Category Archives: Brain

Refined Foods are Making You Stupid, Sick and Sleepy

Afternoon slump? Spacing out? Have another cold? It’s the refined foods you are eating. It is not the stress, old age or even lack of sleep. Nothing has a bigger effect on your mood, memory and health than the food you put in your body. The brain and body is a biological engine and it runs on food.

The ups and downs of your blood sugar cause the ups and downs in your mood (mood SWINGS.) A meal high in sugar or refined foods raises the hormone insulin which raises blood glucose which gives you a shot of energy – but your energy drops just as quickly as it soars — leaving you feeling irritable, tired and lethargic. Worse yet, our bodies grow a tolerance toward the insulin spike, requiring more of those foods and a need to eat them more often in order to get the same energy boost – this leads women to eat more often to get the same high, which causes your body to store fat.

If you can’t seem to remember simple things like you used to or if you have difficulty concentrating or are feeling spacey lately, it is likely the result of your intake of refined foods. This happens because the brain depends on blood sugar for ALL of its energy and the longer that glucose stays in the bloodstream the less fuel the brain has to store memories. This effect gets worse with age and is not reversible.

Your immune system is also compromised by the spike in insulin caused by sugar intake. Some research suggests that the immune system can be compromised by up to 75% when you eat a moderate amount of sugar. Research demonstrates strong links between refined foods and asthma, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and, of course, diabetes. This is due, in part, to the decreased ability of white blood cells to destroy bacteria when you eat sugar. The effect is immediate and last for up to 5 hours.

You should not be eating sugar or refined foods and neither should your children. Scientist are just now discovering just how detrimental these foods are to the human body because the damage has taken years to demonstrate. Refined foods became wildly popular in the 80’s with the widespread use of high fructose corn syrup and in the 80’s obesity rates were less than 10% – they are now over 60%. Cancer rate, obesity rate, Alzheimer, diabetes – they have all dramatically increased and the reason can be attributed almost entirely to diet.

If you are ready and wanting to lose weight and keep it off – join me.

Call me or email me today.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

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If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Resistant Starch – Who Knew?

Resistant starches are a weight loss TRICK that really works. These starches contribute in many ways to weight loss and over all digestive health. What are they? Beans, peas, lentils, potatoes, yams, nuts and seeds, unripe bananas and whole grains such as barley and brown rice are all resistant starches and will help you lose weight.

Starch consists of molecules of glucose linked to each other forming amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin molecules have a branched shape and fit together loosely, which makes them easier to digest. Amylose molecules fit together tightly and form granules that are much harder to digest. Most plant food is made up of 20-25% amylose, but resistant starches contain much more amylose (60-80%) than amylopectin, so they are resistant to digestion.

Normally your body digests starches in your stomach and small intestine, turning them to glucose (blood sugar) to fuel your body and store the excess as fat. When you eat resistant starches, however, they digest differently, passing through the stomach and small intestine and settling in the large intestine. There they ferment, helping in several different ways.

One: They create beneficial short chain fatty acids including butyrate that help promote weight loss by increasing the amount of stored and just consumed fat your body burns and reducing blood sugar and insulin levels.

Two: They protect the lining of your colon by decreasing ph, which boosts calcium absorption and blocks absorption of cancer causing substances.

Three: They help the growth of healthy bacteria (probiotics) which gives your immune system a boost.

Four: They prompt your body to produce more of the hormones that signal satiety and fullness, so you feel full sooner and eat less!

How do you benefit the most from eating these foods? Cooking these starches breaks them down somewhat (gelatinization), making them easier to digest; cooling them thoroughly before you eat them gives the starch a chance to harden into a crystallized form (retrogradation) that is harder for the body to digest. So eat these foods cooked then cooled!

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

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If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Are you tired of the word “lifestyle change?”

“It’s not about starting another diet, it’s about making a lifestyle change!” Lifestyle is the buzz word right now as people are becoming painfully aware that diets have a dark and dirty under belly. Unfortunately, while we may hear it every day it doesn’t change the fact that when you wake up tomorrow, and start eating 1200 calories a day and exercising like Peyton Manning you feel like you’re on a DIET.

Allow me to clarify what the difference between another diet and having a true and meaningful lifestyle change. Your body has been on one diet or another since you were born. Whether it was the ‘junk food diet’, the ‘I’m in college and eat Top Ramen diet’, or the ‘I’m pregnant, step away slowly diet’; either way it’s a diet. It’s a conscious decision to eat a certain way every day- that literally is all a diet is. Think for a moment the first time you tried something; for instance, your favorite ice cream- once you started eating that ice cream, once you realized you liked it and it made you feel good, you started eating that food repeatedly. Therefore, making that ice cream a part of your diet. Once the ice cream became a regular part of your diet, it became a lifestyle change in which you now eat ice cream almost every day. You can see through this chain of thinking – a diet decision became a lifestyle change before your very eyes.

Of course, that leads to the next thought- which is how can I make healthy food that will make me thin, healthy and happy a lifestyle change. There is good news and bad news. Our brain is very clear about what it desires, if you consume something that rewards your pleasure center you will crave that thing… Potentially a lot. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can train your brain that healthy food, while it may not light up your pleasure center right away, still makes you feel good and right. If you eat good wholesome food every day, and you never get stomach aches or bloats from rich food, or indigestion from fatty or greasy food, and you feel light and energetic, your brain will get that message. That means that you are always speaking with your brain, you are constantly trying to communicate. If you tell your brain and body that the best you can do is light up that reward center- it will take what it can get. But if you tell your brain that these certain foods can make you clearer, give you less headaches, and allow you to be at your best- your brain will hear you!

So the truth of the matter is that everyone starts a ‘diet.’ You can’t escape it, if you are eating in a way that is making your fat and sick today, you will have to start a diet if you want to be thin, and healthy- there’s no trick. But once you start that diet, once you (and your brain) really believe that this diet food is rewarding and making you feel good- you will start to crave good food!! Believe me, today I crave yummy creamy yogurt with cooked apples and cinnamon- and my brain believes me!

If you’re ready to start the diet, that will lead to the lifestyle; that will make you thin, healthy and incredibly happy take my SKINNY COACH QUIZ today!

Do you need a Mentor?

When people want to learn something they go to school to be taught by a teacher who is trained extensively on that which they wish to learn. When it is time to learn to drive you are instructed by your parents (people who have often been driving for decades.) When you want to learn a sport you are guided and trained by your couch. But, when a person wants to lose weight, suddenly it’s time to ‘pull up your boot straps’ and do it on your own. Why is that?

Weight loss, potentially one of the most difficult struggles that a person will ever encounter, is a job that people believe one should be able to accomplish on their own. It is unrealistic to think that this is something you can handle. If you are overweight it is because you never learned the proper skills to healthy eating, and/ or you do not have control over what you are eating. There are very specific foods and activities that will allow you to control your food intake more effectively. To learn what foods you can eat without binging, and to acquire the skills you’ll need to practice to get skinny and stay skinny you need to be TAUGHT! We aren’t born with this knowledge or these skills, and you do not have to feel bad or guilty for needing help. You need someone to rewire your brain, you currently have the brain of a fat person, you need a Skinny brain to be skinny.

Hiring Dr. Wright, the Skinny Coach, to help you with your weight loss will give you the support and education you need to succeed at your weight loss goals. In your skinny journey, you will have questions, you will make goals and commitments, and you will feel discouraged; it is during all of these times that having the Skinny Coach there anytime day or night, to help guide you through, that will ensure your success. You need help to rewire your brain and train you to think like a skinny person, you need to be trained to have correct eating habits, and you need to be taught the right foods for your body. Find out if you’re a sugar addict by taking this quiz or talk to Tiffany Wright, Skinny Coach, and see how she can coach you to success.

Is this real?

Food addiction is real. It has been recognized by scientists across the globe and it must be taken seriously. When you eat highly palatable foods like sugar and flour our taste buds send messages to our brain and release dopamine. However, in as little as THREE weeks of overeating the dopamine receptors started to get compromised. This leads the overeater needing more and more to get the same feeling – what is this called? Tolerance. Additionally, because the dopamine receptors have been compromised if you are not feeding yourself more and more then you feel bad because you are not getting normal amounts of these feel good hormones. What is this called? Withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal are the hallmarks of addiction with all addictive substances – cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes and SUGAR.

Willpower and moderation are not relevant options with addiction. The sugar and flour must be removed. Your brain must be clean from the substance and your body must detox. This is a biochemical reaction and willpower is ineffective in the face of a bio chemical reaction that happens every day of every week of every year. This is why a smoker can’t just decide to smoke less. The logically part of their brain, their executive function, does not have control anymore – the addictive reward system has control. No addictive treatment advocates moderation. No one ever says, just have one line of coke a day or one drink a day. The body and brain can be healed but FIRST you must detox from the substance through complete abstinence and SECOND, you must engage in evidenced based treatment that includes cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral modification therapy, talk therapy and group therapy. The Skinny Coach Solution offers all of this and that is why it works. That is why it will work for you. Please take a chance and schedule an appointment to talk.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

White Tea Zaps Fat!

I have been a strong advocate of white tea for years. White tea is the immature bud of green tea and is less processed, has less caffeine and has more antioxidants than green tea. It is also noticeably sweeter and lighter tasting than green tea. Now researchers in Germany, led by Marc Winnefeld, have found that white tea also has anti-obesity effects. That’s right, white tea has two major fat-busting components. First white tea reduces the formation of new fat cells, AND it also stimulates the breakdown of fat in already existing cells. The explanation is complicated, but the conclusion is spectacular. Finally here’s something we can ingest that actually will make us skinny! Drink at least 3 cups a day, 8-10 is even better and watch the fat cells disappear.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

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If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Brain Candy?

Americans as a whole are focused on health, well-being and weight loss, but down the road we may be more concerned about our brain function. Did you know that women and men with chronically high blood sugar have an increased risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia? High blood sugar causes inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which are very bad for your brain. A study published in the December 2008 issue of the Annals of Neurology, funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the American Diabetes Association concludes that abnormal regulation of blood sugar is linked to an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia.

What can you do now to insure that you will be able to read and understand this later?

Eliminate sugar, flour and all refined foods from your diet; it’s a lifestyle change that will benefit your waistline and your mind. And exercise – even if it is just 10 minutes a day. Use your mind in unusual ways – try sudoku or a crossword puzzle, learn a new language – you can even brush your teeth with your other hand to give your brain a boost.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

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If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Neuro Science of Food Addiction

Addiction has two components, physical and mental. Sugar and flour are physically addictive at a chemical and cellular level, and as with any addictive substance, it must be eliminated. By definition, if an addict could moderate they would not be an addict – abstinence is a must. But even if you find a perfect diet, like the Skinny Coach Diet, that eliminates these triggers you still have a system of neural pathways that represent learned associations, habits and reactions to stress and life. This must be addressed. The neural pathways in your brain are developed based on what you have done in the past making the breaking of a habit difficult. What are required are the development of new neural pathways and a deterioration of the old pathways. Food addiction is real and it is as real as heroin or alcohol addiction. Food, namely sugar and flour, affects the brain and the pleasure centers of the brain in exactly the same way as drugs. Dogaminergic pathways – reward pathways – in the brain are responsible for motivating food consumption and also feelings of pleasure that you get when you eat. These pathways also activate other circuits throughout the body that regulate hunger, satiety and weight control.

In order to properly heal and be free long term you have to rewire those pathways. The problem, of course, is that those pathways represent how you think – you can’t think differently because your brain is wired to say things like “one bite won’t hurt” and if I eat that cookie I will feel better.

I work with my clients daily and people mistakenly believe that they need this because they need accountability. In fact, it is only through daily conversations in a multitude of varying situations is it possible to teach an addict how to think differently. My work is to literally rewire their brain, over time, so that they internalize a healthy eating lifestyle which leads to life as a person that is natural thin. If you were allergic to strawberries you simply would not eat. Your brain would not be activated when you saw strawberry shortcake, you would not have to talk yourself out of eating a strawberry pie, it would be a non-issue. This is true for foods like sugar and flour which are usually the food of choice for addicts – over time the old addictive part of the brain that was alive and firing at the sight of a donut or baked bread is dead and the part that accepts easily that you don’t eat those things because they make you fat, sick and tired is alive and active.

Other diets fail because just following the diet does not make a “lifestyle change.” You must change the way you think, and someone has to give you that language every single day until that happens. Skinny Coach works because it addresses the physical addiction with a healthy hormonally balancing food plan and because you work with me, the L.A. Skinny Coach, to reprogram your brain as a Skinny Girl.

It is all in the Brain

I talked to the most wonderful woman today and she told me she used to be able to do anything but now she can’t, “I just don’t have any willpower anymore.” I was sick to my stomach. There are so many bright, beautiful, talented women that are ruined because of their addiction to food. The problem is they think it is their fault. But it is not. A new study validates the current research that sugar and flour are addictive. In fact Oreos are as addictive as Cocaine.

Our pleasure center in our brain called the nucleus accumbens is activated by sugar in the same way it is by cocaine and morphine.  In fact, many studies have shown that sugar is MORE addictive than either cocaine or morphine because it activates more cells in this area making it even more pleasurable.

This is not about willpower – it is about addiction.

I can help you – take the sugar addiction quiz and schedule an appointment with me and be free from your addiction and stop battling the bulge.

Fat, Forgetful, Fatigued – FED UP?

Nothing has more of an impact on your health, mood and brain function than what you put in your mouth. But what is the major culprit for your depression, memory lapses, exhausted afternoons and inability to lose weight? Sugar, of course, and refined foods.

Let me explain why.

Refined foods cause a increase in blood-glucose levels. In response, the body releases insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin signals the body to allow blood sugar to get into our cells and use it as fuel. If you eat refined foods, the body overreacts and produces too much insulin (remember we have not evolved to handle or eat refined foods, thus the health and condition of our bodies.) The overproduction of insulin drives our blood sugar too low and that causes memory problems, makes you feel like you are dragging and can cause headaches. Of course your body reacts to the low blood sugar and tries to correct by releasing hormones. These hormones raise your blood sugar but also signals your body to STORE FAT — ESPECIALLY AROUND THE BELLY. For another wonderful ironic twist of fate, it signals you to eat more because even though you just pigged out at lunch, your blood sugar is so low that your body thinks you need more food, so you become very hungry with a cravings for more refined foods. Have you noticed a difference between a nice omelette for breakfast vs. a donut? Or even NO breakfast vs. a bagel? With the donut and bagel you are hungry in two hours. But it gets even more ironic! A diet that causes your blood sugar to spike slows your metabolism down significantly. The effect works out to a difference of about 80 calories a day or 8 pounds a year.

Now you see why you can’t seem to lose that last 10, 20 or 100 pounds! Stay tuned to find out about the effects of refined foods on your memory, immune system and moods.

And in the meantime, don’t gain another pound. Call or email me to Get Skinny!

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

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If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Junk Food Rehab

Ernest Noble at UCLA has linked a dopamine receptor that is linked to alcohol, cocaine and nicotine addiction to refined carbohydrates as well. When I was 100 pounds overweight trying every possible diet and failing, I wish I had know that any diet that included refined carbs was guaranteed to fail me and keep me fat. It is like an alcoholic drinking occasionally –     PLEASE! It is well-known that abstinence is the only solution for addiction and guess what – food addiction is no different.

Most are still convinced that fat people lack willpower or that talking about food addiction is removing responsibility. It is not the case. Yes, once we know the solution we have to take responsibility and abstain from the drug of choice. But until recently, this was not an option because the information was not out there, and frankly it still isn’t. There are not many program options for compulsive overeaters. Skinny Coach is one, Overeaters Anonymous another – but the diet industry is still talking about moderation. MODERATE? Really? If I could moderate I would not have been 100 pounds overweight. If my Skinny Girls could moderate they would not have not been on the phone crying to me that they could not stand being out of control. If they could moderate, people would not hire me out of desperation because they need my help. If they could moderate they would have.

Skinny Coach is an option, Overeaters Anonymous is another, but the diet industry is still talking about moderation. MODERATE? Really? If I could moderate I would not have been 100 pouds overweight. I’m not the only one who struggles with that; I hear the stores from my Skinny Girls about feeling out-of-control. If people could moderate, would there be so many obese people in the U.S.? The difference is that I’ve found the solution.

Another lie the diet industry has everyone believing is that you have to have a little bit of everything or you will feel deprived. That is the one of the most childish claims I have heard. Only with food is this position espoused. No one can have everything that they want, and if they are mature they learn to live with limitations. Some people have physical handicaps; some people can’t live in the city or neighborhood that they want; some people can’t go to the college of their choice – and some people can’t eat whatever they want.

We now know that the brain of the food addict is predisposed to respond differently to refined foods due to dopamine receptor deficiencies. Eating the refined, addictive foods stimulate the release of neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin resulting in euphoria. The problem is the euphoria is short-term and tolerance builds, which leads to more weight gain and more out-of-control behavior. If your eating is out of control, if you are always starting a diet and eventually failing, if your pants no longer fit, if you are dreading the upcoming holidays because you have nothing to wear and you know you will gain another 10 pounds, if you are bloated, sick, tired and hopeless, you now have a solution. You have the answer now it; is a matter of taking responsibility. Denial is not an option anymore.

If you have questions or want to talk about whether you may have an unhealthy physical attachment to foods like sugar and flour please fill out the Skinny Coach quiz and I will call you for a free 1 hour nutritional consultation and tell you about the one easy, healthy secret that will help your lose belly fat.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

comment-arrow-right

If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Get Skinny!
Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Food Crisis – What to do when the cravings hit

The easiest part of any diet is the starting. The planning the food, the coaching, the gearing up; these are the moments that are fun and exciting. But, what about when you’ve been on the diet one or two days and you are hungry (or at least you think you are) and you’re ready to eat something BAD!

Imagine for a moment you’ve been on a healthy eating plan, like the Skinny Coach diet, and you’re feeling great, but you have just had a fight with your husband and suddenly, as if from nowhere you hear a small voice calling to you… “Eat me!!!” It’s the ice cream!!!! What do you do next?

  • Call your Skinny Coach
  • First off, what is the darn ice cream doing in the house still? And your husband or children want it is not a good reason! If you’re going to start a diet- REMOVE your temptations.
  • Remind yourself how happy you are that you’re finally doing something about your weight.
  • Refer to the journal in which you wrote all of the reasons you want to be thin.
  • Read, exercise, take a bath- divert your attention to something that will make you feel good, and that you can’t eat while doing
  • Eat your next meal of snack that is on your plan
  • Plan your meals for tomorrow
  • BEST PLAN OF ALL: CALL YOUR SKINNY COACH IMMEDIATELY!
  • The Skinny Coach plan is based on a foundation that you are likely addicted to sugar and that you have tried doing diets on your own. That in the moment, if you were strong enough to resist you probably wouldn’t be fat, and that you may need someone to help walk you away from the edge. Tiffany Wright PhD, has been successfully coaching people through cravings since she lost 100 lbs. When you join the Skinny Coach Diet you will have access to Tiffany and her coaching anytime day or night- this is where the Doctor and her plan really shine.

    To get your first complimentary consultation click here to setup a time to speak with the Skinny Coach.