CONSISTENT by Primal Potential

I talk on almost every episode about how important it is to write down what you eat & how it makes you feel. It's not at all about calorie or macro counting but bringing mindfulness to your food choices & your body.

There are no more excuses! I've created a free food journal food you & we are going to kick off a 31-day journaling challenge for the month of May!

That's right. I'll give you a free food journal and you'll commit to writing down everything you eat and how it makes you feel for 31 days. Deal?

Not sold yet? That's ok. In today's episode I'm talking about the objections to journaling and the primary benefits (which might change your mind!)

To get your free food journal, click the link below or (if you're in the US) text the word tracking to the number 33-444

http://primalpotential.com/168-free-food-journal

After a recent episode on the stress response triggered by caffeine, I received a number of emails about cortisol, adrenal fatigue and if the stress in our lives contributes to weight gain or trouble losing weight.

Today we're going to answer the questions.

The short answer is this: Yes, the stress you create is keeping you fat and much of the stress we experience is stress we manufacture.

We'll talk about adrenal fatigue, chronic stress & what you can do about it.

http://primalpotential.com/167-stress-create-keeping-fat/

We need to have a better understanding of what triggers a stress response. We tend to think about stress as emotional stress but it's far more than that.

Much of the stress in our lives is stress we manufacture:

• Getting worked up over traffic or misplacing our keys
• Creating anxiety over future worries that may or may not ever pose an issue
• Fixating on past challenges or regrets
• Over-extending ourselves
• Not getting enough sleep
• Eating foods which trigger our stress responses

Stress can be caused by thoughts, emotions, injury, illness, exercise, food, fatigue & much more.

When your stress response is on overdrive it can lead to:

• Decreased metabolic rate
• Increased fat storage
• Increased hunger
• Cravings
• Muscle burning
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Fatigue
• Trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep
• Illness

Your adrenal glands, though small, are a significant part of your health, happiness & ability to burn fat. You've got two of them and each one sits on top of your kidney, like a cap.

In response to stress of any kind, your brain instructs the adrenal glands to produce & secrete stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

Think about it like a fire alarm. The first time you pull the alarm, you react! The fire department reacts. The alarm stands out and an appropriate response ensues.

But what happens if that alarm goes off every single day? Or worse, if it is constantly sounding?

You don't react to it the same way, the fire department certainly doesn't either and eventually the batteries will die.

When we have constant stressors triggering the alarms in our bodies, these adrenal glands wear out. They get tired. They're constantly pumping out stress hormones. They're both exhausted and less effective.

This means that not only are you feeling constantly exhausted and on edge, your body is unable to respond to true issues like injury & illness.

It creates systemic hormonal chaos and is a strong precursor to injury, disease and depression.

Adrenal fatigue is absolutely something you can improve. Even if you aren't struggling with full-blown adrenal fatigue, you can benefit from minimizing stress and improving your response to stressful things.

• Practice perspective. Losing your keys, getting stuck in traffic or your computer giving you an error message are not worth pulling the fire alarm of your stress response system.
• Prioritize sleep. If you can't increase the quantity of your sleep, you must improve the quality. Here's a podcast I did on how you can improve the quality of your sleep.
• Avoid or minimize foods which trigger your stress response. These include sugar, processed foods, toxins, caffeine, alcohol and any food to which you have a sensitivity.
• Practice meditation or breathing exercises.
• Laugh and smile more. Seek out people & things that make you feel happiness & levity. It doesn't matter if it's weird cat videos or quality time with people you enjoy. Decide to laugh & smile more often.
• Get a massage, have an orgasm or go for a nice walk. Or, go for the trifecta.

It's our 3rd Primal Potential book club episode! Today I'll be sharing the incredible lessons I've learned from the book The Power of Concentration by Theron Q. Dumont.

Sure, it's a book about concentration, not a book about health or fat loss, but I'm telling you right now: if you harness the power of concentration for weight loss, you will dramatically improve your results.

A couple episodes ago I talked about a clip from the movie "Any Given Sunday" and how Al Pacino (the coach) shares with the team that games are won & lost by inches and the inches we need are all around us.

http://primalpotential.com/166-power-of-concentration-for-weight-loss/

The same is true in behavior change, fat loss and health. The inches we need are all around us and the power of concentration gives us many of those inches we need.

Listen to the full episode to learn how we can apply the power of concentration to all our weight loss, health, fitness and personal goals.

The Power of Concentration begins by talking about the power of focus. I've shared many times how I think one of the most destructive things we can do is try to achieve too many objectives at once.

This is how my simple mind thinks about it - you know that carnival game where you have a gun & a target? When you pull the trigger, the gun shoots water at the target? The more consistently you hit the center of the target with the stream of water, the faster the ballon above the target rises, driven by the concentrated force of water.

But, what would happen if you tried to hit 3 targets at once? You still only have 1 water gun & one source of water. You'd make slower progress while still exerting the same amount of effort, balloons over each target rising more slowly.

This is why we need to harness the power of concentration. As it relates to weight loss or fat loss, I believe we do this by tackling ONE behavior change at a time.

I learned a few key lessons from The Power of Concentration which I share in detail in today's episode. They include:

1. Identify & eliminate areas from which your energy escapes (and is wasted)
2. The bank president story - establish the mission & do something each day to move you in that direction. At the end of each day, evaluate what action(s) you took
3. Never make decisions in a negative state of mind
4. Make decisions more quickly. Silence the internal debate. It wastes both time & energy
5. You will benefit more from doing 1 hard thing than 12 easy things
6. Practice the power of concentration

I share some of the ideas about how to practice concentration in ways that relate to your health & fat loss goals including breathing, focus and visualization.

You might not believe me, but I'm telling the truth when I say that there is an undeniable (and very powerful) link between your body language and weight loss. There is. I hope you'll be open minded enough to listen to today's episode in its entirety to see what I mean, why & how you can capitalize on this.

Not only does our body language influence how we feel, but it influences our hormones. For real. In this episode I will share the link between body language, weight loss and our hormone production. Specific power poses can actually reduce stress hormones in as little as two minutes!

http://primalpotential.com/165-body-language-and-weight-loss

I get a lot of questions about nuts. Everything from, "Are nuts healthy?" to "How can I stop overeating nuts?"

Let's tackle these questions and everything in between!

There is no black & white answer on the nut issue. In today's episode, as we explore the question, "Are nuts healthy?", I want to show you how to find the right answer for you & adjust your strategy based on your needs, not on universal all-or-nothing statements about nuts.

I will show the types of things you need to consider such as:

• What is your goal?
• How often are you consuming nuts and in what quantity?
• What type of nuts are you consuming?
• Is inflammation a problem for you?
• Is nutrient deficiency a problem for you?
• How many omega-3 fatty acids do you consume on a regular basis?
• What other regular sources of omega-6 fatty acids do you consume?
• Are nuts a trigger for you or are you able to moderate your consumption?

Don't miss the whole episode for the facts about nuts and their impact on your health & fat loss.

http://primalpotential.com/164-are-nuts-healthy/

This is definitely an "Elizabeth uncensored" episode! When it comes to weight loss, the most important thing you need to lose is your negative attitude. Seriously.

When you argue for your limitations you get to keep them and the majority of people spend more time arguing for why they can't change than for why they can & will. They'll be right every single time.

There's not much in the way of show notes for this one because the truth is: you need to listen.

The single most high-impact change you can make in your life is to change your attitude & your perspective and it's time to change both. In the episode I talk about Breaking Barriers and believe this is a powerful tool to help you in this quest.

Of course, if you have questions after listening to the episode, send me an email.

http://primalpotential.com/163-negative-attitude/

If you are a regular listener to the podcast, you know I am a huge coffee fan. It's true. I drink a lot of coffee and I drink it every single day. But here's the reality: coffee might be holding you back. Less coffee might actually help you lose weight.

It's true - and what I want to do in today's episode is help you find what is true for you:

• does coffee make you gain weight?
• is coffee helping your weight loss efforts?
• would you be better off with less coffee?
• are you ok right where you're at?
• how can you minimize the negative effects of caffeine?

We'll talk about the impacts of coffee & caffeine on your hormones, how to know if you're having too much and simple changes you can make to enjoy your coffee without compromising your weight loss goals. I've also linked to some super helpful resources below including one of my favorite coffees, a high-quality water filter and some books about understanding the impact of things like coffee on your hormones.

http://primalpotential.com/162-does-coffee-make-you-gain-weight/

Let me first say that there is no one set answer for everyone. The goal of this podcast episode is to help you find YOUR answer because I am certain your body is telling you!

Caffeine from coffee, tea, sodas or any source drives your body's stress response by increasing the stress hormone cortisol.

Your answer is going to depend on your body's unique ability to metabolize caffeine, your sensitivity to stress and your baseline cortisol level.

Here are some signs that your stress response system might be on overdrive and you could benefit from dialing back your caffeine (coffee):

• Feeling "wired but tired" - exhausted but unable to turn off your mind or slow down your thoughts enough to sleep
• Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• Anxiety
• Heightened emotional responses
• Cravings for sugar, starch or sweets, especially after a meal
• Irritability
• Overeating in response to stress

Caffeine consumption triggers the production of cortisol by your adrenal glands. It also suppresses the production of adenosine, which helps you stay calm and depletes your "feel good" chemicals like serotonin.

When we chronically elevate cortisol, we can see the following impacts:

• Reduced metabolic rate
• Increased carbohydrate cravings
• Increased belly fat storage
• Blood sugar instability
• Increased hunger

There are also important considerations regarding the quality of the coffee you drink. When the water in our coffee or the coffee itself contains toxins, that impairs fat loss. Here are some recommendations to improve the quality of your coffee:

• Use a water filter (my recommendation is below under "Resources")
• Buy single origin coffee
• Avoid drinking decaf coffee (it has more toxins)

Aquasana Counter Top Water Filter

Kicking Horse Coffee

The Hormone Reset Diet (Book)

The Hormone Cure (Book)

Episode 046: Water Quality

I hope you enjoyed this Fat to Fit miniseries as much as I did! Today I'll be tackling a few of the most common questions I've received about these nutrition, mindset and fitness episodes.

Before you dive into today's episode, please check out parts 1, 2 and 3. The listener Q&A won't make too much sense if you haven't heard these episodes.

Fat to Fit Part 1 - Nutrition

Fat to Fit Part 2 - Mindset

Fat to Fit Part 3 - Fitness

http://primalpotential.com/161-fat-fit-part-4-listener-qa

In today's episode I'm tacking some hugely important questions. Listen to the entire episode to hear me answer:

1. If eating puts me in storage mode, does that mean that I'm automatically in fat storage mode after eating?
2. What about the opposite? If I'm in a fasted state, does that mean I'm in fat burning mode?
3. What is your take on fat loss nutrition strategies like ketosis, intermittent fasting or carb cycling? How do I know if these are effective strategies for me?
4. I understand that fat loss is a mindset thing, but I keep stopping and starting. Can you help me stop stopping?
5. Are spin classes or other group exercise classes good ways to burn fat?

Okay folks, today is the final episode of the Fat to Fit series before our wrap-up Q&A episode.

Before you dive into today's episode, please check out parts 1 and 2:

Fat to Fit Part 1 - Nutrition

Fat to Fit Part 2 - Mindset

Today we're looking at fitness for fat loss & 3 pillars of efficient, effective fat loss workouts. I also talk about who SHOULD be incorporating fitness into their fat loss efforts and who shouldn't. Yup, there are certain people who I don't think should be adding fitness into their routine.

I've also put together a series of workouts you can do at home with little (or no) equipment as well as some inexpensive basics you can have at home to make dozens of workouts possible! You can get them for FREE by clicking below.

http://primalpotential.com/160-fat-to-fit-fitness/

In today's episode I'm breaking down the 4 primary mistakes I see people making when it comes to the way they approach fitness for fat loss. I go into detail with my thoughts on:

• guilt & doubt
• pre & post workout nutrition
• overeating after workouts
• not providing enough stimulus
• thinking that "more is more" with exercise (it's not)

Then we start having a lot of fun. I share what I feel are the 3 pillars of fitness for fat loss and explain how to combine them for maximum fat loss. These 3 pillars are:

• maximum muscle recruitment
• tension
• intensity

Ready for part 2 of our Fat to Fit series? If you missed part 1, which was all about fear and nutrition, you can listen to that episode here.

Today we're diving into mindset. I believe very strongly that fat loss is achieved (or not) only when you conquer the battlefield of your mind.

Unfortunately, most of us spend the majority of our time & energy on trying to white-knuckle changes to our diets or fitness routine. We'd make progress faster if we spent the time understanding & tearing down the barriers between what we want to do & what we actually do in moments of temptation or emotion.

I also shared that between now and the end of April (2016), I'll be sharing a daily question or mantra on Facebook & Instagram to help you implement these mindset strategies at critical points of decision.

You'll absolutely want to listen to this episode if you struggle with:

• Negativity
• Excuses
• Frustration
• Disadvantages (barriers to change or success)
• Inconsistency

http://primalpotential.com/159-fat-to-fit-mindset/