting during this important time. On the contrary, some studies suggest it might be contraindicated, as it can alter fetal breathing patterns, heartbeat, and increase gestational diabetes. It may even induce premature labor.

Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Instead, my recommendation would be to really focus on improving your nutrition during this crucial time. A diet with plenty of raw organic, biodynamic foods, and foods high in healthful fats, coupled with high-quality proteins will give your baby a head start on good health. You’ll also want to be sure to include plenty of cultured and fermented foods to optimize your—and consequently your baby’s—gut flora.

Finding a Lifestyle Plan that Works

Intermittent fasting could further boost weight loss and provide additional health benefits. Also, while not discussed here, if you’re engaged in a regular fitness program and feel like you’ve hit a plateau, then working out in a fasted state might help rev things up.

If you decide to give intermittent fasting a try, remember to not eat any food for three hours before going to sleep and then start slow and work your way up to 16-18 hour fasts; narrowing that window during which you eat all your calories. Remember to listen to your body. Also be sure to address any hypoglycemic tendencies, as it can get increasingly dangerous the longer you go without eating to level out your blood sugar.

In conclusion, it is my experience that breakfast is not the most important meal of the day, and no matter how you tweak it, it might be causing you more harm than good. Skipping breakfast might be the easiest way to shift your body into using fat as its primary fuel. Once you make this shift to fat burning mode your hunger for unhealthy foods will dramatically and almost magically disappear, and you will not have to exert enormous amounts of self-discipline or will power to resist unhealthy foods that you know will increase your risk of disease.

Written by Dr. Mercola, www.mercola.com and Brought to you by Lynn Thier, RHN.

 US News Health March 14, 2013
 Marks Daily Apple February 22, 2012

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Motivational Monday~Simple Hacks When Starting Intermittent Fasting

None of this means it will be smooth sailing in the beginning. With my clients, I’ve found these 10 strategies can make fasting easier and yield better results.  We are going into day 4 of our 30 day intermittent fasting challenge, want to join us?  Our FB group link is HERE!

Focus on healthy foods during your feeding period. Fasting for 16 hours does not mean you get to then consequence-free nosedive into a bacon cheeseburger with fries and chocolate cake. You want to create steady, sustained energy and balance fat-regulating hormones during your feeding hours with lean protein, healthy fats, tons of veggies, and healthy carbs such as sweet potato, oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice, & starchy veggies.
Remember fasting means zero, –  having a handful of almonds during your fasting hours is not truly fasting, your eliciting a metabolic response… fasting means no  – calories. Be careful about sneaky calories from things like cream or sugar in your coffee or tea that hijack your progress.
Remind yourself that hunger will pass. “Hangry” is a popular term these days, and doing intermittent fasting might feed into that less-than-pleasant state of mind.  Hunger is like an emotion: It will pass, and as your body will become more resilient at handling it over time. Be patient with yourself AND stick with the plan.  You’ve got this!
Keep it consistent. Clients who plan and who stick with a regular eating schedule find compliance becomes easier. You might start eating with a 11 a.m. breakfast and end your day’s eating with a 6 p.m. dinner. Of course, you’ll have exceptions – say, that later-night holiday party – and you may need to make adjustments
Drink up. Calorie-free beverages during your fasting hours can do wonders to curb your appetite. One systematic review found drinking water could reduce caloric intake and help you lose more weight.  Studies also show green tea can decrease hunger and increase fat burning.  Even black coffee can curb hunger, but be careful not to over-caffeinate.
Distract yourself. Go for a walk or lose yourself in your work during your fasting hours. You’ll encounter times where your brain only wants to focus on food, but you can quickly distract those thoughts by doing something else. Many clients tell me working out becomes optimal during fasting hours.
Get great sleep. Studies show even a single night of bad sleep makes you hungrier and knock fat-regulating hormones like insulin out of whack.
Control stress. Stress can dial up hunger, and combined with terrible sleep it can make intermittent fasting seem nearly impossible. Save your most stressful tasks during your eating hours, when you’re less likely to get cranky and sidetracked when frustrations arise.
Eat enough. Your body still requires needs nutrient-dense foods, even if you’ve condensed when you eat them. If you’re eating one or two meals in your fasting window, make sure to get your full day’s calories and nutrients. Otherwise, you might get hungry during your fasting hours, derailing your hard work.
Mix it up. Everyone hits plateaus, and if you find your intermittent fasting plan eventually hits a roadblock, deviate for a few days. You might go back to your regular eating plan or try a once-weekly 24-hour fast, then return to your regular 16-hour daily fast. Remember there are no hard-and-fast rules here; be your own guinea pig and if something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to switch it up.

Looking to shed weight without dieting or feeling deprived?  Connect with me Here to see if you are a good fit for our gastric band hypnosis program – for anyone wishing to lose 100 lbs or even struggling to lose those last 15 to 25 lbs.

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn specializes in Weight Loss, Stress/Anxiety & Quit Smoking hypnosis…  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

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Intermittent Fasting: How to Enhance Your Body’s Ability to Burn Fat

Intermittent Fasting: How to Enhance Your Body’s Ability to Burn Fat

Intermittent fasting is a powerful approach to eating that is becoming very popular because it can help you lose weight without feeling hunger, and help reduce your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. If done correctly, intermittent fasting can also lead to better sleep and lots of energy.

So far, research overwhelmingly supports this approach of intermittent fasting and it may do wonders for your health. This type of scheduled eating was practiced by our ancestors, since they did not have the frequent access to food that we have now.  Wow, do we ever have way too much food to choose from!

The Many Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is a type of scheduled eating plan where you adjust your normal daily eating period to an hours-long window of time without cutting calories.

Throughout history, fasting is a commonplace practice and has been a spiritual tradition for millennia. Today, modern science has proven that fasting yields the following benefits:

Helps promote insulin sensitivity – Optimal insulin sensitivity is crucial for your health, as insulin resistance or poor insulin sensitivity contributes to nearly all chronic diseases
Normalizes ghrelin levels, also known as your “hunger hormone”
Increases the rate of HGH production, which has an important role in health, fitness, and slowing the aging process
Lowers triglyceride levels
Helps suppress inflammation and fight free radical damage

In addition, exercising in a fasted state can help counteract muscle aging and wasting, and boost fat-burning.  I workout every morning fasted, my body is use to it and its what i prefer!

Adding Exercise to Intermittent Fasting Can Provide Even More Benefits

Science has proven time and again that high-intensity training is far superior to hour-long aerobic exercises. It burns more calories in less time and increases the production rate of human growth hormone (HGH).

I’ve been doing high-intensity training and bodybuilding for years and it has done great wonders to improve my overall fitness level. At present, there are a growing number of studies showing that high-intensity exercise combined with intermittent fasting is an ideal strategy to increase your fitness level.  If you are over 40 and struggling to lose weight, this is a great strategy to implement.  My Lean in 15 program just may help.  Just 15 min a day is all it takes!

Fasting the Way That’s Right for You

There are many considerations to take note when fasting intermittently:

Intermittent fasting is not a form of extreme calorie restriction. It’s a practice that should make you feel good. If your fasting strategy is making your feel weak, you need to reevaluate it.  Yes, you can cycle or zigzag calories and also cycle carbs to help you lose weight and keep the body and metabolism alert!


Typical fast time ranges from 14 to 18 hours, and the longest you’ll ever abstain from food is 36 hours. You may also opt to delay eating, which is what I’ve been personally doing. I advise that you skip breakfast and eat your lunch and dinner within a six to eight-hour time frame, and stop eating two to three hours before you go to bed.Fasting will help your body adjust from burning carbs to burning fat. Eating on a six- to eight-hour window can take a few weeks and should be done gradually. Once your body has successfully shifted into fat burning mode, it will be easier for you to fast for as much as 18 hours and still feel satiated. Your craving for sugar will slowly dissipate and managing your weight will be easier.


It is not advisable to practice intermittent fasting if your daily diet is filled with processed foods. Addressing the quality of your diet is crucial before you venture into fasting. It’s critical to avoid the wrong calories, including refined carbohydrates, sugar/fructose.  Within the six to eight hours that you do eat, you need to eliminate refined carbohydrates like commercial pizza, white breads, junk foods. Fill your diet with vegetable carbohydrates, If you are eating starchy carbs, have them around your workouts, low glycemic fruits, healthy protein, and healthy fats such as butter, eggs, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, and raw nuts.
On the days that you work out while fasting, it’s best to consume a recovery meal—ideally consisting of fast-assimilating whey protein—30  to 60 minutes after your workout. Finding out what schedule works for you may take some trials and errors.  Since i workout very early, 6-7am, i don’t consume anything but water, black coffee or herbal teas until 11am on intermittent fasting days (just 3 a week for women because of our hormones)  Men can do longer.
Intermittent fasting is not something you should carelessly undertake. ALWAYS pay close attention to your body and your energy levels. Individuals who are hypoglycemic, diabetic,  should avoid any type of calorie restriction until your blood sugar or insulin levels are regulated.
If you are pregnant or (and/or breastfeeding) do not do intermittent fasting… If you have or had in the past an eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, it my not be wise to do intermittent fasting either.

Let me help you create an effective eating plan and schedule. Share this with your family and friends so they, too, can experience the benefits of fasting… invite them to join our FB Group HERE.  If you need additional help, perhaps considering hypnosis, working with your unconscious mind can help.  To learn more about hypnosis – the facts go to my web page HERE

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

 

 

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Info Seminar – Gastric Band Hypnosis

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Hypnotic Visualization, can you do this daily?

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What does self-care have to do with overeating? 10 Things to Implement Now…

What does self-care have to do with overeating?   Quite a bit, actually.  For smart, busy women who often times lack the time to truly care for themselves.  

If you’ve found yourself caught in cycles with overeating or cravings that always come back, or an urge to overeat that keeps tripping you up, chances are you haven’t yet found a way to tackle the real underlying reason that food has power in your life. 

Stress eating, comfort eating, eating from boredom, even eating for pleasure, are all ways we use food to feed other desires, needs and cravings. When you turn to food and you know you’re not physically hungry… ask yourself – what’s missing?  What am i needing right now?  

When the root cause of overeating isn’t addressed, the cravings are never fully satisfied, and they always return.

With hypnosis and Time Line Therapy, we can help you discover that root cause, release negative emotions, limiting beliefs and help you to change your habits easily using the power of your own unconscious mind! 

Some self care tips that you can implement today are… 

1. Learn to say no with ease and grace – It makes it possible to say yes to the stuff that you are trying to fit in!  

2.  Make an effort to get outside every day – Research shows the time spent outdoors is linked to an increase in energy and a heightened sense of well-being.  

3.  Get 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep a night- Chronic sleep deprivation leads to increased appetite, weight gain, lack of focus, and productivity. Sleep and you will feel and BE better! 

4.  Just Laugh!  Laughter has numerous health benefits including lowering stress and improving your immune system. It’s cheap and it’s easy 

5.  Short-circuit stress eating and overwhelm – claim ten minutes at the beginning of your day to get clear on your priorities, identify where to best spend your time and energy, and set your schedule.  Make yourself a priority on your list! 

6.  Collect ways of rewarding and comforting yourself that don’t involve eating – MAKE A HUGE LIST! 

7.  Do one lovely thing for yourself – just for you – each day – It doesn’t have to be anything major, just lovely. When you reward yourself in other ways, rewarding yourself with food becomes less tempting. 

8.  Pre-schedule your self-care When you leave your hair, manicure, or massage appointment, schedule the next one so it’s sure to happen. 

9.  Have fun in your body Move, dance, or stretch in a way that makes you feel alive 

10.  Practice listing three things that went well every day and three things you are proud of Shift your mindset and create more clarity around all the ways you are effective.

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

 

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What is Intermittent Fasting and How Does it Work?

Intermittent fasting may sound a bit technical, but you’ve probably done it before without even realizing it. Did you wake up late on a Saturday morning, and have a coffee without eating anything until lunch?  Then, you’ve fasted (as long as there was not milk, cream or sugar in your coffee).

How Intermittent Fasting Works

Intermittent fasting simply means you go a period of time without eating, usually between 12 to 48 hours.  During your fasting window, you only consume liquids, such as water, herbal tea, black coffee, or black tea.

Some experts recommend drinking low-calorie green vegetable juices and taking supplements while fasting to help keep vitamin and mineral intake consistent, while others believe only water should be consumed. Like many topics in the health realm, the rules around intermittent fasting are subjective, depending on who you ask.

If you fast for less than 24 hours, you’ll also have an eating window. For most people practicing intermittent fasting, their eating window is between six to 12 hours. The most common fasting times are 12,14,16, and 18 hours.

For example, if you were to do a 12-hour fast, your eating window would be 12 hours. You could start your eating window at 7am and end at 7pm. You would break the fast the next day at 7am.  I personally like using the 16 hour fasting protocol where i stop eating by 7pm and begin eating the next day at 11am.

Although some of the intermittent fasting methods online seem more intense than others (some can last upwards of 48 hours), the beauty of intermittent fasting is that you get to choose and experiment with how long you fast. This not only allows you to determine how intermittent fasting can fit in within your lifestyle, but to discover the fasting sweet spot that helps you feel best physically.  I always suggest that if you’ve never fasted before, to begin with 12 hours, then move to 14, then 16 etc…

Pros and Cons of Intermittent Fasting for Women (And Why it Can Be Tricky)

Some of the benefits of intermittent fasting ( Link to study – Intermittent fasting: the science of going without) may include:

Sustainable weight loss
An increase in lean muscle mass
More energy
An increase in cell stress response (which could increase resistance against some diseases)
A reduction in oxidative stress and inflammation
Improvement around insulin sensitivity in overweight women
Increased production of neurotrophic growth factor (which could relieve depression, boost cognitive function, and protect against neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s)

Now, here’s the tricky part. Although intermittent fasting may have its benefits, women are naturally sensitive to signs of starvation, so intermittent fasting for women has to be done differently then for men!

When the female body senses famine, it will increase the production of the hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin, which signal to the body that you’re hungry and need to eat. AND, if there’s not enough food , your body is going to shutdown the system that would allow you to have babies… which is why it defaults to this protective mechanism.

So, we must look at some of the cons due to hormonal imbalances brought on by intermittent fasting:

Irregular periods and amenorrhea (complete loss of period)
Metabolic stress
Shrinking of the ovaries
Anxiety and depression
Fertility issues
Difficulty sleeping

Since all of your hormones are so deeply interconnected, when one hormone is thrown off balance, the rest are also negatively impacted. It’s like a domino effect. As the “messengers” that regulate nearly every function in your body — from energy production, to digestion, metabolism, and blood pressure — you don’t want to disrupt their natural rhythm.

With all of these drawbacks, you may be wondering: could you (and would you still want to) practice intermittent fasting as a female? If you take a more relaxed approach, the answer is yes. When done within a briefer time frame, intermittent fasting can still help you reach your weight loss goals and provide the other health benefits previously mentioned, without messing up your hormones!

Men can practice intermittent fasting daily – women – NO.  Only 1 to 3 times per week would you practice this eating style and on the other days – eat normally, regularly at least 3 meals per day.

Here are some general guidelines – intermittent fasting for women:

✅ Do not fast for longer than 24 hours at a time

✅ Ideally fast for 12 to 16 hours

✅ Do not fast on consecutive days during your first two to three weeks of fasting (for instance, if you do a 16-hour fast, do it three days a week instead of seven) Perhaps Monday, Wednesday, Friday?

✅ Drink plenty of fluids (black coffee or tea, herbal tea, lots of water) during your fast

✅ You may still exercise on fasting days, do what feels good for you – such as yoga, walking, jogging, some resistance training and stretching

Options for Intermittent Fasting

There are several different intermittent fasting methods discussed online. Here are a few of the most popular ones.

Crescendo Method

The Crescendo Method is one of the best ways to ease into intermittent fasting without shocking your body or aggravating your hormones. Fasting only a few days per week, spaced throughout the week. For example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Fasting Window: 12-16 hours

Eating Window: 8-12 hours

Safe for Women: Yes


16/8 Method

The 16/8 method, sometimes called the “lean gains method,” is another brief intermittent fasting routine that’s used specifically to target body fat and improve lean muscle mass (a.k.a. your gains!).Fasting Window: 16 hours

Eating Window: 8 hours

Safe for Women: Yes


24 Hour Protocol (a.k.a. “Eat-Stop-Eat”)

The 24 hour protocol, also known as “eat-stop-eat” requires you to do a 24-hour fast, once or twice a week. You can choose the time you start fasting. Some people prefer to fast from 8pm to 8pm the following day, or begin their fast after breakfast.Fasting Window: 24 hours

Eating Window: 0

Safe for Women: Yes, when done a maximum of 2 times per week.


The 5:2 Diet

The 5:2 diet, also known as the “Fast Diet,” involves restricting calories two days a week to 500 calories per day (with two 250 calorie meals), while eating normally for the other five days. For example, you might eat all of your regular meals Saturday through Wednesday, and eat 500 calories per day on Thursdays and Fridays.There isn’t a ton of research to back up this diet, although it was publicized by Michael Mosley, a British journalist and doctor. The Fast Diet is considered safe for men and women.Fasting Window: No fasting window, just calorie restriction to 500 calories per day for 2 fasting days per week

Eating Window:  Assume regular caloric intake 5 days per week

Safe for Women: Generally considered safe for women, but studies are lacking on this diet – I myself wouldn’t do this one.

When Should You Avoid Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting isn’t a good fit for everyone. You shouldn’t consider intermittent fasting if you are:

Pregnant
Nursing
Under chronic stress
Have a previous history of disordered eating, such as bulimia or anorexia
Struggle with sleep disorders, or have difficulty sleeping

And, keep in mind, intermittent fasting is meant to complement a healthy diet and lifestyle — not act as a way to remedy five days of eating shit crap for food!  It’s not considered a diet, no restrictions and i always ask my clients to be mindful of what they are eating… asking a few simple questions along the way such as – will this food bring me towards or away from my goal of __________.

Join me for our first 30 day Intermittent Fasting Challenge beginning June 1st!  Join our FB group HERE!

To your Health, Results and Success!
Lynn Thier – Your Mental Fitness Trainer & Fat Loss Expert!

About:  Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts & change happen.  Owner of Peak Performance Academy, Lynn teaches and consults on how to get mentally fit in sport, business and life.  Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs as well as Board Certifications in NLP Coaching, NLP Techniques, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy(R).

 

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