Challaine (00:32)
Welcome everyone to today's episode of Let's Have a Chat. And we've got a doctor in the house, Dr. Ginny Trierweiler, who's a psychologist, excuse me, and certified health coach. And Dr. Ginny has a new book coming out called Getting Slender for Good After 50. Eat More, Stress Less, and Never Diet Again. Oh, Dr. Ginny, that nasty four-letter word, we think it's the F word, but it's not. It's diet, right? Yeah, that's right. Thank you so much for being on the episode today. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (00:56)
It's the teamwork. Yes.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for inviting me. I'm so happy to be with you. You're on one part of the North American continent and I'm on the other in Mexico.
Challaine (01:08)
Yeah,
and we can connect on this medium. So I absolutely love that for us and for our guests. How did you get to be so passionate about this concept or this science? You love science or science-based about dieting and can we start with that question but then lead into some myths about dieting?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (01:13)
to the building.
Yes.
Mm,
yeah. You know, you've already got me started wanting to cry because I'm passionate about this because it was very personal because like, I thought I knew how to eat healthy. I'm a smart person. I read a lot. And but by the time I was 55, I was 60 pounds overweight. I had so much pain and inflammation in my system. I could barely walk anymore. I had pre-diabetes.
Challaine (01:41)
I
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (02:02)
So I went through my 20s, 30s and 40s thinking I know exactly how to eat and it totally works and it just all changed in my 40s.
Challaine (02:09)
So you were
following the practices that did work for your lifetime or did you struggle with weight?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (02:13)
No,
was following what the doctors say, which is just don't eat too much and, you know, exercise. And if you gain some weight, exercise or eat less, I was doing all those things that we all were raised to do. And it seemed to work fine until my forties. And then it didn't work anymore. And, you know, because I spent so many decades feeling like this works, this works, I know what I'm doing. It was really hard for me to finally look for something else.
Challaine (02:30)
until it didn't.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (02:42)
I mean, I looked for diets and stuff, but I was tweaking this and tweaking that, and I'll go see what this person says, and maybe there's a new tip today. And I started realizing as a trained scientist in evidence-based practices, that's not how anything works. You don't put things together by just looking at this little tip and that little tip and throwing it all together and get life-changing results.
So that was helpful. I really did have this one wake up call moment after I was diagnosed with prediabetes and going, what is wrong? What am I going to do? Nothing's working. I started working in nursing homes as a psychologist while I was building my own business. And I thought these guys are going to be in their eighties and nineties. I'm going to help them with this last stage of life. Way too many of them were in their sixties and seventies. Right. And they were all my patients were saying, you got to get me out of here. My
You know, my family has taken my house. They've stole my car. Like you just got to get me out of here. So I started researching. How do I help them get out of here? And by the time you're in 24 seven nursing care, you're not getting out. You you have passed the threshold. You're not well enough to be on your own anymore. And so as I studied.
Challaine (03:41)
Yeah.
What age,
sorry to interrupt, what age were you at this point? Okay, and you were seeing people in their 60s in the home. That's scary, that's like a slap in the face. A wake up call.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (03:54)
I was 55. It's about 10 years ago.
Yes, scary, right? Yes. So I had this image of myself,
like I'm youthful, I'm slender, I'm to be hiking in the mountains still in my eighties. And I just was hit in the face with, you're not. That's not the direction you're going. You can barely go for a 10 minute walk anymore. You can barely do the grocery shopping. And I really didn't realize how much of that was related to eating and drinking until I started doing this research, working in the nursing homes and going,
Most of these conditions are related to eating and drinking more than anything else.
Challaine (04:34)
drinking alcohol to be specific.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (04:36)
Well, what we ingest is the way I think about this. So yeah, I was drinking alcohol every night. That had escalated, right, over time. And just a whole attitude of my food and drink needs to be so, so special if I love myself. That's my self-care every day, every night has to be special. Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (04:39)
Okay, okay. Sure.
A fancy glass of red or like, yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (05:00)
And yeah, I wasn't like doing a lot of potato chips and candy bars, but I was doing the sophisticated middle class professional woman version of this is not good for you. And you kind of know it, but you really like it. Right. And so I got really scared straight. Like, I don't know what the answer is because it seems like the answers out there are not working, but I need to find the answers if I'm not going to end up at a nursing home. Like I'm 65 now. I kind of think I would be there by now if I hadn't changed my diet.
Challaine (05:08)
Hey
Can we go back a little bit? I think what you just tapped on, like the sophisticated, the classiness, it's like it's marketed to us, right? And like, this is what being an adult looks like. This is what relaxing looks like. This is a wine or a glass of red a day or whatever keeps the doctor away. It's not an apple anymore. It's have some red wine to keep your like...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (05:36)
sorry.
It is, absolutely. Yes. Yes.
Yes!
Right. Right.
Challaine (05:59)
cholesterol level or whatever down right so and then when we're getting fed these messages all the time they kind of become our truth right yeah
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (06:01)
Yes.
all the time. Absolutely. Yeah, I think
of it like, well, a lot of us talk about it like we live in a deranged nutritional environment. And it's what we've lived in our whole life, right? And this all really started changing in a big way back in the 60s, when the 60s and 70s, when the US started getting involved in prescribing what people should be eating, and the big low fat craze came. And that's where we just took off with processed foods.
So yeah, processed foods are now 73 % of our food environment.
Challaine (06:41)
Because you can have a box of crackers that say no fat on them. Right? So if you're sitting down and you're having a box of crackers, well there's no fat in here, I can just like go to town. With all, I find that like there's so much information and I am so grateful for that and like we can like just Google it. Just Google it is like a term, right? There's so much information but I feel like there's a lack of knowledge.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (06:51)
Right. Yes. Right.
Yeah.
Yes, right, right.
Yeah, lack of, yeah, wisdom. feel like humans have had a certain wisdom about eating food throughout history. And our wisdom has really been turned on its head. through, yeah, advertising and promotion and what's available in our environment and what seems normal, right? It's really, really trouble. If we could just go back to eating food, like just real food, it changes everything. So, but really helping people understand.
Challaine (07:11)
Right? Wisdom, yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (07:40)
All these things that are packaged to tell you how great they are, that's probably proof that they're not. That's probably proof that they're actually damaging to your body. Makes me mad.
Challaine (07:50)
Absolutely. And following intuition. Didn't we know how to eat before TV was sending us commercials? Didn't we know if we... I know the whole gluten thing and the spraying of the fields has denatured the soil. I know all that. But back in the day, if you ate bread and you felt like shit after it, you probably wouldn't eat bread.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (07:55)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Right. Right.
Right.
Right. Right.
Challaine (08:17)
Anymore right like tapping
into okay. I drink this milk and I don't feel good But it's like feeling bad has become so normal Right. It's just like well, I'm gonna have that ice cream anyways, or I'm gonna eat the cheese I'm gonna have the bread why it doesn't make you feel it doesn't make you feel good, right? So it's like we've conditioned ourselves to just be in a state of feeling icky or bad or bloated or farty or
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (08:21)
Right.
Yes, I know.
It's not that bad. Right. It is hard to distinguish. Yes.
Right.
Challaine (08:47)
poopy, right? Like this isn't normal. Call a spade a spade, right? Like say it out how it is, right?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (08:47)
Right. Yeah, it's
true. I love that. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we're just we're super confused. What I see with Slender for Good clients is they start eating in the way that we discovered that I call slender weight eating truly healthy eating. And they start going, you know, now, if I have a little bit of those things that aren't good for me, I feel it. My brain tells me my gut tells me.
You know, my heart rate tells me like I get so many signs that wasn't good for me. But if it's what we're eating, if it's 73 % of what we're eating, we're never going to notice like this. We just feel lousy all the time without no.
Challaine (09:29)
I'm not a
scientist, but I feel like it's more than 73 % of the food for the masses that eat like crap, right? I'm throwing my husband under the bus here and he knows he's got a shitty diet, so I'm gonna talk about it. Like coffee for breakfast, coffee for lunch, and when he's on the road, it's like pepperoni sticks or a pizza, like yeah, pizza from the 7-Eleven.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (09:33)
Really? Yeah. Yeah, right.
no.
Yes.
Challaine (09:54)
And because he's busy, right? And when he's on the road living in a hotel, mean, yes,
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (09:54)
Yes.
Challaine (09:58)
it's an excuse. You can go to the grocery store and buy some food. But for many people, it's that hustle and bustle of life. So the convenience of it is like really just throws us off track and it just becomes our norm. how, if I was my husband right now and you were talking to him.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (10:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
huh.
huh.
Challaine (10:24)
What
would your tips be for him or anybody in that hustle and bustle, that grind, working on the road to start to get on track? Like, hotel life. Where do we start?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (10:35)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, that's a hard place to start if somebody doesn't, I mean, I don't try to work with people who don't feel they have anything they want to change. Okay.
Challaine (10:44)
It is!
He does, and this is the interesting
part because he's like, I'm like, I've got dad bod, like I'm getting fat now. like, he recognizes the change, but I think because, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong as a psychologist, we think as like a society, as a race in the future. And the way I am now,
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (10:59)
Yeah.
huh.
Challaine (11:17)
I feel okay now. I don't feel great. I don't feel 100%. But I still have time to manage what's going to happen in the future, right? Like my blood work is okay. I'm not speaking for me. I'm just speaking in general. Like my blood work is okay. Maybe my cholesterol is a little bit off the charts, but I can manage it. I haven't had a stroke yet. So I don't need to quit this. Like it's in the future. But...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (11:19)
Yeah, right.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, right. Yes. Well,
I think that is key. Like, how do we start caring about our future selves more? That's, that's a shift that happened for me mentally that really helped is I kept having this idea like, I need to change my eating and drinking, but I love my eating and drinking. I don't want to change it. And it's convenient. It's tasty. And I love it. And I think I have time. It's, it was the wake up call of
of working in the nursing homes that made me say, maybe I don't. mean, the indications are that things have been going downhill for a while now. And that's the direction they're going to keep going. So there's, don't know if you know this principle of entropy where everything in the universe kind of breaks down into disorder and chaos unless there's interventions to keep it, you know, well, right. So I think about moving into my last house that I bought 20 years ago or something.
Challaine (12:29)
It makes sense for sure. Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (12:36)
had beautiful gardens when I moved in, was like, yay, I'm gonna have gardens. And like a year later driving home, I noticed, wow, that doesn't look like a garden. That's not a garden anymore. That's a bunch of weeds and it looks like we didn't make care of it. And our bodies are the same. So we don't realize when we eat every day, we're harming our body instead of helping it heal, giving it what it needs to heal. We're putting harmful things in all the time. It's irritating to be told that.
Challaine (12:46)
Yeah, yeah, because you didn't care for it.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (13:05)
when you know what you like and it seems convenient and you don't know what else to do differently, like that's irritating. But if we went back to eating like humans kind of have always eaten, is like humans do well eating in various environments like fish or meat or plants, what we don't do well with is processed foods. That turns out to be much more toxic than we realize. So now like,
Most of us can expect to live our last 10 years sick with one of the chronic diseases of aging that didn't exist until processed food became our staple. that's diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease and it's various cancers and dementia. For me, one of the things that was really showing up, I was starting to develop, I was moving towards diabetes, but this pain and inflammation that I had lived with since high school had gotten worse and worse and worse.
Challaine (13:43)
Absolutely.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (14:03)
I had no idea that was just going to change like that when I changed my diet. I didn't know I was harming myself every day with the way I was eating, especially thinking I was doing pretty well, like I was doing better than average.
Challaine (14:17)
because you were getting the information delivered to the masses. Yeah, you were being fed this information. In case my husband does listen to this episode, I do want to get an answer from you about what his first step should be while he's on the road working. Because when he's at home, like I do all the grocery shopping, right? And like we cook, I cook supper all the time. Lunch is kind of fun for yourself. Like the kids are at school and day home, daycare. And so there's...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (14:20)
Yes.
you
Okay, well.
Okay, yeah.
Challaine (14:46)
always healthy food around. But yeah, what tips could you give him for while he's on the road?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (14:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I know for me, it just really helps to just decide I'm eating healthy food no matter where I am. And that requires a little bit of planning sometimes. It's not going to be, it's not going to happen by accident. It's going to really take some intention. So if I'm going out on the road, I might pack stuff to take with me. I'm going to think ahead of time of like, where am going to get vegetables? So the number one thing that can start to change things is eating
vegetables, not drinking juiced things or smoothies or things like that, but eating real vegetables. And so one of the first things I had to get over is this idea that I can't take any time. I can't take any time to prepare food and I can't take any time to eat food. got to eat while I'm driving between meetings, et cetera. And I had a coach who said, you know, you're going to end up taking the time to go to doctors, which I was, I was spending a lot of time at doctors.
Challaine (15:49)
Hmm.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (15:52)
where I could have been spending the time actually just planning to eat healthy every day.
Challaine (15:56)
You're either
taking the time now or you're taking it later. And taking that time later is really stealing time from what you want to be doing.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (16:00)
Yes.
Yeah.
that's such a good way of putting it. Yeah. So I don't know if you've heard the Jerry Seinfeld skit about, like when he's staying up late at night and he's thinking, I'm going to feel like crap in the morning if I don't go to bed now. And he's like, well, that's tomorrow Jerry's problem. We need to get smarter about this. Like my idea that I'm going to be better able to tackle this later. I'm going have more energy. I'm going have more willpower. The opposite was true.
Challaine (16:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (16:33)
I'm ending up with less and less energy day after day after day because of entropy. Because I'm not feeding myself well.
Challaine (16:42)
Yeah, yeah. Now you said set the intention. I love this. I've been listening to a lot of Tony Robbins lately and you said set the intention, make the decision. And he talks about should versus must. we, yeah, and what he says is that we say, I should lose weight, I should quit drinking, I should quit smoking, I should go for a walk. And he says we should.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (16:48)
yeah.
Yes, love that.
Great.
Right. That means I'm not
gonna.
Challaine (17:08)
Exactly, he says we should all over ourselves instead of shooting all over we should all over ourselves And he says you have to make it a must I must go to the gym. I must quit smoking I must quit drink drinking and setting that intention and stop shooting all over yourself, and I absolutely love that
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (17:10)
Yes.
Yes. Right.
Yes.
I love that. Yes.
I think that's what the nursing home situation gave me is like I was, I was changing this crying alone, no coach, no support, no guidance. I must change this until and unless I'm in a nursing home and I don't have a choice anymore. Like that's the kind of motivation I had and it was fear and fear pushes until, you know, until something pulls us forward.
Challaine (17:45)
That's like fear motivation.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (17:53)
What started happening is I started finding, like, I found these principles in the research that led me to just eat this way. This is a smart way to eat, just do this. And so at first I was crying because I felt like I'm going to miss out on certain things. And then I started realizing, I don't feel like I'm missing out. I feel like I'm getting more energy. I feel like I'm sleeping better. I feel good. And this is actually enjoyable. And so it's like the childish part of my brain going, I don't want to change anything.
Challaine (18:20)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (18:21)
started
settling down like, this is not bad. Let's just do this. This is good.
Challaine (18:27)
reprogramming. We can do that. Like the brain is a magnificent organ. But it's adaptable, right? And it will just like maintain being comfortable for a period of time until there's like enough pressure or the pain isn't worth it anymore. Right? And then like that's like when I quit drinking. Like looking back
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (18:28)
Yes, exactly. Absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, yes.
Challaine (18:56)
drinking as much as I did was fucking hard. Being sober is so much easier than drinking all the time and spending the money, eating the crappy food, drinking the poison, right? And destroying relationships and gambling tens of thousands of dollars. That was a hard life and being sober is just, it's so much easier because
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (18:59)
Yes.
It is so much easier, yeah.
Right.
Good.
It was. Yeah. It's way
easier. Yeah.
Challaine (19:24)
Yeah,
the pain wasn't worth it anymore. It just wasn't worth
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (19:27)
Yes, I've just been working
with some of the Slender for Good clients on the Dickens process, which Tony Robbins takes people through, where you intentionally associate painful feelings with continuing to do the habits that are hurting you. Because our primitive brain will just keep the habits going. I'm going to tell my primitive brain, we're changing how we're eating. No, we're not doing that. We're going to just keep eating the way we eat. Like you have to get that part of you coming along for the ride.
And part of what I learned is quit yelling at it. It's like a child that just thinks we've survived by doing this. Let's keep eating this way. I had to kind of reassure her, nothing terrible is happening. We're just eating healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (20:07)
I love that, yeah. Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong. Hug yourself, yeah.
Can you tap into, we talked about this at the beginning, but some common myths about nutrition. Let's debunk some of that crap.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (20:19)
Mmm. Yeah.
Well, I mean, the first myth is really that the secret to losing weight is to eat less. And I definitely have met people who don't eat very much and they stay slender. But I have not seen this work for people who have gained weight and lost weight and gained weight and lost weight. And the research shows that that approach to losing weight only produces temporary weight loss. So there's this big UCLA study where they looked at all the studies that followed people who dieted over time, who
who cut their calories. And they concluded cutting calories is the best way to gain weight in the long run. Yes, it's very upsetting to me because I've had people come to me who like they were eating so little by the time they came to me. And all it was doing is temporary weight loss and gaining back more, right? It's so frustrating.
Challaine (21:02)
okay. Yeah.
Now
is this because like the body goes into like starvation mode and it's like I don't know when I'm gonna eat next so I've got this fat on my body so I'm gonna hang on to it because I don't know when I'm gonna get food. Okay.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (21:27)
Yes!
Exactly. Yes. So it's
so interesting. There's a really interesting books called Nature Wants Us to be Fat. I think it's Dr. Richard Johnson. And so what scientists were noticing is that we, the human population now looks like populations of animals that, for example, are getting ready to hibernate or are living in low nutrition environments. They start storing excess fat. They start raising their blood pressure.
their blood sugar raises, they get more hunger hormones and they get more cortisol. So I'm hungry, I'm anxious, I'm sleepless, I just want to eat. Like my whole motivation these days is to eat. So you look at people and you think, how gluttonous are you to eat like that? That's not it. Everything in our body is telling us you need to eat. So even if you think back to the 73 % number,
You could keep eating and eating and eating and your body's still going to say, I didn't get enough nutrition yet. So I feel there's no way to fake our body into letting go of weight in a lasting way. We are simply going to have to figure out how to give it the nutrition it needs. And that is a bigger deal than people want to realize. Well, I had a carrot yesterday, you know.
Challaine (22:47)
Yeah, can we like also mention that we're probably in a chronic state of dehydration that hunger pangs can be like so immense when really we might just be thirsty. You know what I mean? Not to like negate actual hunger, but like if we were constantly drinking our water throughout the day, we'd have something in our stomach.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (22:54)
Yes.
Just have something yeah. Just have some water, yes.
Yes.
Yes, that doctor talked about that too, that dehydration. So bears, when they go into hibernation, they don't eat for several months and they don't drink for several months. So the fat is providing both the water and the nutrients that the animal needs. So I'm pretty sure that he's right that drinking enough water is important. I think you're right.
Challaine (23:17)
right, that we could feel satiated.
Now, we talked about eating less, something that is so trendy, and to be honest, I've only tried it a couple times because I don't know enough about it. And I was a personal trainer for 15 years and a holistic practitioner, so I do have nutrition background, albeit it was like 15 years ago, so I know things change. But...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (23:48)
No.
Yeah.
Challaine (24:08)
The way I was trained was six small meals a day and if like six snacks, right? And or if you think of like your food as a pyramid, we should be eating like, no, we should be eating like this and we are eating like this, right? So breakfast like a king, lunch as a prince and dinner as a pauper, right? So
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (24:13)
yeah.
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
All
Challaine (24:38)
If we think of food and calories as energy, which it is, right? Why in the hell do we need energy to go to sleep, right? So we're having these massive, massive dinners, either through takeout or pasta with bread and cheese and salad and appetizers, like all this food, 6.30, seven o'clock at night, which is really just calories and energy to go to bed.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (24:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
huh.
huh.
Challaine (25:08)
Right? So it really stuck with me over the years to kind of invert that triangle and have your biggest meal at the beginning of the day and kind of dwindle as you get to the end of the day because you need energy to sustain yourself and do your activities and feed your brain throughout the day. Right? But what I want to ask is this has become trendy over the past couple of years that I'm noticing maybe because I'm
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (25:15)
Bye.
Yeah.
huh.
Yeah, yeah.
Challaine (25:37)
just talking to more people about it now, but fasting. So you said earlier about cutting calories, it's not the way to go. But then we've got this whole generation, this whole group of people that are intermittent fasting, they're doing 36, 72 hour, 48 hour fasts.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (25:40)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah.
Challaine (25:55)
What's okay? What do we do? Because that's cutting calories, right? Yeah, it's 100%.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (25:57)
Yeah, it kind of is. It's particular
approach to cutting calories, I think. Yeah, to eating less. I think people would do a lot better to focus on how can I eat more nutritious foods? So if only 27 % of my food right now on average is nutritious, my body is not doing well. My body's not going to do well. It doesn't have what it needs.
Challaine (26:05)
Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (26:23)
So I really think we are much better off starting by thinking, how can I get a lot more fruits and vegetables? We also need to eat proteins and fats and whole grains. think most of us benefit from eating. What we're not eating enough of, almost all of us is vegetables and an awful lot of people are not eating enough fruit either to be really healthy. So the advice I give is based on looking in the research and seeing
what things keep predicting great results for weight loss, for lasting weight loss, what things keep predicting great results for diabetes, for blood sugar and blood pressure, et cetera. And so I think I understand why the things work, but the most important thing is this works, right? Let's do something that we know works.
Challaine (27:09)
Which works long term, not just this quick fit. Say I'm going to the beach and need to lose 20 pounds because you don't want to gain that 20 pounds when you get home, right?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (27:10)
Long term.
Yes. Yes.
Right. Yeah. I always remember
the biggest loser study where they lost a lot of weight. had coaches, had financial motivation, they had so many things that they were doing, but almost all of them gained the weight back and their metabolism never recovered. Like their metabolism was now defending their weight, defending their fat. So that's where we can end up. I don't encourage my clients to do intermittent fasting because they start getting hungry.
And that becomes a painful situation to manage. So what we find is if we focus on eating enough nutritious foods, we don't feel hungry between meals. We feel energized and we only get hungry when it's time to eat again. And we lose weight predictably, reliably week after week, month after month.
Challaine (28:09)
And I think like, correct me if I'm wrong, doctor, would like to me it makes sense because a lot of people, myself included, like we think of deprivation, right? Like I can't have this, I can't have this. But would it not be a good idea to start adding these nutritious foods? Sure, have your cake before bed, but did you have your apple and your banana and your zucchini throughout the day, right?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (28:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes!
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.
Challaine (28:39)
And then it's like once we can start feeling the benefits of this healthy food that's going in that's sustaining us. I know when I've been on diets before when I just start eating healthy, I didn't want the other crap. Like it just switched, right? And I have a very addictive personality and I've talked about this on the show. And like I'll go in like
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (28:45)
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Challaine (29:08)
waves of my addictions, right? Never going back to alcohol, like that one's gone. But chocolate, chips, or ice cream, right? And I do that, they're drugs, like I do those drugs, I guess, for a while, and then switch to the next one. But to really like get a grip of it, it's probably because I'm not eating as I should. Then I won't be craving the crap food because I'm satiated.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (29:10)
Yeah, right. Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Challaine (29:36)
not only from like a hunger standpoint, but from a nutritional standpoint. Because when we're not nutritionally satiated, we like, we seek out. Yeah, yeah. I get ravenous over that damn ice cream. It's so true. Like don't touch it. This is not a two spoon bowl, right? I'm not sharing.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (29:40)
Right.
We get ravenous. Yeah. We get driven. Yes. Yes.
Right. And
I think you're right that it's at least two things. One is, I nourishing my body enough or is it just going to keep feeling hungry? And that is a matter of how our hormones function. It's not just psychological, it's biological. The other piece is an addiction reaction. So I really noticed my fear and my attachment to my wine and my chocolate and certain things was excessive. I started going, you know, this looks like addiction, Ginny.
I think this is addiction. instead of defending those foods and striving to hold onto them, maybe I won't have cravings anymore if I cut them out. Like if it's addiction, I don't want to try to moderate it. I did that for years and years and years. I'm just going to have a little chocolate. Okay, I'm to have the rest of the chocolate, but tomorrow I'm not having any, you know, it's like observe your behavior because this is the sign. This is something hurting you. It's something stealing your choices from you.
Challaine (30:42)
Yeah.
What are
your thoughts on food journals?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (30:53)
I think it's a good idea. So one thing we know, the way I think of food journals is it's a way of being honest with yourself. We tend to fool ourselves. I have this story about a friend here that I went to the beach with for five days and I had told her, I don't eat tortillas, but let me know if you want to get some. She said, I don't eat tortillas either. And every single meal she had tortillas. And so it just was, and she's a smart, thoughtful person, an educated person.
we fool ourselves. Like, so if I like it and it feels very normal to me, I'm going to say, well, I didn't really count that. I'm not really going to count that. I don't really have that. Right.
Challaine (31:34)
and you talked about history, like looking at the history, right? And if we don't have like tangible data, like within like a food journal to look back on, then we don't know what to change because let's be honest, do you remember what you have? Maybe you do, but most people don't remember what they had for supper three nights ago. So how can you recognize your food patterns if you can't look at your food patterns?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (31:41)
Right.
Yes. Right. Exactly.
Right. Right.
Absolutely. You don't know what to change. You're just kind of fiddling around the edges. Yeah. So in evidence-based practices, we want to end up writing everything out in a manual. So here's what we do. And we know we're following this evidence-based practice. And that's good because we know it works. So the same thing with, I discovered very clear principles for how to eat very clear quantities. Like if I eat this much vegetables, I'm going to get rid of hunger and cravings, right? So when I'm following that, I know it's working.
Challaine (32:04)
Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (32:32)
When I'm not counting anything anymore and my results are changing, I'm starting to get hungry again, I'm starting to get cravings, then it's time to get, okay, let's get honest again. What are you eating? Right? Yeah, it doesn't serve us to keep everything real vague. I always say vagueness is the enemy of results. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm recording.
Challaine (32:51)
Vague is vague. You have no concrete data, right? Yeah.
So I am 39 and I will be 40 in May. So what do I have to look forward to in the changes in my body, in my mind, if I just continue, like you don't really know what I eat day to day, but I feel good.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (33:02)
Happy birthday.
Mm.
Challaine (33:20)
Like I don't feel like I did 15 years ago when I was in the gym every day. Like my life has certainly changed. But just from like an, not an evolution standpoint, but just from maybe a growth standpoint, an aging standpoint, what are like the signs? Cause like 50, 50 is a number people are fricking scared of. So what are the signs that I have to look forward to or not really look forward to?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (33:23)
Right. Yeah.
You
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Challaine (33:47)
in my body, like what do I need to start watching out for now, today, not in the future? What can I start doing today?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (33:57)
Okay, those are two different questions. What might happen to your body as you go through the hormone changes is one, what do I do now to maximize, to optimize the situation? Like, yeah, I went through menopause early because I had been doing fertility treatments and it was like, bam, menopause. And so I started having hot flashes. I started gaining weight without reason, right? I started feeling totally weird. Like my body doesn't work at all the way it's worked.
Challaine (34:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (34:26)
started having sleep problems, right? Brain fog. So what happens when we start losing estrogen is our brain gets vulnerable. So it's a big protective factor for our brain, for our hearts, for our bones. So I was getting away with eating my best version of, know, I eat pretty healthy and then I indulge over here and over there until menopause. And then it was like that you're not getting away with this anymore because that protective factor is gone.
And all of a sudden my body felt like it doesn't work right. It just, yes, yeah. So my body really started letting me know we're breaking down. We're starting to break down. And when I finally figured out how to change my eating and got committed to it, then it's quit acting like we're breaking down. so when we give our body, like nutrition is the number one thing we can do to change things.
Challaine (34:59)
estrogen being the protecting factor.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (35:23)
If you look at the contributors to disease, like exercise is in there at something like 3%, but diet is something like 30 % contribution. It's a giant contribution. If you're not giving your body the nutrition it needs, it can't repair the way it's supposed to. Like the dead...
Challaine (35:41)
And we can
control this. We have 100 % control of what we put in our bodies.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (35:45)
Most of, a lot of us, yeah,
those of us who are living in the Western world who have access to real food still, yeah, we can change that. But we need to be clear and we need to be committed because the food environment that's around us feels normal and it's tasty and it's addictive and it's convenient. So it doesn't, it's not gonna happen by accident, right? We're gonna have to be intentional about how we eat. Yeah.
Challaine (35:50)
for sure. Yeah.
stop shooting all over ourselves.
When I heard that I was just like I'm using that like for forever.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (36:15)
Yeah.
So, I mean, I would really love to encourage women in their 30s and 40s really start ramping up vegetables and fruits. Like, when I started looking at the research, I was seeing things like you should be eating a pound of vegetables a day. That cuts your risk of cancer in half. I was like, that just sounds mean. I don't want to do that. Like, where will the snacky things fit if I eat that many vegetables, right? And so
Challaine (36:38)
Yeah. Yeah. And looks like
you're getting into fear just right there. Where am I going to get these snacky things, right? Like, fear can be so controlling.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (36:46)
Yes, I was. It
was an attachment. yeah, mean, my psychologist training, once I got like, you need to change this. It did help me. Okay, feel that fear. That looks like an addiction response. Like reassure the primitive brain, we're just eating healthy. We're not gonna die. Nothing terrible is happening. It's funny. Yes.
Challaine (37:05)
It's so true. Like, I'm laughing because it's so, like, simple, right? Like, you're
okay. You're just having an apple. You're just having a bowl of strawberries. Like, my goodness. Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (37:14)
Right. We're just having a great plate of salad and we can make
it taste good. So I did know I need to make sure that as I'm eating nutritious food, I'm making sure I know how to make it taste good. Otherwise, I won't be able to do it.
Challaine (37:32)
Can we talk about how eating a salad isn't going to make you skinny, just like eating a burger isn't going to make you fat? So yes, we can incorporate all these things, but you don't have to give up your burger every once in a while. You don't have to like just live fruits and veggies and grains and seeds and nuts. Like go out and go to the Chipotle or wherever you fancy and...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (37:41)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Really?
Challaine (37:59)
really enjoy that burger because it is a treat. And I heard this years ago when, I don't even know who it was, about dieting and cheat days and cheat meals. And nobody likes to be a cheater, right? Like why are we giving cheat days and cheat meals? We don't want to be cheaters, right? Like go and eat the damn burger and fricking enjoy it.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (38:02)
Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Challaine (38:29)
Right?
For like that 5 % or 10 % of the time, eat the crappy food, right? Like, in my opinion. And then, but 90 % of the time, must yourself into being in control and fueling yourself for longevity. Like if we go back to the nursing home days for you, I'm willing to bet most of those people wanted to live well into their 90s. And here they were at
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (38:32)
Yeah. huh.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well,
yes. Yeah, yeah.
Challaine (38:58)
well into their 90s. Well, exactly. And here they are
at 60, 65 and not leaving. Not leaving.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (39:04)
Right. And
being encouraged to have ice cream every day. There was an ice cream social every day. And then they started adding a happy hour on the weekends. So I do think the treat idea, and I'm interested in your 90 % number. So that became one of my big questions. Once I discovered, I know. Well, that's that vagueness thing, right? So that became very interesting to me how closely
Challaine (39:20)
I was just throwing that out there. It's not based by anything.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (39:32)
So once I find the principles and I find the quantities that add up to these dramatic results, how closely do I need to follow this long-term, right? And there was some research that pointed me to 94%. It's very interesting. It sounds really scary. it's not about, so in evidence-based practices, we study the concept of fidelity. So if I've got a intervention that works over here,
Challaine (39:46)
Hey.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (40:01)
and then 50 other people replicated around the country, what are the principles that make it work? And how high do you, how close do you have to follow it to get the results? So that's the approach I took to the eating. Yeah. And whether I'm going to let myself have treats or not, I'm just really avoiding that term because it tends to mean this is something that's harmful for me, but I'm having it anyway. Yeah. And I...
Challaine (40:11)
Okay.
that you're doing something bad. Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (40:28)
I had this idea, I would hear this, deserve this phrase. I deserve it. And I started catching that I only say this about things that are harmful for me. And I don't want to say I deserve this thing that's harmful for me anymore. It's a very popular idea in our culture. I just want to eat healthy food and make food like this, food and drink and weight, just a small issue in my life, just a non-issue because it was taking way too much of my life.
Challaine (40:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Absolutely. I want to ask you a question. It may be a sensitive topic and you may not have the answer that I'm hoping for. But here we go. When, if you think back to the nursing home days, was there anyone that, and I have a point to this question, was there anyone that you were able to help in a sense nutritionally where they did feel better?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (41:08)
Yeah.
Challaine (41:26)
were reduced on their meds. They did have reduced inflammation. They were able to move.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (41:33)
No, they don't have control over their food. Yeah, they're in an institutional setting. And so the food that's being prepared, it's the most convenient, fast and tasty. It is not designed to be highly nutritious.
Challaine (41:34)
And this leads me to.
So my point is to asking this question and I figured that's the way you were going to answer was it was too late. It's too late and we don't want to get to it's too late.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (41:55)
It's too late.
Exactly. Yeah, that's why I love talking to people in your age group. You don't have to wait until things have gotten worse and worse and worse. Right? You can just learn to eat in a way that humans should be eating, like food.
Challaine (42:17)
Yeah. I want to shift this a little bit to your first book. Your first book. Let me, because I have a three-year-old and a two-year-old. I've got older ones as well, but let me do it myself. Secrets for raising a capable, confident, and considerate toddler. I don't know when you came out with this book, but I want to pick your brain a little bit. And I'm...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (42:25)
Yeah, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Challaine (42:44)
I don't know what you knew about nutrition when you wrote the book, but maybe you can add it in now about nutrition and how it actually like it impacts the child that you're raising. We're hearing so much about, I don't know if it's FCD or FDC number four, like the red dyes and like, I don't know, that's just what's coming to my mind. Like the red dyes and the food colourings and the...
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (42:48)
Hmm.
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Challaine (43:15)
the corn syrup, like all these things that we're just feeding our children. Here's, what are they? Not gummy bears, but fruit snacks, right? What the hell is a fruit snack? You know what I mean? Yeah, and like when we think of eat natural and eat from the earth, I've never seen a fruit snack tree. Have you seen a fruit snack tree? Because I certainly haven't.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (43:25)
yeah. Not rude.
Yeah.
Right. I don't think they grow
on trees.
Challaine (43:43)
Yeah, exactly.
And to be honest, I'm guilty of it. I try to feed my children as nutritionally as possible, but some days I will buy fruit snacks and just go get some fucking fruit snacks. that's just, I do it, right? But having toddlers and feeding them properly, or no, let's go this way, feeding them improperly and having them,
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (43:48)
Yeah!
Yes.
Yeah.
Challaine (44:12)
ingest this poison, what are like the short-term effects that are prevalent? Like what comes to mind for me is the rampant, I don't know how do you say, rampantness of ADD, ADHD, like these neuro, like because we're just poisoning. What's your take on this?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (44:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, think there's pretty good evidence that that's making a difference for conditions like ADD and possibly other neurological kinds of conditions. The reason I had to write that book is I saw children, I was running a Montessori school and I discovered that one and two and three year olds were more capable than as a child psychologist, I thought four and five year olds could be. Like they were serving each other.
healthy foods at their lunches, they were singing, they were enjoying nutritious foods. Their parents would come in and say, he's not gonna eat that quinoa, you're gonna have to give him chicken nuggets. They were absolutely happy and thrilled to eat nutritious foods. And it made it possible for them to be like ready to learn all day and learn in a self-directed way and be considerate with each other. yeah, it was amazing. I was in tears watching.
how considerate and capable these children were at one and two years old.
Challaine (45:36)
How can we,
sorry, how can we help support moms and dads or caregivers who truly have those children who will not eat quinoa, who will not eat the carrots and they're being served, but they go onto the table and then they come off the table. How, like, how can we help these parents? Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (45:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let them get hungry. I mean,
they're human, they're animals, they're going to eat if they get hungry. Don't just give, if you give them the most highly palatable thing in place of the nutritious thing that requires more chewing and right. Yes, of course they're going to want the more highly palatable thing. You're the one as the adult that has to know that's harmful as opposed to this thing that's beneficial. My job is to put food in front of the child, nutritious food.
give a little bit of thought to what they like and what they're creeped out by, you know, because that's an issue with toddlers. But it doesn't mean you default to putting highly palatable, destructive kinds of foods in front of them.
Challaine (46:37)
I love that, just black and white. Yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (46:39)
It's pretty black and white. Yeah.
Your job is not to make them eat and getting really super concerned about that is not beneficial. Like make sure their food.
Challaine (46:50)
Yeah,
yeah, exactly. This side topic for a second, it reminds me of laundry. is my job, totally side topic here. It is my job to ensure that you have clean clothes, but it is not my job to ensure that they're folded and put away nicely. And I heard this on the Mel Robbins podcast. She had a guest on about moms who are just like trying to be perfect all the time and get the laundry done and this and that, blah, blah, I had no problem doing laundry.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (47:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Challaine (47:18)
throw it in the wash, put it in the dryer, throw it in a bin, whatever, folding it and putting it away, like that's a whole other ball game, right? So it is my job to ensure you have clean clothes, but it is not my job to consistently fold them, put them away. You're just gonna, when you grab your shirt, my daughter's three, she's just gonna pull it out of the drawer anyways, right? So it really doesn't matter. But to tie that back into the food, it is my job to ensure my children have healthy food put in front of them.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (47:25)
Yeah
Yeah.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Challaine (47:48)
It is not
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (47:48)
Yeah.
Challaine (47:49)
my job to ensure that they have access to poisonous foods, poisonous foods.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (47:54)
Right. Or even
that they eat, like if, you know, they're the ones that get to choose whether they're hungry or not. Yeah. I mean, I would put three meals a day in front of them and, you know, if they don't eat at the second meal, cause they want the highly palatable stuff, you're the adult. Like just let them get hungry. They're not going to die between lunch and dinner of starvation.
Challaine (48:09)
They'll eat at the third.
They think they are. They totally think they are.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (48:17)
Yeah, it starts
to get painful. That becomes a motivator. Maybe I need to eat next time. Yeah.
Challaine (48:20)
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on, I think I know the answer, but there's a debate about it, inorganic versus organic food and the cost of organic food and like, you're just paying for the label and blah, blah. And so what are, like, what are your thoughts? What's the research say inorganic or just traditional?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (48:32)
yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I like to distinguish between, found these four principles that predictably and reliably add up to results. And you can ask questions that are on the periphery that may be important. They may be important for you or may not. I think organic probably matters, but living in Mexico, I don't actually know where I can get organic food. What I do know is I need to the vegetables anyway. I need to eat vegetables. It makes this giant difference for my health.
Does that help? Like, I think it probably matters for some people, gluten-free matters. There's almost hundreds of these questions, right? So for me, what's super important is having these four principles I always go back to and everything else is peripheral. If I start getting distracted by dozens of other things and blow off these four principles, then my results go away. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (49:15)
Yeah.
Hey, just go back to it totally does and just go back to the foundation the the four
four principles What are say them? What are they? What are these four principles? You're not telling okay. No fair enough Yeah, if you if we want to know about these four principles, then you got to work with dr. Ginny like for sure
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (49:44)
Yeah.
I'm not telling! No. No!
I just
create, mean, it's coming out in my book. It just, the reason I get weird about it is people go, okay, I agree with that. I don't like that. And they just treat them like tips and they're not, they go together. And when you put them together, it's life-changing, but it starts with eating abundant nutritious foods.
And also, well, you because you referred to this one, eat meals and not snacks. So I know the
Challaine (50:18)
like that.
Should we be doing breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Or is it, like, should we do the three meals or have the six smaller meals during the day?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (50:29)
Yes.
I don't, the evidence I see, so this becomes one of the top four principles is we benefit from eating three times a day and eating an abundant amount of food three times a day, like abundant nutritious foods. Yeah.
Challaine (50:47)
Yes, yes, that pound
of broccoli split over, like you could have an omelet with broccoli in it, like chop it up, right, in your breakfast, and then you could have broccoli for lunch and broccoli for supper, and just like switch it up, yeah.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (50:56)
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.
Yes, yeah.
I like to find at least like nine vegetables you know you like and ways you like them prepared and then switch them when you need to. Like I was really madly in love with roasted cauliflower with curry powder for a while. And then I hit a wall with it and went, I don't like that anymore. And I needed something else.
Challaine (51:25)
I had a craving and it was so weird. For Brussels sprouts the other day, I was making Brussels sprouts for supper and I was like, I have to have one now. And I was like, gonna go for a raw Brussels sprout. I thought better against it, but yeah, like I was like, what? This is a good problem to have, I guess, is craving. No, no, no. And for a tip for those who are listening and maybe for even for yourself.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (51:27)
I love Brussels sprouts.
Yeah.
Yes.
And you're not pregnant, are you?
Challaine (51:53)
If we don't know what to make but we have all the things I've used this before I will just type in what like Google it we talked to yeah, just type it in I have carrots broccoli Zucchini and onions right and you're like, okay. Well, what the hell can I make with this Google it? What what can you make with that and you can it will tell you what you can make whether a bake like or casserole or
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (51:56)
Yeah.
yes. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Challaine (52:20)
casserole or a soup or a wrap or something like that. So
take what you have in your fridge and Google it and see what you can come up with.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (52:30)
And it
can feel good. It can feel like I'm skilled at this. I can figure out nutritious foods. that's one of things. Right.
Challaine (52:34)
Exactly!
And then you're not being wasteful, right? Like you
have the intent, you're setting the intention. I'm going to the grocery store, I'm getting the carrots, I'm getting the zucchini, I'm getting whatever. And then you're just paying to throw it into your compost or into your garbage because you don't actually use it.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (52:43)
Right.
Right.
Yeah, we don't do that anymore. We're eating so much of those things. It's more like, it's been two days, I need to go back to the store, the produce stand and get more vegetables.
Challaine (52:59)
Yeah,
like they say knowledge is power. No, it's the application of the knowledge that is power. So we can know until we're blue in the face that we need to be eating our fruits and veggies. But if we don't actually apply that knowledge, then it just like it's, you're done. You're done.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (53:03)
Yes. Yeah, right. Right. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah,
we have to develop what I think people don't realize is even if you had all the answers, if I give you all the answers in this book, it now requires developing some skills. Okay, how am I going to eat that much? Like I went to a coach for a year, help me figure out how to eat this much vegetables because I really see the research says it makes a difference. She's like, okay, let's work on that.
Challaine (53:40)
If you want to change your life and your body, you literally have to change your life and your body, right? Like you have to take action.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (53:49)
Well, and the good thing is, it's easier and easier because people have been dieting, they feel like it's going to get harder and harder. It doesn't. It gets easier and easier. It gets more and more enjoyable. It starts to roll, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (54:02)
Full circle, what did I say at the beginning of this conversation? It
was so hard to drink all that alcohol and it's so easy being sober. Dr. Ginny, thank you so much for this conversation. We're like all into it. And I hope that I can have you back on the show down the road and just, yeah, like such a cool conversation that we've had today. So thank you for taking the time and the name of your book, when is it coming out and how can people get ahold of you?
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (54:08)
Yes, it really was.
Thank you.
Love it.
Yeah.
Slender for good after 50, eat more, stress less, and never diet again. Right now it's in the editing process, so I expect it to be published and available in about a month, about the middle of March.
Challaine (54:47)
And I hope
all the greatest success for you with this book and that it just it just helps so many people, right? At the end of the day just to be able to serve and and help people and I hope that we have helped some people today with our conversation. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Let's Have a Chat and until next time I hope you have the best day ever. Bye for now.
Dr. Ginny Trierweiler (54:50)
Okay.
Yeah.
Bye.