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Welcome giant builders. I have a special guest here today. This is Dr Whirley-Diaz and she is actually my weight doctor. 

I I've really not had a weight problem until I hit menopause as many of us. And then I couldn't get it off. And I actually remember when I thought I got to go see a doctor, I was getting out of the pool and walking up towards the house and I saw my reflection in the back window. I was like, how did you like this?   And I think I called you the next day. Can you help me with this? 

Well, it's very frequent that it's that one bad mirror shot or the one bad photo, I can't tell you how many times it is that.   I look like that and that's what gets the idea to go do something about it. 

And you're helping my mom. And I think episode five will be sharing my story about Covid, but my mother was in a Dire situation where she needed to lose a lot of weight and she's so far has lost about 60 lbs and she brags about you all the time. She she loves you dearly. 

I love her too. And that is the other reason that we really have to look at this stuff about weight. You know, we talked about the appearance and all that kind of stuff, but the weight is associated with Alzheimer's, diabetes, high blood pressure. I mean almost every system is involved. And especially that central stuff which is what comes after menopause and later in life for both sexes. 

Yeah, this episode is not about body shaming or anything like that. It's all about the healthy fitness of being. 

Being a healthy weight range agreed. 

So tell us how you work through your program. 

All right. Well, first of all, since I am an M. D. We have to do labs and E. K. G. To make sure that we have a baseline. It doesn't mean if you have abnormal labs you can't start. It just means we want to track your cholesterol, your renal function, your kidney function, how your heart's working, your electrolytes everything to make sure that you either stay as great as you are or we fix some things. Which is really gratifying for me. Once we get all that data, then we have patients come in and we spend just a little session getting to know each other and I can do a body composition analysis. And what that is is just four points of contact, feet and your hands. And it's called bio impedance. Which means it just puts the teeniest, tiniest charged through your body and then everything absorbs things differently. And so we have a full print out of how much body fat you have, how much muscle you have and what your metabolic rate is. So we can follow that after that appointment,  if you, decide to come and become part of the program then we do a very comprehensive appointment. A lot of information that we go over; sleeping habits, eating habits, drinking, other smoking habits, all of these kind of things trying to get, I need to get a picture of your life. Are you still working from home? Are back at work? Does your spouse work do not have a spouse kids? Is everybody getting along? You know, it's a very complicated situation. So that's why it's so long. 

And then after I've got a good handle on all of that, we go through what the program is about. I do a moderately low carbohydrate with a moderately high protein. Now for those who like the numbers, that means Protein over 80 g a day, which is not a stress on your kidneys as long as you have normal kidney function and less than 50 g of carbohydrates. And that's because I mean, if you do Atkins or you know, super look, are you less than 20 g of carbohydrates a day? I can't sustain that. And so I don't want to ask anybody to do something that I can't do and I just can't keep it, you know. And then once you mess it up then given, you know, spiral downwards. So moderate carbohydrates, moderately high protein. 

We don't do any real talk about exercise at the beginning, losing weight is about the food. And then after you get into a rhythm with the food, then we start talking about what kind of exercise you want to do and how it fits in your life. I can't make you go someplace and you don't like, so you don't have to go anywhere. We can get it all done at home if you want to. 

Then the way I start with the food is I like to start because I've tried many ways now that I like to start with meal replacements at the beginning, shakes, bars, puddings. We have so many different kinds of things that you can find something that you like, but we still eat, you still have a protein and a couple of veggies a day and we have real food snacks, eggs, meat and cheese, add some free food, pickles, olives and bullion and jello. So it's two part programs with those meal replacements. I'm keeping your calorie intake down, but I'm also keeping your carbohydrates moderately and those two together, just make it very fast for some people and consistent for others. 

Of course everybody's journey is a different time frame between how their body responds. A regular question to that is an important one because people want to know all the time. When can I have this off?  The average for this kind of a program is 3 lbs a week for women. Now that's average. So there might be a big 7 lb. week and then they're not so much the next week.  It varies like that.  And the average for men is 5 lb a week. Our biggest, our biggest loser of female was 14lbs in one week,  She had a lot of weight to lose. So it comes off a lot faster. And our biggest loser for a man was 18 lbs. He was also had to lose a lot of weight. So he actually lost 192 lbs in one year. He said he couldn't get down on the floor and play with his kids. And at the end he was running five miles a day and looked so much younger. The lady who lost 14 lbs, was doing it because she needed knee surgery and her surgeon wouldn't do it until she lost some weight. So she lost 160 lbs in a year and then got what her knee done. And then the other knee done. She came in here all crunched over and hobbling with her walker and she left just standing upright and walking without anything. 

You know, and I think that's one of the things that especially for me is that you change your health so much, you know, like for my mom after all that she's been through. She was using a walker, right? Oh yeah, that's already she's down. She does around the house.  

So I mean, you know, it's it's a point of that you get around more, you different physical things happen. 

You've shared with me before that people get off medication. 

I start decreasing High blood pressure medicines after about 20 lbs and see how they do on diabetic medications. You know, I work in coordination with the endocrinologist.  I don't go in and just change everything with that coordinating triglycerides. People who have high triglycerides, they get fixed very fast. It just they respond quickly. My neighbor came lost 30 lbs. His triglycerides were I think 4 11 or something. And when he left 12 weeks later they were 1 10 man. That's really, that's pretty darn high to normal. 

The one thing that people ask a lot is about insurance and we don't take insurance. We can't, they won't pay us, my husband's a bariatric surgery. They'll pay him, but they want medical weight loss. It's just I think they think that we're not doing real medicine or something. Some magic pill and it is not, I guess that's the next thing I should talk about is medication. I do use two different appetite suppressants in my practice. There are others out there, but there's just too many side effects and I don't want us  to use the medicine as a crutch. Just use it as a tool. And I used contrary, which is a new earth medicine for the past 12 years, 10 years. And then I use an appetite suppressant and been around for probably at least 50 years. And if you drink a cup of coffee, you can take centuries. I do want to say another thing about the genre. 

The atmosphere of the practice is, you know, I've struggled with my weight. I'm still struggling with my weight. I get thinking I'm good. And then I started having dietary indiscretions. We do not call them cheats, their dietary indiscretions.  I mean, I know what it's like to go up and down and want to do it, but then you just don't do it and then you want to do it and it comes off and then you're so proud and uh because we're all human. So we try to make this as fun and lighthearted as possible. We still have to do the real medicine really monitor your health and how things are going and careful with all of that. But we try to just make it light and happy and open and receptive and there is, you said earlier, there is no shaming here of any, you know, people come in, they're uh they're all sad that they didn't lose as much as they wanted. I'm like, did you lose? Yeah, we're happy. That's a success. Every pound is a success story and they're afraid that I'm going to yell at them or something and like I'm not yelling at you, come on, I know I yell at myself more than anybody else needs to yell at me. So you're probably beating up on yourself enough. You don't need me to add to that well. 

And I think what you brought into into my life is that it's a lifestyle change. Now, I understand which foods are not going to be good for me and if I cheat and have, oh, you use the bad word, oh, if you have a dietary indiscretion, I have a dietary indiscretion, you know, then I know what I need to do and what I need not to do for the next day. 

And that's what most people that really, I'm gonna say finish the program, but keep in contact, keep follow ups and stuff like that. That is what they say, is that it is life changing in that even the weight can be life changing to get your knees done and you know, those kinds of things, but just the fact of picking out foods and you know, I have people bring in their favorite restaurant recipes or we look them up together online and they tell me what they would pick And I don't, nope, that's not what I would be And they're like really? But that has more cheese in it, jesus protein and fat. No, I don't have sound of it. But it's the cheese on your salad. You want a little cheese that adds what you need. Yeah. Got to make a difference for everybody. Right. Right. Okay. 

So big question now, so we're coming to like my most favorite and least favorite time of the year. Okay. We're hitting that last six weeks that time between thanksgiving and New Year's. When everybody brings out their favorite dessert, their most fattening foods. 

Okay, let's help me get through the entire um I used to think starting a weight loss program at this time of year was the worst thing I could do for patients. It's the best thing because you're being helped and advised along the way what to eat. So, I happened to write down for you my recommendations. 

Great. 

All right. When you're going to go to like a sit down dinner first of all, you have to have a plan. If you know if you're cooking it's a lot easier. But if other people are bringing things are going to somebody else else try to find out what the menu is and have a plan. All right. I'm not going to have any desserts. I'm not going to have any desserts four man, she makes that great or including or whatever and okay I'm going to have and then you fill in the blank X. Amount. I'm going to have half a cup. Uh huh. A teaspoon. You know what is it? Or I can live without corn pudding another year will come and I can have another. So that's the first thing that just to have a plan. And the other thing that you kind of alluded to is this becomes a time of the year when gluttony is approved of and accepted and then you feel terrible and guilty and physically uncomfortable and so gotta get we've got to get that out of our breaks. 

This is the time to be with people and loved ones and enjoy whatever holidays you're doing with them and two it's not about celebrating the food, it's that secondary. And so once you know I tell everybody I said you know you have a lot easier time talking to at Alice if your mouth is full of food. So make the focus on the people and have a plan about what you are going to eat. And when you sit down at that table, the first thing you do is the ham, turkey, chicken, fish, whatever it is, eat that first because we need protein. We don't need carbohydrates. We like carbohydrates for for some energy and um for that warm tummy feeling and maybe a little little carbohydrate buzz there for a little while but we don't need them, we need the fiber, but we don't need the vegetable itself. So eat the protein first and then you're also not. And so you can decide, you know, I was going to eat a cup of this, but I think I can do with two tablespoons that kind of thing. 

So and then the other thing that's important, not just for the holidays, but all all year round is water intake. You need to have at least 64 oz of water a day and before you go to any meal or anybody's house, add that bottle of water in the car, you know, on the countertops or something so that you can be well hydrated that fills your stomach, couple that looks down the acid in there. So you're not getting all those rum please. And you have a better decision making when you sit down the table. So drink water. Focus on the people eat the protein first, watch the alcohol a lot of calories and then it impairs your judgment and you're like, I'm not eating any dessert and then you have a couple glasses of wine, which I would not recommend. But you drink something and then all of a sudden I'll just have one pizza pie. That looks good too. And it just so really sample plate, right? Exactly. So I mean obviously not drinking at all is better because it saves calories and preserves your judgment, but if you're going to drink, I prefer you not drink wine and beer. I prefer that you have a cocktail with some kind of hard liquor. I don't know what you call this, A zero calorie mixer and that way you can be part of everything and nobody is giving you grief and and because the hard liquor doesn't have any carbohydrates in it. Got the calories, but not the carbohydrates. 

Okay, this is a funny one I put on your geography, but what that really means is if there's a buffet, you know any, this is I say these are holiday tips, but this is any occasion. You know, you're going to a wedding, a graduation party or whatever. You know, don't stand next to the buffet because it might be a good thing that you're grabbing. But you know, eating the whole veggie plate isn't, you should be doing, it seems like a good choice, but it's serving size is part of this decision making process as well. And then if it's catered orders, stand next to the kitchen door, there's always going to be a full plate coming out right in front of you and all the smells and stuff. So once again at the buffet, fill up your plate, go away and talk to people and be part of the oh and the other thing, I think this is becoming more and more important, more and more people I talked to is the stress of the extended family or friends or you know this is the only time of year you get together and you know so don't let that make don't let that make you eat. You don't like somebody say hello to be polite and then move away instead of going I'm just going to have all this stuff and I'll show them and I don't know. But the stress of how they get togethers can be can be very hard for some people and just you're in control of the fuel going in so be in control. 

Well thank you Dr Whilrey-Diaz for such great information. If you would like to contact Dr Whilrey-Diaz her practice is called medical obesity management of indiana Leveling called Mommy M. O. M. I. Her website is mommy weight loss dot com. And you can contact her at 317 564 4464. Thank you again. And looking forward to see you at the next episode by giant builders. Thank you for listening.