May E-News: Meal plans, stress, Ozempic & more!
Happy May, everyone!
I could use your help. I’m hearing more and more that people want help and resources with meal-planning, saying that when they don’t plan is when they get tripped up. I’m contemplating an e-book for a very low cost, something along the lines of, “What Does a Health Coach Eat, and Why?” and in it, I’ll share 2-4 weeks of menus and recipes for what I eat, links, substitutions, shopping lists, tips, etc. But I would also like to weave in information about why I’ve chosen to eat what I have, what’s a weight loss food and what isn’t, and using the ideas from my certification as a Professional Food Addiction Coach to include additional unique and helpful angles from which to come at this.
Please, I’d be so grateful if you took a quick second to tell me how appealing you’d find such a resource, and what else it would need to include for you to consider actually making such a purchase (I’m thinking no more than $40 for the whole thing. This will include a free bonus Zoom meeting at a few dates/times where we can informally talk about what worked, where there are struggles, etc., and learn from each other; limited spaces on a first come basis!). You can reply in Facebook comments, as I’ll post this there, or email me at [email protected]. Thank you!
(know what his notebooks says? Adult Education!)
Between wars, politics, tech/AI, protests, extreme weather, you name it… sometimes the world feels heavy.
What are you doing to help support you in times of stress? Connection and joy are two of the biggest antidotes to stress. How are you doing in these departments? What brings you joy? Who do you feel connected to?
In fact, did you know that we have two nervous systems?
Sympathetic: This is our system to kick us into fight-flight-freeze-fawn (fawn being a recent addition, meaning people-pleasing). In this state, we respond to a stressor and are physiologically aroused (like increased heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones) and we stay this way until the danger passes. The problem is, in caveman times, the stressor passed. In modern times, we stay in this constant hyper-stressed, hyper-aroused state. Eventually this contributes to bodily inflammation, and eventually chronic disease (heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, maybe cancers).
Parasympathetic: Known as “rest and digest.” Here, we calm down and get back to a more “normal’ state. To be optimally healthy, especially in today’s times, we need to find ways to get out of sympathetic arousal and into parasympathetic states way more often than we do.
Other ways besides connection and joy? Pets, play, walks, naps and good sleep, healthy eating, laughter, yoga, swimming, children, meditation, deep breathing…. what would you add? It’s not the stress that kills us, says happiness researcher Tal Ben Shahar, but our lack of recovery time from the stress.
Other thoughts:
1. If it sounds too good to be true, be wary. If you see the weight loss ad that I did yesterday which tells you that by drinking a particular coffee formula you will lose 13 pounds a week, roll your eyes and move on, please. Even people with the most weight to lose (like over 100 lbs) might lose 3-5 pounds a week. Anything else is either grossly unhealthy or simply not possible. Don’t get sold. The noise out there in the name of profit is just ridiculous.
(GINORMOUS eye roll here)
2. I am not here to judge whether you take Ozempic, but I will say that as a health coach, I am greatly concerned by the staggering numbers of people thinking they need a pill to lose weight. Ozempic acts on the GLP-1 hormone, simply put, which keeps food in your stomach longer and sends the signal to your brain to stop eating because you’re full. Know what else does that? REAL FOODS. Protein and fiber, in particular, need to be broken down. They sit there for a while as that happens, and you feel full. Ta dah! You do not NEED a medication in all cases, although ultimately that’s a decision to be made with your physician. I work with people every day who make the decision to incorporate more whole food and phase out processed food (which basically is already broken down when we eat it, so we can down an entire bag of chips and not feel full). It’s not always easy, and it’s a reason I opted for the Professional Food Addiction Coach certification. There’s much behind our eating that it makes sense to look at FIRST, before jumping to dietary changes. You do not have to do this alone.
3. The price of admission to getting older does not have to be pain and discomfort. Full stop. I’m thinking I need to start calling B******t when I hear people say this. Yes, if you have a chronic injury, you might have some pain. But if you don’t have an injury, and you think aches and pains, weight gain, low energy, etc. are just part of aging, I would challenge you to do a Whole30 of just eating real food for only 30 days (I can help set you up for success with this) and see for yourself how you feel and what happens. If you really follow a Whole30, you’ll see some differences. Food is medicine.
(see what I did there?)
I just made this beef quinoa stuffed swiss chard :
https://drhyman.com/blog/2024/05/09/beef-quinoa-stuffed-swiss-chard/
I did not have fennel so I substituted some cumin and something else (I Googled ideas!). We’ve been eating it for a few days now, and batch cooking large portions is one way healthy eaters make it sustainable. You can also freeze things in individual portions if you don’t like leftovers the same week! And you can certainly cook and eat more simply than this if it strikes you as complicated!
That’s enough for now. Thanks for reading, and thank you for sharing your feedback about an e-book on meal planning, but on steroids with tons of other information included. 
And thank you for sharing this newsletter! Please just credit it to me, and everyone is invited to reach out at [email protected] and check out janetfrankcoaching.com.
You can unsubscribe any time. If I emailed this to you directly, just reply with Unsubscribe. If you got it through my website, you should see an option. I hope you’ll stick around!
Until next time, to your good health.
Janet Frank, Ph.D., A-CFHC, NBC-HWC, PFAC
National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach
ADAPT Certified Functional Health Coach
Certified Professional Food Addiction Coach
Find me on LinkedIn
