June 21, 2024

321. Uncovering the Secrets to Sustainable Weight Loss and Improved Gut Health with Louise Digby

321. Uncovering the Secrets to Sustainable Weight Loss and Improved Gut Health with Louise Digby

Happiness Solved with Sandee Sgarlata. In this episode, Sandee interviews Louise Digby. Louise Digby is a registered nutritional therapist, women’s weight loss expert and founder of The Nourish Method to Lasting Fat Loss. Her clients come to her...

Happiness Solved with Sandee Sgarlata. In this episode, Sandee interviews Louise Digby. Louise Digby is a registered nutritional therapist, women’s weight loss expert and founder of The Nourish Method to Lasting Fat Loss. Her clients come to her after struggling to lose weight despite eating well and working hard to burn the fat. Louise transforms her client’s health and wellbeing by identifying and addressing each individual’s unique needs and imbalances, so that they can lose weight, optimise their health and rediscover their sparkle, without restrictive dieting or the need for superhuman willpower.

 

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website: www.louisedigbynutrition.com 

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LouiseDigbyNutrition/   

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00:00:10
This is happiness solved with America's happiness coach, Sandee Sgarlata.

00:00:20
Hello and thank you for joining us today. I'm so happy you're here. Happiness solved is the place where we explore everything you need to become the best possible version of you. This is Sandee Sgarlata, and today I've got some exciting news for our dedicated listeners. We've just launched our exclusive members only portal.

00:00:40
This is your ticket to a world of additional content designed to deepen your understanding and engagement with the happiness solved mission. To learn more about all of the exciting benefits, stay tuned until the end of the episode, where I will explain in greater detail. For those interested now, head over to happinesssolved dot supercast.com. today is another amazing conversation, so let's get started.

00:01:10
Louise Digby calling in all the way from the UK. Thank you so much for joining me today. How is your evening for you going? Hi. It's good, thank you.

00:01:22
Quite clammy and humid here. It's a little bit warm, but, you know, I can't complain, really, because we've had the longest winter ever. So how have you? We had a pretty short winter here. Oh, really?

00:01:38
Well, in my part on the east coast, you know, DC metro area really? Was that bad. So what part of the UK are you in? I'm in Essex, so I'm quite central just at about an hour north of London. So, yeah, kind of like the warmer part of the UK.

00:01:53
If there is such a thing. If there is such a thing. So before I hit record, I was telling you, I watch tennis all the time. And we're gearing up for the French Open and Wimbledon follows it, you know, right after. And it's not going to happen this year.

00:02:10
Every year, my husband are like, okay, maybe next year we'll make the trip. Cause I've only spent one day in London, and it was in the late nineties, and I was with my ex husband and another couple. We were going to Italy, and we had to fly into Heathrow and fly out of, what's the other one? Gatwick. But we had like an 18 hours layover.

00:02:38
Oh, right in between. And we had to get from the one airport to the other. So we hired a driver, he took our bags and we hired him for the whole day, and he took us around the city and everything. But that was my. But I got to see the whole city, but I'd like to spend some time there because I am.

00:02:53
I didn't know at the time, but after I did my ancestry DNA, I am literally 92% English. And 8% Irish. Amazing. Yes, you've definitely visited. I have to visit.

00:03:11
Like, that's my roots. My grandmother came from England back in the 1920s, so, yeah, I need to get over there. But anyway, and so that's when we're planning to close up. This part of our conversation is to go see Wimbledon live and visit the UK. So enough of a small talk.

00:03:29
Louise Digby. She is a registered nutritional therapist, women's weight loss expert, and founder of the nourishment method to lasting fat loss. So her clients come to her after struggling to lose weight despite eating well and working hard to burn the fat. So what Louise does is transforms her client's health and well being by identifying and addressing each individual's unique needs and imbalances so that they can lose weight, optimize their health, and rediscover their sparkle without restrictive dieting or their need for superhuman willpower. I read that and I was like, and that's about it.

00:04:07
Sometimes it, like, right, that superhuman willpower that I feel like some women, especially, because I feel like, you know, women have struggle more so than men, generally speaking, because our body goes through so many hormonal changes throughout our life. But really, like, some days, that's what it is for me, it's that superhuman willpower. So before we dive into all of that, how did you get to this point? Do you have your own journey with weight loss, or is it just something that you've always been, you know, passionate about? I've had my own health issues, not so much in the weight loss side of things, but I've had issues with thyroid and IB's, which I've addressed with nutritional therapy.

00:04:58
And, you know, luckily for me, those were things that came up when I was already kind of qualified and knowing what to do with those things. But in terms of how I got into this world, I always had an interest in nutrition, and that really came from my mom. She was always, like, quite ahead of her time. So I really grew up having quite a good understanding of kind of what food did for us and a good idea of how to eat well. So, yeah, I went straight into nutrition from school, which is kind of unusual because for a lot of people, they get into it as, like, a career change.

00:05:37
Then when I qualified, which was back in 2012, I saw everyone and anyone, in terms of whatever condition they had, whether that was IB's or eczema or depression or wanting to lose weight, you name it. But what I found was that pretty much everyone, whatever they came to me for, they also wanted to lose weight. So you kind of inadvertently ended up building quite a good knowledge of weight loss. But what was interesting was that I noticed that the people that came to me just for weight loss didn't get as good a results as the people that came to me for IB's or other conditions in terms of the weight loss side of things. So it was the people that were more focused on their health and wellbeing who were getting the better results, whereas the people who were more focused on the scales and the weight loss and doing more, like portion control and restriction weren't seeing the same results, particularly for women who were in that midlife stage and around menopausal age.

00:06:50
So that really led me down the rabbit hole of trying to understand what was going on there and how the approach needs to be different for this group of women and how we need to take a more holistic and health focused approach to weight loss, rather than just focusing on restriction and burning calories. It completely makes sense. Everything you just said completely makes sense. And from a mindset perspective, it also makes sense. Right.

00:07:25
Because as humans, we tend to wait until the 11th hour, if you will, to take action. Right. I know I'm eating too much, and I know that I need to cut out the sweets or the sugar or the high fatty foods or whatever, and they don't do it until they have a heart attack or they don't do it until they have some sort of condition that almost forces them to make a change where it's almost life or death. Yeah. You know.

00:08:06
Yeah. Or until the lifestyle or the quality of life is significantly impacted, there's usually some sort of breaking point. And, you know, for some people, that might be that they've realized that, you know, they can't keep up with their kids and they can't do the things with the kids that they want to do. Or maybe they've realized that their relationship is suffering because their body confidence is completely shot and they realize they need to do something, know, to improve their self confidence in order to help their relationship thrive. So there's all sorts of different motivators, and sometimes it's health, sometimes it's.

00:08:46
It's relationships. But I find it so often comes back to just confidence and feeling happy in ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And.

00:08:55
And many times that just isn't enough. Right. You know, I talked to so many people, you're probably the 350th interview that I've had over the past close to four years. And so often the people that I talked to who have had, you know, big life changing things where it put them on a trajectory of where now they're doing, like, incredible things that they never thought was possible. It's always because they had a huge life altering event.

00:09:33
You know, yesterday I talked to somebody who was in a motorcycle accident and lost his leg, and that propelled him into this whole career that he never even thought was even in his realm of reality. Right. And so it makes sense because, you know, for most of us, right, whether you're in Europe or in the United States, you know, we're living our best life here. We're living in a bubble. We have all of our needs that we need for the most part.

00:10:10
I mean, most people do. Not everyone. And yet we still want more. And we want the easy way. We want the easy way.

00:10:20
So, yeah, that's probably a whole other conversation talking about the whole mindset behind it. But let's. Let's dive into what you start out with, because food really does. When they say you are what you eat, you really are, right? I mean, I know that for years I would have a banana in the morning, and I started gaining weight.

00:10:51
And then I learned, well, having a banana in the morning is probably the worst thing you can do because it. Because of how your body metabolizes it. So can you just dive into a little bit about that and, like, like, where you start with a person or where somebody should even start when they're looking at their diet, like, how do they go about that to see how their body's reacting? Well, just going back to what you're saying about you are what you eat, I always like to take that a little bit further and say, you are what you digest and absorb. It's not quite as catchy, but it's really important because, you know, we could be eating stuff and not actually getting the nutrients out of it.

00:11:34
And your gut issues are so prevalent. You know, most people, in terms of who I work with, most of them have some gut stuff going on. And, you know, when you talk to people, most people have, you know, experienced quite regularly bloating or constipation or digestive discomfort. And, you know, we kind of think, oh, it's just normal because, you know, I had beans for dinner or because I had a fatty meal, but actually, it's not normal. And, you know, sometimes good place to start, but a really good place to start, I think, both physically and mentally, is to be thinking about what does my body need?

00:12:33
Because so often people start with looking at what they need to cut out and how to burn as many calories as possible. But actually, if we start with, what does my body need? It's a much more positive way of approaching your health or your weight loss journey, whatever your health goals are. And therefore, you know, starting with adding stuff into your diet will ensure that you're actually giving your body the nutrients that it needs and proteins that you need to make your hormones and to detox and repair. Whereas when we start with deprivation and cutting things out, we're usually missing things from our diets that we need to thrive and to feel our best.

00:13:22
And also we tend to struggle with hunger and cravings and all these things that throw us off track. So, yeah, focusing on what your body needs is the best place to start, and that can be difficult to, to figure out what your body needs. But, you know, you gave a really good example, talking about having a banana for breakfast. And breakfast is so often the best place to start, because if we can get a good breakfast in place, then it really sets ourselves up for a balanced day where we're not having so many cravings and energy slumps and we're feeling satiated. So really what that means is getting some protein into your breakfast.

00:14:10
Oh, yeah. If I have just like, a hard boiled egg for breakfast, you know, many times, I'll keep those on hand because they're easy to make and just, they're quick to. Just having one hard boiled egg, like, that's incredible. Like, for me, like, that works. So I used to.

00:14:30
I used to be part owner of a cleansing center, and this was back in 2010, 2011.

00:14:41
The DC metro area is not really the best place for something like that because just a lot of people, it's, I think, I think, and my friend who owned it and I kind of joined her practice, it was kind of ahead of its time in the sense where colonics wasn't really something that many people would even consider. But I learned a lot from her, and she used to always talk about how digestion starts in your mouth. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Because I'm certainly not qualified to really explain it. Yeah, I love that you brought this up.

00:15:22
So it does start in your mouth. Absolutely. Their action of chewing and breaking down the food is the first and part, arguably one of the most important steps of the whole digestive process, because so many people don't chew properly, and if you're not chewing properly, then the rest of your digestive system has to work so much harder to break down that food and extract the nutrients. So that's important for the nutrient absorption, but also just chewing our food and spending a little bit of time tasting the food and being mindful around our eating helps to send a signal to your brain to help you recognize that you're actually having a meal. And that in itself helps you to feel more satiated as well.

00:16:10
And then there's your saliva, which is full of enzymes, which helps to start breaking down your food. So if you just chew your food enough to be able to swallow it, which I think is what most people do, instead of chewing your food until it's, you know, more like a puree, then you're missing out on the work that the enzymes in your saliva does, which is really starting to break down some of the starches in your food. And you know that this is happening because if you, if you get, like, a piece of bread and you chew it and you chew it and you chew it, you'll find that it starts to go sweet. And it's where the enzymes in your mouth and your saliva are starting to break down those starches and turn them into sugars. So that's an important step to get the digestion ball rolling.

00:17:04
And then, as I say, all of that effort with your chewing also helps to stimulate your digestive enzymes and your stomach acid as well, which, again, is really key for getting the most out of the food that you're eating, and also to help prevent things like acid reflux and belching, which tend to come from a lack of stomach acid. So if we chew properly, we can help to minimize those upper GI symptoms. Also helps to minimize bloating and extract more nutrients out of our food.

00:17:44
I haven't heard it explained so well before. And as you're talking, I'm going, okay. Like so many people comment what? I mean, they're like, you eat so fast. And I don't know if it was because, like, I had a large family growing up, and we were so, like, you, what you put on your plate, that's it.

00:18:05
There's no more. Yeah. And I was an athlete growing up and, and was very underweight. And it would probably because it's not that I wasn't getting enough food. I was getting enough food for a normal person.

00:18:19
It's just when you're, when you're exerting a lot more and burning a lot more calories, as most athletes do, you need to eat a lot of calories every day. And I just wasn't eating enough calories to balance out. You know, as a, as a teenage girl, you know, being on the ice, you burn a lot more calories when you're on the ice anyway. But it was like, if there were any seconds, you know, whoever finished their plate first got the seconds. And I think that was probably why I was like, and then, oh, is there some left?

00:18:53
You know? Okay, I get seconds. Yeah. And I still like, for me, I'm very lucky in the sense that food has never been, like, an issue for me, whereas I've never really. I finally learned that I don't have to finish everything on my plate.

00:19:10
Yeah. Right. I grew up in that era where there's starving children somewhere in the world. Like, my parents were raised by parents from the depression, the depression here in the United States. And so anybody out there, you know exactly what I'm talking about, where, you know, you don't waste anything.

00:19:31
So no matter what is on your plate, you eat it. Well, that's a problem, because you go to a restaurant and your meals they give you is enough for three people, and you eat the entire thing. That's way too much food. Which is probably why the United States, we've got such a problem with obesity here because, you know, our portions are so huge. So, yeah, so now, you know, it took me a very long time, and I was in my forties when I finally was like, I'm overeating.

00:20:00
Like, that's. That's my biggest problem with where I couldn't lose weight. I was eating too much food. And once I reduced my portions, I was able to lose 25 pounds. And I've kept it off for over ten years now by simply, I do.

00:20:19
I do practice intermittent fasting, and I know a lot of people do that. Can we just touch on that for a minute and what you think about that? Because I generally like it works for me, and I know it doesn't work for everybody, so. Yeah, right. I mean, weight loss is about figuring out what works for you.

00:20:38
Definitely. Yeah. And this is the thing that I see time and time again is that it looks different for everyone. You know, everyone that comes to me has the same problem, which is that they're not losing weight when they might expect to because they're putting in all the effort and they're dieting and exercising, but the weight isn't coming off. So.

00:20:58
But despite them all having the same problem, the solution looks different for all of them. And fasting is one of those things that is very individual. And my approach to fasting is to bring it in to the action plan at kind of a later date once we've got foundations in place. Okay, so the. The concern with fasting, which is for women you know, this doesn't really apply to men so much, but for women, it is something that can be very stressful on the body.

00:21:35
Okay. Because if we take our calorie deficit too far or if we go too long without eating and we're already stressed, we're someone who's very busy and on the go all the time. Or if we've got thyroid issues, then fasting tends to make those things worse. And both stress and thyroid issues are, like, the worst things when you're trying to lose weight or just be generally healthy. So in those cases, fasting wouldn't be appropriate.

00:22:09
But with someone who's got a really solid foundation in place, let's say, you know, they're taking measures to manage stress. They're sleeping well, they're nourishing their body well, you know, getting a good wide range of whole foods, moving their body in a way that is, you know, aligned with what works for them. Again, that's a whole thing that can be very individual. But if they've got all of that in place, then, yeah, fasting can be a helpful addition. But.

00:22:39
But you want to pay close attention to how you feel, because sometimes you can feel quite good initially with fasting, but then things can start to go backwards because of that prolonged stress on your body. So, yeah, you've got to be careful. Yeah, that makes sense. And I am very, very healthy, and I've always eaten very well, and I, you know, so that makes sense that it. That it works for me because I have the foundation, which I didn't even know that that would be why I was having success with it, because I have that foundation.

00:23:17
I just thought, oh, okay, I know what it was. You talked about how you feel good at first, and then sometimes it doesn't. And I think that's likely the case with a lot of these fad diets, whether it's the paleo or. I know. And I gained a ton of weight with my sons when I was pregnant with my son because they thought that I could possibly be high risk.

00:23:46
And they said, stop exercising and gain weight because I was on the ice six days a week during that time. That was in the peak of my coaching career. I was on the ice. I was ice dancing a lot in the best shape of my life. They're like, stop exercising, gain weight.

00:24:04
I'm like, okay. And when you do that, your metabolism can, you know, can really take a shift. And so I ended up gaining a tremendous amount of weight, and I ended up doing the Atkins disease. Atkins disease. The Atkins diet.

00:24:21
To help me lose weight. And it really worked. Since that time, I've never been able to go back to that. I've never been able to get to the point where my body was in the, um. Ketosis.

00:24:30
Is that correct? You put your body in ketosis? So. But, so that's a whole other conversation because it works differently for every single person. Yeah, but what I, what I wanted to touch on is that I did go through a stage in my life where I thought, you know what?

00:24:47
I'm going to try vegan. I'm going to try to go vegan and just see, because not for the reasons that most people go vegan, it had nothing to do with animal cruelty or any of the reasons where a lot of people choose that lifestyle. For me, it was like, I just wanted to try it. Let me see what this is all about. It lasted about two weeks.

00:25:05
Couldn't, couldn't keep up with the lifestyle. And I didn't have that underlying passion that was fueling it that I think that, you know, I, I could never have a pig as a pet because I love bacon too much, you know, and I'm like, you know, I, I had ducks growing up, so I will never eat duck because I'm like, okay, I can't eat my dog. I can't eat, you know, like, yeah. And so I have to separate that in my mind. So I stayed being a vegetarian for another six weeks and I felt great for about a month.

00:25:38
And then what started happening with me was that I started looking kind of grayish. I had zero energy. And then I learned from some book that I was reading by Donna Gates.

00:25:57
The name is escaping me right now, but she has a book that the body ecology diet. I don't know if you've heard about it, but it's a diet to help people with autoimmune deficiencies and things like that. But it's just a very healthy way to eat a lot of cultured vegetables and key fur and things like that that really help the gut and the pre and probiotics that you need. So what I learned from that because she has a chapter on blood and your blood type. And with my blood type, it said that you require animal protein every single day.

00:26:33
And as soon as I introduced animal protein back into my diet, I felt amazing. So what are some steps that people can take? You know, I want to lose weight because it sounds like this is part of what you would look at. What are the things that you take into consideration with a person? And what does a person need to know about their.

00:26:56
Make their body makeup and things like that to help them decide which way to go. Yeah. So in terms of what I look at with my clients, we almost always run tests because we just find it takes out that guesswork and it makes it much easier to get results more quickly. And so the sorts of things that we think are really important to look at are things like your thyroid. And part of the reason why that's so important is because, like I was saying earlier, you know, if your thyroid isn't functioning so well, then that's not going to help your weight loss journey.

00:27:36
It's really the master controller of your metabolism. Um, but also because lots of people have their thyroids tested by their doctors, but it's very basic type of testing and it misses a lot of imbalances. And, you know, we see so many women who have been told that their thyroids are normal. But actually, when we do just a slightly more advanced type of test, we can see that the other hormones are not optimal or maybe factors surrounding the way that the thyroid functions are not working as they should do. So understanding whether your thyroid is functioning properly is a good step.

00:28:18
And then taking steps to support your thyroid, which we can get into if you want, is a key thing that we look at. Then we also like to do another test that looks at quite a few different areas in the body. One of those areas is gut health. And, you know that we talked a little bit about the gut before, but, you know, part of the reason why the gut is so important is because it's. It's connected to everything that's going on in your body.

00:28:49
So if your gut isn't functioning well, it's going to have an impact on all the processes in your body, and it can cause bothersome symptoms like fatigue and cravings and hunger, which, you know, obviously makes it more challenging to make healthy choices. But also, we eliminate some of our hormones via the digestive tract. And if your gut isn't functioning so well, there are certain strains of bacteria that can actually make you reabsorb those hormones that should have been eliminated. So that can cause hormone disruption in your body, which isn't helpful when you're trying to lose weight. Then your gut can also drive inflammation in your body as well and raise the toxic load in your body.

00:29:38
Again, both things that are really not helpful when you're trying to lose weight. So starting by focusing on your gut is a really good place to start as well. And again, there's so much that you can do to support the health of your gut. One of the simplest things that you can do, which is good for not just your gut, but for loads of processes in your body, is to get a real diversity of different foods. Um, you know, particularly whole real food, um, so unprocessed foods, particularly not ultra processed foods.

00:30:16
Um, so, yeah, like, it's like, what. Mostly we get here in the United States. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, what's concerning is that, you know, food companies have gotten really good at making processed foods and ultra processed foods look healthy. And, you know, using buzzwords like protein or gut healthy, all those types of words, you know, just slapping them on a packet, and then we think they look healthy.

00:30:47
Or just the colourings on the packet and the aesthetics of it can make it look like it's a healthy sort of high end product as well. But when you flip it over and you look at the ingredients list, you see this long paragraph of ingredients, and that's your first sign that it's a ultra processed food. So we've got to be quite savvy and critical of the foods that we're eating. And it's not that we can't eat these foods, but we want to make sure that most of the food we're eating is a whole real food. Yeah.

00:31:22
Yeah. My current husband and I went to France back in 2015, and we went to the Bordeaux region because he's a. He introduced me to red wine, which is incredible. And, you know, we were like, we're just going to have a blast. So, you know, we drink a lot of wine, had a lot of bread, had a lot of cheese, just ate to our heart's desire.

00:31:47
And, you know, we both lost weight on that trip. I've heard that so often. We lost weight now. Oh, because you walk so much. You know, we didn't do that much walking.

00:31:57
We had a rental car. We weren't walking all over Paris, we were in Bordeaux. So you're driving everywhere. So we weren't. It wasn't the exercise, it was the eating.

00:32:05
Because when I said that I lost 25 pounds, Louise, I lost 25 pounds with zero exercise. Yeah. And we're always told that we've got to exercise to lose weight, but, you know, and for so many people, when they start trying to lose weight, it's upping the activity and sometimes completely ignoring the food side of things. But actually, you know, yes, exercise is definitely important, but it's 90% nutrition and lifestyle, I should say so. But, yeah, you know, I've heard so many people say that when they've gone over to Europe, you know, even from the UK, people here that have gone over to France or Germany, and they've eaten loads of bread and loads of cheese and wine and beer, and yet they feel better, you know, often digestively.

00:32:56
They can digest the bread and the pasta over there, but they can't digest the bread and the pasta over here. And it's because it's less processed. And the way that they mill the flour is different, and they let it ferment and all the things that traditionally would have been done to the flour and the wheat. So, yeah, you know, it just goes to show that the quality of the food is so key. So, so key.

00:33:23
So you keep bringing up gut health. So the last thing I want to talk about is there's a reason when they say, trust your gut. And they're now learning, as we learn more about our mind and how our body works, that we actually have three brains. We have our brain that's between the ears, which is the one that causes the most issues, because that's where our thoughts come from. We have our heart.

00:33:50
Right. Listen to your heart. Your heart will tell you. And we also have your gut. So how do I want to ask this question?

00:34:04
So, yeah, so if our gut is both part of our intuition and processing our food, what does that say about, like, if you have an unhealthy gut, like, what does that say about your mental. Right. I don't know. Can you. Can.

00:34:23
Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. Is that something you've thought about? I don't know. I don't mean to be putting you on the spot here, because it's.

00:34:30
It just came up like, okay, I need to ask this question and dive. Into that just a little bit. Great question. And there's more and more research coming out on what's called the gut brain axis. And, you know, the gut and the brain are connected in a few different ways.

00:34:44
First of all, we've got the vagus nerve, or the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain right through the gap. And then I just had a guest on talking about the Vegas, and I finally was like, what is this Vegas thing you're talking about? And she explained it. I'm going, I thought you were talking about going to Las Vegas.

00:35:07
I don't know. That would do much good for your gut. So dive into it just a tad bit about the vagus nerve and then continue. Yeah. So it's basically a massive nerve that runs from our brain right down through our guts.

00:35:22
And there. Lots of things can stimulate that vagus nerve, and it's really important that we do stimulate it, because that helps us get into what we call rest and digest mode, which is the opposite of fight or flight mode. So stimulating the vagus nerve is something that we can do, you know, like breathing deeply and meditation and cold showers and various other things that helped stimulate it. So that's one way in which the gut and the brain are connected. You know, it can help us go into that rest and digest mode, which is so important for digestion, but also recovery and repair in the body overall.

00:36:11
And then there's the bacteria in the gut, and they communicate with the brain partly by stimulating nerve endings in the gut, but also through kind of like, chemicals that they can almost like hormones that they can produce that communicate with our brain. And your gut bacteria can essentially, like, place an order, like a food order, um, to say, you know, I need sugar, and give you cravings for sugar. So sometimes your food cravings can come from the imbalanced bacteria in your gut. So that's another way that your brain is connected to your gut. And then also we make some of our brain chemicals in the gut.

00:37:04
So serotonin, which we think of as a brain chemical, actually 90% of it, is produced in the gut. So if your gut isn't happy and healthy, that's going to have a massive impact on your. On your mood, on your mindset, your motivation, willpower. And then alongside that, you could be getting loads of cravings because of bacterial disruption, and you might be feeling lethargic as well, because you're not absorbing well. So, yeah, the gut could have just such a huge impact on your overall.

00:37:41
Wow. Wow. You broke up for a second there, so hopefully, hopefully that'll come through there. But can you just repeat the very last thing you said? Yeah.

00:37:53
So about how we make hormones in the gut. Did you hear that bit? I don't think I did, but just. Just repeat that one more time and then. Yeah, okay.

00:38:03
Yeah. So the third way that our gut is connected to the brain is that we make a lot of our hormones in the gut. So particularly your brain chemicals, serotonin. So we make about 90% of our serotonin in the gut. And, you know, that is a brain chemical or neurotransmitter, that is very much linked to our mood, our motivation, our drive for carbohydrates, and overall willpower and motivation.

00:38:40
So if your gut isn't happy, that's going to have a real impact on just your ability to be focused and consistent in your efforts. Oh, wow. That's incredible information. Simply because it's the whole mind body spirit that we're trying to be at its optimal place. And if you really want to be happy, you got to look at all of these areas in your life because you're all connected.

00:39:10
It's not just one thing. Yeah, and one of my e messages that I repeat over and over again is that if you're not seeing progress, it's probably not your fault. You know, it's probably the fault of the diet that you're following because it's not right for you, it's not actually addressing your needs.

00:39:34
Restriction diet, that's not going to fix your gut issues, it's not going to fix your hormonal issues, it's not going to reduce your toxic load and, you know, it's probably going to make a lot of those things worse, drive up your stress levels and leave you probably gaining more weight in the long term. So what type of specialists? And then we'll wrap this up. What type of specialists or what is it that people want to look for when they're looking for somebody? Because there's going to be good nutritionists and ones that aren't so good or some that are.

00:40:09
So what are the key things that people need to look for when they're researching? Because you're in the UK and not everybody's going to be able to come see you. Right. In the UK, just for the industry in general, what are things that people want to look for when trying to find that expert to help them in their weight loss journey? I would be looking for someone who takes a functional approach.

00:40:31
So whether that's a functional doctor or a functional nutritionist or holistic nutritionist, someone who is looking at you as a whole person and factoring in what's going on internally for you and also taking a mindset approach as well. You know, many nutritionists or functional doctors will have train, set, train, set training in mindset coaching.

00:41:04
So, you know, factoring in that element is, is really important because it's all well and good knowing what to do. But if you're struggling with mindset challenges like emotional eating or if you're finding yourself sabotaging or anything like that, then you can have the best plan in the world, but if you can't follow it, then that's no good. So, yeah, looking for someone who kind of has that skill set, who can do functional tests, not just tell you to eat less and cut your calories or exercise more and go much deeper than that, and who can. So, you know, do the mindset work with you as well. Love it.

00:41:43
Love it. Because if there's stuff going on in your gut, you got to fix that. Definitely. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap this up? And we'll make sure that all of your, your website, louisdigmenutrition.com, is in the show notes, your Instagram handle, your Facebook, and then you also have a link to a masterclass.

00:42:09
Can you. Yeah, so I have. Yeah, I have a masterclass that I run quite regularly and it's all about metabolism and particularly it's designed for women who are struggling with really stubborn weight in this mid stage of life. So really from age 35 upwards and we talk about, you know, a lot of the things that we've touched on today, but dig into it a little bit deeper and talk about, you know, the kind of the steps that I go through with my clients. Nice.

00:42:44
Love it. You are such an amazing wealth of information for the audience. Please check out in the show notes her link to check out her masterclass because I'm telling you, the more you know that you know, the better you're going to be. And yeah, you'll get both, right? The weight loss is the cherry on top.

00:43:06
It's the health that we want. The health is the prize. It's always the best way to look it as well. When you're trying to lose weight, just focus on your health and the weight loss will come and it'll be much more positive experience as well. Love it.

00:43:26
Thank you so much for the work that you're doing, Louise, and this was such an amazing conversation and we'll have to have you back on and we can dive into this a little bit further. So thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been a lovely conversation. Yes, thank you.

00:43:39
And thank you everyone.

00:43:52
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00:45:13
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