High on Life – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode is a follow-up to episode 116 “Am I Overeating? (Probably)”

Topics covered today:

1. Environmental and social triggers for overeating
2.  Practical strategies to overcome overeating

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Join my Weight Loss Coaching Program for women, Best Weight https://www.sashahighmd.com/bestweight

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Ontario OHIP-covered Obesity Medicine https://www.highmetabolicclinic.com

• Mindless Eating: Eating without paying attention, such as snacking while watching TV. This can lead to consuming more calories than intended.
• Comfort Eating: Eating in response to emotions like stress, sadness, or boredom. Often involves cravings for high-calorie comfort foods.
• Social Eating: Overeating in social situations due to peer pressure, availability of food, or cultural norms.
• Habitual Overeating: Eating more than necessary out of habit, such as always finishing your plate even when you’re full.
• Binge Eating

FOLLOW SASHA

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sashahighmd/

Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@sashahighmd

WORK WITH ME 

Join my Weight Loss Coaching Program for women, Best Weight https://www.sashahighmd.com/bestweight

Recover Strong for Binge Eating - https://www.sashahighmd.com/bed

Ontario OHIP-covered Obesity Medicine https://www.highmetabolicclinic.com

Is it better to buy organic meat for weight loss?

Should you avoid seed oils and eat gluten-free?

Is there value in eating to your menstrual cycles?

I cover these questions on today’s podcast. I discuss how easy it is for us to fixate on solutions that don’t actually fix the problem we’re trying to solve.

I’ll share why I believe none of that truly matters for weight loss and what you should focus on instead.

FOLLOW 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sashahighmd/

Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@sashahighmd

WORK WITH ME 

Join my Weight Loss Coaching Program for women, Best Weight https://www.sashahighmd.com/bestweight

Recover Strong for Binge Eating - https://www.sashahighmd.com/bed

Ontario OHIP-covered Obesity Medicine https://www.highmetabolicclinic.com

In this week’s episode of the podcast, we hear from Jennifer N. An inspirational client who has been with the High Metabolic Clinic for over 2 years, has lost over 100 lbs and maintained it, and overcome binge eating.

We talk about:

• Her initial reluctance to accept that her weight issues were not about the food or finding the right diet
• It was about getting to the root of why she was overeating in the first place
• Her successful 100 lbs weight loss and how she has maintained that for nearly 2 years
• Her journey of self discovery and Thought Work to get to the root of her decades-long struggle with her body and eating behaviours

Jennifer is a working professional mother of two. Professionally, she holds a government position in disability management. She is active in her community, volunteering for a variety of community groups. She is kept quite busy with her two children and menagerie of pets. Jennifer is fueled by caffeine, books and humor.

We all know we should sleep more… But somehow it just doesn’t seem all thaaaaat important at 10pm when you have emails to catch up on, Instagram Reels to peruse, or Netflix to binge.

 What’s the deal? Why is sleep important and how can we get better at it?

 In this week’s episode of the High on Life podcast, I interview Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown, assistant professor of pediatrics, board-certified pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician. She helps children sleep better and breathe better and by extension, she helps improve the sleep of their parents.

 In addition to teaching and seeing patients, Dr. Brown is a speaker and writer and the founder of Restful Sleep MD

 She is passionate about educating and empowering busy women and their children on the importance of prioritizing sleep to achieve their optimal health and live to their fullest potential.

 What we cover:

• Effect of poor sleep on general and metabolic health
• Strategies and mindset to prioritize sleep
• Does not dreaming mean you aren’t getting deep sleep?
• How to overcome Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
• The importance of routine and consistency

 You can find Dr. Brown at www.restfulsleepmd.com/ and on Instagram @restfulsleepMD

Listen in to my interview with Dr. Ali Zentner, Obesity Medicine Physician and Medical Director of the Revolution Medical Clinic in Vancouver.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The history of obesity medicine in Canada
• The origins of weight bias and fat shaming
• The need to come up with new language around obesity, “adiposity”, “weight loss”
• What we can do to recognize our own bias

Dr. Zentner is one of the pioneers in the field of Obesity Medicine in Canada and a strong voice for patient advocacy and ending fat-shaming.

Dr. Zentner completed medical school at McMaster University, then Internal Medicine Residency with an extra year of Cardiology training at the University of Calgary. She is a Diplomat of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. Dr. Zentner founded the Southern Alberta Obesity Clinic in 2001. In 2004, she moved to Vancouver and established her own community based practice in West Vancouver focusing on obesity and cardiometabolic risk management. She has become a national leader in the field.

In 2015, Dr. Zentner became the Medical Director of the Vancouver Island Bariatric Program and built the program into a multidisciplinary bariatric program which now supervises the bariatric surgeries of over 200 patients annually. After three years as director she moved on to establish a similar bariatric program within Fraser Health region.

Dr. Zentner is the author of the book The Weight Loss Prescription: A Doctor’s Guide to Permanent Weight Reduction and Better Health for Life. (Penguin Canada, 2013).

Dr. Zentner is also an avid runner and triathlete. In 2011 she gave up her car and now commutes everywhere by bicycle or on foot. She can be seen walking the Arbutus Greenway every morning and evening on her way to and from work….. walking all the way.

Check out the video of our conversation at https://youtu.be/6ZnAz6sE7BQ.

Today’s episode of the podcast was inspired by a Facebook thread in a women physician’s Facebook group exploring:

• Is obesity a real disease?
• Does labelling it a disease alleviate or promote fat-shaming?
• What language should we use to describe obesity? Fat person? Larger-bodied?

 The bottom line is there really is no consensus. Today’s episode is an effort to piece some thoughts together and to initiate reflection and discussion around a complex issue.

 We cover:

• The medical community’s definition of obesity
• Language used to describe adiposity (fat, obese, larger, heavy, obesity, big-bodied)
• The Health At Every Size (HAES) movement
• Body size does not equate to health.
• The root of fat-shaming and how we can all do better

 To quote a colleague: instead of focusing on making fat people thinner, we should focus on making all people – thin or fat - healthier.

 We all need to stop fat-shaming and just support one another in living our best lives emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically.

 Join the conversation on my Instagram @sashahighmd and let me know your thoughts!

I believe that each and every one of us is destined to live an abundant, full, rich and meaningful life, a life of influence and impact – where we leave the world a better place.

And yet, this is the exception and not the norm.

So many people live their life on autopilot. Following the status quo. Generally dissatisfied but not sure why. This doesn’t have to be you!

In this week’s episode of the High on Life podcast, I talk about what it means to be great, to live a meaningful life, and how you can break out of the mold to do it too.

Premises we explore:

• The gap between the values you embrace and the actions you take creates the dissatisfaction that you feel.
• Why we talk ourselves out of our own greatness.
• Autopilot living is stagnation. But you were born to evolve into the greatest version of you.
• When you live on purpose, you set higher standards for your life – not in a condemning way of never being enough, but in an inspiring way of asking yourself – I wonder who I can be?
• Don’t work to gain worth. Work because of your worth.
• You need to have vision and you need to know your values (Who do I want to be? What is important to me? And what do I want to do with my life?)
• We reap what we sow. Our actions generate outcomes. What life are you creating for yourself 5 years from now?

Alright friends, go and be great. The world needs you. If this inspired you, please do me a favour and share this podcast with a friend and let’s all be great together.

In this week’s Client Spotlight, I interview Tanya Bender about her journey to finally identify and overcome Food Addiction after a lifelong battle with dieting. She has successfully overcome her history of compulsive overeating to achieve sustainable weight loss by dealing with the root issues of her eating behaviours and food addiction. Tanya describes how she discovered self-respect and love, and is on a mission to share this with others. She is excited to pay it forward, share her truth, struggles, realizations and successes in the hope of helping others jump off the perpetual hamster wheel and finally be free of the excess mental and physical weight.

Tanya describes herself as a creator at heart, who could spend endless hours planning painting projects, remodeling, refinishing, stenciling, displaying outdoor seasonal porch designs, crafting wreath creations and home décor items.

She is a person of faith, a mother to my 9-year-old son and a wife to my husband of 12 years. She prefers to have quality over quantity of friends, and has never been one to have many acquaintances. By nature, she’s a “yes” person and a people pleaser.  She has had to reflect much upon this and recognize when this part of myself is doing more self-harm than good.

The beach is her sanctuary and music is her therapy.  Her life can be offset, and time-lined against an epic soundtrack.  She an avid belt it out (sing) to the steering wheel kind of person.  All too often she doesn’t recognize that the windows are see-through!  But you know what, SHE DOESN’T CARE!

Tanya can recently add to her bio that she’s an advocate of self-care and the importance of positive self-talk. This last year has been transformative and she has recognized that her story needs to be shared to help others break through the barriers they unknowingly put upon themselves when it comes to overeating, losing weight and most importantly self-respect and love.