Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility. And I was talking with a client, as many of these podcasts are inspired by my amazing clients, and she was talking to me about salads. Whenever I hear someone talking to me about salads, I always get curious about that. And with this particular client, I had a feeling what was going on. So of course we had a discussion. And it was fruitful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:31]:
And so much so that I'm going to talk to you about it here. And what I, the way I wanna frame this is I never need to know what food you're eating. Isn't that interesting to say from a weight loss coach? But it's true. I never need to know. I don't need to be reported to. I'm not checking things off. I'm not making sure you had 4, kale lettuce leaves. That doesn't matter for weight loss now, for sustained weight loss, for maintenance of weight loss, during pregnancy, all of it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:11]:
And I'm going to explain exactly why. So first things first, when I hear someone want to report their food to me, and of course this is not everyone. People have questions, I have answers. So that's not— I'm talking about the general, like, reporting it in the way that there are good foods and bad foods. That's the punchline of this part. Meaning that when people are reporting salads, like they're making a point of telling me about the salads, and I happen to know salads are not their favorite. I actually love salads and I'm happy to eat them. There's nothing wrong with salads.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:57]:
But for some time, you know who you are, if you're eating salads, you're eating diet food. I'm putting that in air quotes. And we don't want to perpetuate diet mentality thinking around here. It's so common. Most of us grew up with the idea of good foods and bad foods. You can't possibly lose weight if you have a piece of cake. There's no way you can go to In-N-Out and have a burger and lose weight. That's not true.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:32]:
It's an important aspect of how we lose weight around here. Now, I'm not saying if you ate In-N-Out burgers 3 meals a day, every day of the year, it would be challenging to lose weight. But I actually will say you could even lose weight if you use the hunger scale with that. That's obviously an extreme I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but The point being is that there really are no restricted foods. And it has to be that way in order for this to be something that you can do for the rest of your life. So when I hear about people wanting to report food to me, I know they're still in diet mentality thinking, and that's not a problem whatsoever. It just means we have a little work to do. Not a problem.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:22]:
And I love doing that work because transforming our brains from diet mentality thinking to weight loss for fertility thinking is so rewarding for me personally, but way more rewarding for the person who's done the work. It is such a freedom to not have to think in terms of regret and guilt and good and bad and punish and reward and, all those feelings that are so challenging and exhausting. The whole point of losing weight the weight loss for fertility way is that we anchor in the hunger scale. Hunger scale is a way to tune into our bodies to learn its signals. And then eat according to our body's needs and desires. Technically, the hunger scale is from -5 empty to +5 Thanksgiving stuffed, unbutton your pants. And we want to eat at -2, just hungry, not the first whiff of hunger, but you're hungry. And then you stop at +2, which is satisfied, not full.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:42]:
And when we stay in that range, eating at just hungry, stopping at satisfied, not full, we can eat any food that does the job there. And I always start there because we do have preferences. We have foods that we like. If we start removing those, we wake the resistant parts of us. The moody teenager, the badass part of protector part of us that refuses to follow rigid rules. And more power to those parts. I'm with ya. So I don't have us fighting with the resistant parts of us.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:28]:
If there's resistance there, there may be a good reason. And we get curious about that. So we start with where you are in terms of the foods you like to eat and find easy to make and get and all the rest of that stuff. We start there because learning the hunger scale in and of itself is a fantastic skill-up level. And we can do that with the foods you're already eating. Now, here's— and I love being able to start there Because we're not changing too many things. We're just learning a skill, eating the foods you like. Now the beauty of this hunger skill is that we're checking in with ourselves.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:14]:
We're learning the signals our body is giving us. As we're learning them, we're specifically looking for hunger. So if there's a growly tummy, if there's spacing out, if there's a headache, if there's crankiness, if If there's fog, if there's low energy, if there's starting to think about food more, all these things can indicate hunger. And you get to discover that for yourself in your own body. It's really valuable to know this. As you're learning those signals, and of course you're learning what satisfied, not full is, sometimes we have to eat to full. We're like, ah, that's too much. We start to have less and experiment with what satisfied is rather than full.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:59]:
As we're checking in with ourselves, because that's the only way to learn, we're noticing other things going on in our body too. If we're noticing when we're satisfied, we're also noticing how the body feels after that meal that we've just had. Was it heavy and now I feel like a, yeah, like a heaviness? Was it oily and now I feel greasy? Was it dairy and now I feel gassy? Was it spicy and now I have GERD? Like these are useful things to know. And you're learning them because you're tuning in. So without having to learn a whole other skill, you're learning how to find out how your body reacts to foods. And then as we are developing this new relationship with our bodies, because we're listening to it and responding to it, we will naturally listen and respond to the foods it likes to eat, which might be slightly different than the foods your brain likes to eat. We're developing a relationship with the body, one that's based on mutual respect, not punishing, manipulating, which I know sounds harsh, but that's basically what we do when we're going on a diet. I'm putting air quotes around that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:25]:
And we're forcing it to eat only 4 different foods that it hates. We don't do that around here because it does not last long-term. That's the reason. Besides that, it's painful and not enjoyable. It is not sustainable. And we are looking to do things forever around here. So as you're learning your hunger cues and your satisfaction cues, you're also learning what foods give you energy, what foods fill you up, what foods make you hungry 20 minutes later, what foods make you feel physically uncomfortable, literally give you fuel you need to do what you want to do. Whether that's work, exercise, interact with other humans in a kind way that doesn't have you be cranky.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:21]:
These are all really good things to learn from your food. And I know that your body will steer you in the right direction. So I don't have to know what foods you're eating. I really don't. You do not have to report them to me ever. Because I know as you're working on using the hunger scale, and we'll be talking, we would be talking about that, how it's working. And I know that you're going to be hearing your body more. And I know you're going to be becoming more sensitive to what your body is saying.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:00]:
And your tolerance for feeling uncomfortable will be lower. We talked about that recently. As you are deepening the relationship with yourself, particularly when it comes to hunger and food, as you're listening to your body and your body's giving you information and you're reacting and responding to it, you are deepening the relationship. It's becoming a trusting, loving relationship. And when we trust and love things, we treat them kindly. It happens naturally. Isn't that exciting? So we start to have a relationship that sort of, that we've always wanted, that we had at birth. We can re-up.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:45]:
We can, we can have that relationship again. And it's valuable to have that relationship again because It will not steer you wrong when it comes to eating, hunger, what fuels you, how you can best feed your body. And every body is different. Some people can tolerate some foods, some people can't. Some people feel great on this food, some people can't. Some people can eat a lot of this, some people can't. It's just your body's your body. Also, before pregnancy, it may be one thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:23]:
During pregnancy, it may be another. After pregnancy, it might be something else. When you have the skill, you just continue checking in. I used to be able to eat this and now my body doesn't like it so much. It's very obvious with pregnancy when there's aversions. That's a more dramatic version of this, but we can have preferences that change and it's not a problem. As long as you're checking in and listening to what the body has to say, the information it's giving you, interpret it and make decisions based on that, you are good. Now, sometimes I have people, especially when they're starting, have a log.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:10]:
And it's a version of a food log, but it's a hunger scale log. And what I'm really looking for is the numbers and when, what number you eat at, what number you stop at. And in the beginning, it's usually not hitting -2 and +2 all that often. But when you keep a log again, especially in the beginning, you can see the progression. So it might be 4s, and then you start to see 3s, and then you see an occasional 2, and then you see more 2s, and then you're seeing 2s. With a hunger scale food log, you can just put the hunger scale, just the negative and positive numbers. I like people to write down the food they had, not in the proportions, not 4 ounces of this and 2 ounces of that, but chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, so that you either jog your memory or you have, you can remember what you ate. Now, the reason why in the beginning it's a really good thing to do is because then you can correlate more easily how you felt.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:25]:
When you're learning to check in, there's a lot going on, a lot that we have to be conscious of. And so if you write it down, you may remember and you'd be like, oh, that meal felt better. And oh, I didn't feel that great. What was it that I ate? Oh yes, that's right. So I do like a log again, especially in the beginning. Do I ever have to see it? No, I never have to see it. And I'm happy to see it and I'm happy to talk to you about it, but it's for you. And the reason why that's important is because the relationship, again, remember, is between you and your body, you and your brain, you and you.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:08]:
All this is for you. And my job is to help you learn the skill so that you have it forever with you. If you end up dependent on me, that's not useful. I'm happy to be here for you, but you probably don't want me every week for the rest of your life. So it's about teaching you, learning, developing the relationship that will last you forever. And starting with a log can help you develop your own way that works for you. Now we do a food date. Food date is great.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:54]:
It's also great information to bring to your food date, and then you can use it to experiment. And that's how we learn. We try something. Oh, that food didn't feel good. Okay, I'm not going to have that one in that way. I'm going to try the other one next time. We experiment, we see how it goes, and then we do it again or we tweak it a little bit. We're little scientists around here.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:23]:
Now, in terms of foods, If someone's asking me what to eat, I'm not going to silently sit by. I'm happy to tell you general things, and I'm going to do that right now. And I've done that before. The main thing about weight loss for fertility is releasing fat. That is the first thing that ends up being important in terms of influencing the, the hunger hormones, your insulin, and your inflammation. The things that impact the physiology of getting pregnant and staying pregnant. So releasing fat is the first order of business around here. We can do that, as I said before, without changing the exact foods that you're having.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:17]:
If you start using the hunger scale, you will lose fat. And again, that's a skill that you're learning first. We don't want to throw a million things at you at the time. We start with hunger scale. And if you're eating the things you like, you're noticing. You're also taking a prenatal vitamin at this point. So you're getting things that if things don't fall through the cracks, you have a prenatal on board. And in general, people are eating a variety of things, which works out well.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:49]:
In general, I love everything in moderation. I just think that's a really good point. And having fruits and vegetables, and it could even be sugary things and things with fat and good fats, bad fats, all types of things. If we're having a variety in our diet, that's going to work out well. The truth is you have heard every bit of advice there is on which foods to eat. You could go on Instagram or TikTok right now and there'd be plenty of people happy to tell you what they think you should eat. But the main thing is sustainability. We cannot have you choking down kale or Brazil nuts.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:35]:
It, it won't help. Because we need you to be able to lose weight and keep it off and feel comfortable in your body, comfortable with food, knowing what to eat, when to eat, that you can trust yourself to do that. That's what we need more than a microgram of psyllium. Psyllium is what I was really thinking about. Psyllium is for Fiber, fiber is great. This is my point. You actually know all the things you've heard a bazillion times. If you're not eating it now, you might not like it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:15]:
You are free to try anything and everything that you want to. See how it feels. How does it feel in your body? How does it make you feel? And then go from there. So generally, Whole foods are always better. So working towards having whole foods that you enjoy, that you want to eat, is amazing. I also think it's great to have protein in your meals. And the reason for that is that it stays in your system longer. It's harder to break down, keeps you more satisfied longer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:52]:
And of course, it's the building blocks for your muscles. And for baby, it's super important too, right? The building blocks for all the parts of the body for the baby. So protein's amazing and whole foods. That doesn't have to be exclusively that. If you are up for your favorite ice cream cone and you want it, amazing. If it fits in your hunger scale, fantastic. So this is why I cannot tell everyone, a blanket, everyone should eat exactly this. Whole foods is as close as I'm going to get.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:32]:
And focusing on protein is the other one. But there will always be someone who can't or won't or something, and they're okay too. We can always find a way. So I really don't need to know what foods you're eating. I just need you to be using the hunger scale. And I need you to be listening to your body and optimizing for feeling good, for feeding your body in a way that it feels energized and good. That's the sweet spot for us. Because remember, this is for always.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:17]:
And so it has to— the food has to work for you and your life. That's the most important thing. If you ever have any questions about any of this, I am so happy to answer them. Go to stephaniefeinmd.com. You can contact me there, or I'm on Instagram @stephaniefeinmd, or LinkedIn. You can DM me. I'm happy to talk to you. And if you want to lose weight, if this makes sense to you, I hope it does.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:48]:
Please work with me. Click the Lose Weight with Me button on stephaniefeinMD.com and we will be connected. I am sending you so much love. Mwah! Until next week.
