Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been tracking your food and logging every gram of protein, carb and fat that crosses your lips, but still struggle to see results, or, worse, you're exhausted by the constant measuring and tracking, this episode is for you. My guest today has discovered that for many people, especially those caught in chronic dieting cycles, tracking macros might be masking deeper metabolic issues that no amount of precision measuring can solve. Christina McClurkin, known as your Healthy Bestie, joins me to discuss a surprisingly simple approach that's helped her clients lose stubborn fat without the mental burden of tracking macros. Whether you're burned out from tracking or simply curious about alternative approaches, this conversation will challenge you to rethink what's truly necessary for lasting fat loss results.

Philip Pape: 0:56

Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're discussing an approach to fat loss that doesn't rely on tracking every calorie or macro, something many of us in the evidence-based fitness world, myself included, might find surprising. You might think why am I talking about this on the show when I'm such a data nerd? Yet increasingly, it is relevant if we are honest with ourselves about the real underlying principles, about personalizing the experience to the individual and what it truly takes for. Recently, it is relevant if we are honest with ourselves about the real underlying principles, about personalizing the experience to the individual and what it truly takes for fat loss. So my guest today is Christina McClurkin known as your healthy bestie, that's me.

Christina McClurken: 1:35

yeah, that's you all right, I love it.

Philip Pape: 1:38

And Christina began her career as a physical therapist, specializing in geriatrics, and that gave her definitely a unique perspective on the long-term consequences of neglecting health, which many of us have probably seen with individuals in our lives as they get older. And she wanted to break free from those patterns of diet culture that she developed growing up in the 80s hey, we're from the same generation, that we are. And then she immersed herself in the science of metabolism. She developed a balanced eating blueprint the balanced eating blueprint and that's her program focused on the six pillars of sustainable weight loss, without constant measuring or tracking. So today you're going to learn how understanding blood sugar can reduce cravings and promote energy. What's missing in your fat loss journey tips you can implement today if you're looking for that more intuitive approach to nutrition that still delivers results. Christina, welcome to the show.

Christina McClurken: 2:32

Hi, philip, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Philip Pape: 2:36

And so let me just start with this right the research. The research seems to show that tracking calories and macros improves your outcomes and maintaining your results. If so, why would anyone not want to track?

Christina McClurken: 2:48

Oh, my goodness, wow, do we have a whole hour for this? Yeah, I think there's. First of all, there's research to support just about anything and everything. Right, whether you or I agree with it or not, I think that that is something that we can agree on, right, that there's lots of research.

Christina McClurken: 3:04

I am a big scientific nerd myself and I am all about N of one, meaning you need to be an experiment of your own one person, because whatever the research says, it may work for you and it may not.

Christina McClurken: 3:17

So I gosh I can't remember whose quote it was I heard, but it was said just let research refine your approach, but not define your approach, because we can kind of lose ourselves in the weeds if we're constantly following the research, because you could be jumping ship every two days on a new weight loss approach.

Christina McClurken: 3:32

So, you know, I find, as like you said, a female especially who grew up in the eighties and I always like to say diet culture is basically part of our DNA, right, when we grow up, then it's just kind of built into the hard wiring.

Christina McClurken: 3:45

There is a part of our DNA, right, when we grow up, then it's just kind of built into the hardwiring. There is a lot of negative connotation and stress and emotional weight no pun intended that comes along with constantly looking at your food as in a calorie or a macro or a point or a container or whatever way you want to look at it. So while it may be helpful for some to know numbers and to do that, it may not be helpful for some, and that is part of what I found for myself for a period of time in my life and for a lot of women that I coach. And I say a period of time in my life because, now that I've healed my relationship with food, I'm okay counting numbers if I need to for periods of time. But I think we have to honor each individual and where they're coming from in their journey. And, as you and I both know, stress is a big impediment to weight loss. So if stress comes from numbers, we have to find a way to work around that too.

Philip Pape: 4:37

Yeah, beautifully said and, honestly, I agree with everything you're saying and we're not going to be arguing today, trust me. Yeah, some we're not going to be arguing today, trust me, yeah, it's. Some of this is around the language and also where people are starting from and what we mean by these different things. So you said N equals one, and when we say evidence-based, I think a lot of people go to scientific studies and from you and I are experienced. Evidence is you, the person, as well as the anecdotes, as well as the coaching experience. So, when we talk about tracking, there's different types of tracking, right, and I definitely want to single out calorie macro tracking, but then I also want to understand okay, so how do you help people build awareness or get over the issue that they're struggling with with some form of measurement, tracking, awareness, whatever you want to call it, because that's ultimately, I think, the principle that we're probably going for.

Christina McClurken: 5:23

Yeah, yeah, I absolutely have my clients track and I think that's ultimately, I think, the principle that we're probably going for. Yeah, yeah, I absolutely have my clients track and I think that's a big misconception. It's not that we're not tracking, but we just are not tracking numbers in that stretch of the imagination for the most part. So the way I believe my program, which formerly was called the Balanced Eating Blueprint, is now called the Metabolic Revival Method, and I did change it because it really is. You know, I think when you make put the word eating in a program, it's great.

Christina McClurken: 5:46

But nutrition is one of my six pillars, which you know. As we know, the metabolism is a holistic thing, and so I coach on what I call my six pillars of a healthy metabolism, and that is nutrition, yes, but movement, sleep, stress, gut health and mindset. Because they are pillars, they do not. I don don't call them silos because they do not exist separately, like they are pillars. And if we are, you know ourselves are a building being held up by all six. They all need to be strong, right and never in order to have a real high functioning metabolism.

Christina McClurken: 6:13

But when it comes to the nutrition pillar and we talk about food I do have my clients track, but we're like old school, literally hand tracking, and I say that because you absolutely have to bring awareness to what you're eating, right, what gets measured, gets managed and if what, I would say what we think we're doing, what we're actually doing are two different things until you go write it down. So I do have my clients track and that is our data really for a lot of things, including not just are we able to lose weight, but are we properly balancing our macronutrients, how is our energy? Are we responding well to our food? So you know, when I have my clients track, we're not just looking at the calories and the macro breakdown, we're looking at Did it keep you full and satisfied? Right Cause, that's not just about the macro composition. Did you enjoy the meal? Were you gassy, bloated, brain foggy?

Philip Pape: 7:11

after, or did you feel fueled and energized and have mental clarity, so really actually getting in touch with not only the food you're eating but how your body is uniquely responding to those things? This is great.

Christina McClurken: 7:15

So you have them track with side-by-side with each meal, those factors, right, if I've created my own tracker unique that I use inside my program, and it's not only those factors, but also I let meal timing right.

Christina McClurken: 7:25

So I want to know when you ate. I want to know why you ate, whether that was actual hunger or sometimes obviously we eat out of, not out of hunger, right, this world would not have a problem if we only ate when we were hungry. But you know what, sometimes we eat for schedule, right. Sometimes it's we had breakfast at eight and we're not really hungry at 11, but we've got a meeting midday and we won't have a chance to eat till three. So sometimes we actually should eat for a scheduling purpose, right. So we're looking at all of that sort of stuff. So I track what they're having when they're having a time of day for meal timing, the mood they're in when they're having it right, because we shouldn't eat in a stressed state and then, yes, how they feel after, whether they feel full, satisfied, energized, mental clarity or bloated, gassy, brain, foggy, tired, need a nap, that kind of stuff.

Philip Pape: 8:08

And how would you compare that to? So, when people think of tracking and you mentioned how it's stressful, it's overwhelming or it's obsessive or whatever the word is where most people think of an app a food tracking app, a food logging app right, and I agree that many of those apps are just terribly designed as well, and they're also they're good at shaming you when you don't hit targets and things like that. How much of that is part of the problem versus if you know. If your hand tracking was an app, would that be like the best a good food tracking app, yeah, yeah.

Christina McClurken: 8:38

I think one of the challenges that I find with apps like MyFitnessPal, I use chronometer with my clients who are tracking so we can see nutrient density and everything. But I think part of the problem is is that as soon as we throw an number, even if you tell someone not to look at the numbers, and soon as we throw numbers in there, a lot of people have these again, especially if you've come from I work with a lot of women right of my age group so who come from diet culture. They see a number of grams of carbs that must be too much, right, there's automatically this I feel like dieting has rid women in particular of their self-trust and they can't feel like they can't trust their body to know. None of my clients, when they come in, are barely ever in touch with their hunger cues. Right, it's externally driven like well, this is an appropriate number or portion or size. But if you took two people and ask them that like right, it's completely different depending on what preconceived notions they come in with.

Christina McClurken: 9:33

So I just find that sometimes, sometimes the visible numbers are helpful for people and I'm all about using when they are oftentimes in the initial stages, when women have been tracking by calories or macros or something for a long time. They're so swayed by those that it's hard to get in touch with their own hunger cues, satiety cues, relationship with food issues. So I find that removing those numbers for a period of time can be helpful to actually get them back into touch. Like why am I eating? Am I actually hungry for this? Am I trying to hit a number Right? Those sorts of things.

Philip Pape: 10:07

That makes a lot of sense, because these things can be a distraction, right? They're like this short-term metric that, honestly, is meaningless in the moment until it's taken in context and connected to something else. And I wonder so, how do you feel about the scale? Because that's another controversial area where one of my struggles with clients is. You know, we want to have data over time, but I also don't want them to even care what's happening day to day because it fluctuates so much. What are your thoughts on that?

Christina McClurken: 10:30

Yeah, so I do and again, very individual with my clients. In general, I do recommend use of the scale on a daily basis and part of the reason is to actually decrease that emotional attachment to it. So, you know, I show them graphs over time and really explain that it we do have to zoom out right. This is this is not day to day that we're looking for. We're looking for week to week averages and even as a female if I have females that are still cycling, we're look. We're not, you know, a male you could compare average week one to two to three to four to five women I'm looking at, you know, period week of month one to period, week of month two. Pms week of month one to two. What are those sways?

Christina McClurken: 11:08

I use it again as data for them to get to know their bodies and this is also how I can teach them that there are different things that affect the scale than just what you ate, because women, when they start doing this, will learn that they could eat the same thing five days in a row and their scale is up and down and they're like what the heck?

Christina McClurken: 11:29

I must need to eat less. I'm like, no, you know, this is natural fluctuations, it can fuck me. This is why we track on our trackers also how much they slept the night before, right, what their water intake is. So it's a learning tool for me to be able to use it with them to explain that okay, you see, the scale went up. I, I must have to eat less. I see you slept three hours the night before, right, you're stressed because you have a deadline at work and your kids are this. So they start to see the correlation between these other factors and the scale and that when they start managing stress, that comes down. So it really does actually help that detach that emotion from it.

Philip Pape: 12:01

Yeah, and I'm going to put you in the same league as Holly Baxter, who I recently interviewed, and she brought up something similar with fiber. Right, how you know the intake of fiber and carbs and things can just massively change your fluid retention and thus your scale weight, but connecting to it is the key that you keep coming back to. This is like the theme. So then, if you're starting to make those connections for your hunger signals and what you eat, when you eat, when you need it, et cetera, where does a target or a goal come in?

Christina McClurken: 12:27

Yeah, well, do you mean in terms of like actual?

Philip Pape: 12:31

nutrition, what you eat, how much you eat, things like that. Like, if you have a fat loss goal, you got it.

Christina McClurken: 12:36

Yeah. So I use a plating system with my clients a visible kind of visual plate, and built into that is ensuring they're getting enough fiber and protein. So each plate should have two to three cups of veggies. Breakfast is a bonus Not everybody does that but at least lunch and dinner 30 plus grams of protein, and then the fats and the carbs are what we toggle. That's what's variable. So I always say protein and produce constant. Other ones are variables and that is where we toggle.

Christina McClurken: 13:03

So this is where a lot of women come in, and you I'm sure you see this a lot. I'm eating healthy but I'm not losing weight. Well, you can be eating healthy and maintenance. I eat. Once you get to your goal weight, I'm sure you're going to be eating healthy and maintaining Right. So when we start tracking they they under.

Christina McClurken: 13:16

I teach them about the plate, the guidelines why I'm a big fan of. If you understand why, like that, fiber helps stretch your stomach, turns off your hunger hormones, keeps you full protein. Same thing turns down your hunger hormones. So they understand why they're creating that plate the way they are and that they have the freedom and flexibility and that not every day needs to look exactly the same. I think it would be strange if we were all the exact same amount of hungry every single day, right? So it gives them that little bit of freedom.

Christina McClurken: 13:41

And then, when I look at their data again, we're going to look at like a seven day period of tracking and once we have your plates balanced and you're eating fiber, protein, fats, carbs and scale staying the same, then I say okay, what we're going to do is we're going to skim down those fats and carbs just a little bit off every meal and, for example, that can look like taking a half a cup of rice down to a third a cup, like a half an avocado down to a quarter of an avocado, and then they can still keep the same flavor profile of their meals.

Christina McClurken: 14:10

Right, it tastes the same because we're going to do little bits off all meals. They don't even really notice a difference. And it's a very easy way to put someone into a calorie deficit without them feeling like they have to remove their favorite foods or, you know, leave things out, or I feel like they have to measure it down to the gram. And it gives them that freedom and flexibility to also just, you know, maybe there's a meal they say I don't really want the carbs here, because I'm going out to dinner, I know I'm going to have actually, you know, quite a bit more. So that's flexible like that.

Philip Pape: 14:36

I hear you. My wife's birthday is next week and I'm in a fat loss phase. So I'm thinking about I already ordered her a cake and we're going out to a nice restaurant. So you know, you got to make that work. So what's cool is that you're getting to the same behaviors through different methods, as the way I'll put it in that, like if somebody was tracking macros, what would change in a fat loss?

Philip Pape: 14:57

Well, the fats and carbs would come down, and if you're not downing with protein and fiber, you're going to get super hungry and you're not going to hold on to muscle. So you're kind of approaching it just from a different angle, which I love. What about the situation where someone the aggressiveness of the fat loss is a factor and kind of the amount somebody is hoping to lose, let's say, um, that's going to affect all of this. So there's a patient's component to this, I imagine. Like I've got 30 pounds to lose, but like you know how hungry do you want them to kind of accept, or are they doing this in a way that they're not accepting too much hunger? Or you know what's your metric for that?

Christina McClurken: 15:32

My metric for that is I tell people when we're in a weight loss phase, like your goal is to lose and again, fat loss phase, because obviously the method I use is based on fat loss, but I think my clientele tends to use the words weight loss more right is based on fat loss, but I think my clientele tends to use the words weight loss more right. But basically I tell them, if we could eat to about 80% fullness, meaning at the end of every meal, you could eat more, but you don't have to right? I think we all know that feeling where it's like, yeah, I'm not stuffed, I could eat, but I don't really have to. And so that's usually the kind of guideline I give people to go by when we're in a maintenance phase. Then we can eat till we're like we're full, right, like that meal, like I don't think I could have anymore. And again, you're not going to do that every meal of the day or you'd probably end up being in a surplus. But that's kind of how I tie into like what is it that feeling? So I don't have to rely on an external number to know I'm in a deficit.

Christina McClurken: 16:20

And then the other thing is is I tell people. That's why we're looking at your weekly average weight. Guess what? If you're learning that feeling of eating to about 80% full and the scale is going down, guess what? You're in a deficit. And you didn't need to look at a number to know you're in a deficit, like we're figuring that out. Or if it's not the scale that's going down, it's your inches, right? Like that's the other thing.

Christina McClurken: 16:47

Program. This is not going to be like you went on up to be a and you dropped 20 pounds in a month, because that would be you know the incorrect way, which is why you gain it back, right. So I always say when you lose three to five pounds in my program, it's going to feel like you, like 15 in a different, because they're losing so many inches, right. So that's kind of a say like when we look at the data, if either the scale's going down or your inches are going down, we know we're in a deficit or a correct fat loss, without having to actually be like you know weighing your chicken breast.

Philip Pape: 17:14

Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense for folks who track or don't track when they've at least mastered these skills you kind of get in tune with. This is the level of hunger or fullness I have, and I know from having just having tuna on some. I actually use some low carb bread. That's one of my processed foods when I'm in fat loss. Uh, I ate that and I'm like I have an apple over here, but I'm gonna save that for my snack later Cause I'm good. You know you just kind of like good, you get used. People are hearing this and I know you want to get them ready, like you need to be ready, including the emotional side and the cravings, and some people are going to take longer than others. What are your criteria to be ready?

Christina McClurken: 17:54

Yeah. So we start, um, you know my program with what I call a priming phase and that is where for me it's all biofeedback based. So if people aren't familiar with that term, you know biofeedback is your hunger. I always say, because I work with women, like, ask yourself how is she feeling? And then it's like she S, s, h? E. So sleep, stress, hunger, energy, and you know hunger goes with cravings, energy also goes along with mood and recovery from your workout. So those are my criteria. I will.

Christina McClurken: 18:25

I will not put somebody into a attempt at fat loss or weight loss until we're sleeping well, right, stress is well managed, hunger is controlled, craving no, no outlandish cravings. Energy is good and if they are active and you know the recovering from their workouts. So really the criteria is that we learn how to balance our plates so they're eating by the meal structure, right, we're hitting protein goals, which again, at least 30 grams at the meals, but that I help everyone individually figure out what is their goal, based on whether they're looking to maintain right, their their weight loss goal, and then if, obviously it's very hard for people to get that in three meals, so then we add in strategic protein snacks, et cetera. So I have to make sure people are hitting their you know, getting enough fiber, getting their protein. They have their balance plates down. We're at a place where they're not feeling restricted, deprived, binging behavior, any of that. They're sleeping well, their energy is good.

Christina McClurken: 19:09

So if all biofeedback is good and they've learned their plate structure, then we can start that's kind of like the foundational and then we can start that kind of skimming process of skimming things down. But I, you know, I always tell women that you have to look at the whole body and the person in which you are trying to approach fat loss. Because if you're mentally ready but your life is a big stress bucket at the moment, right, dieting is a stressor, fat loss is a stressor. So I always tell people that it still might not be the right time. There's plenty of progress to be made in maintenance. So we have to look at not only you know, are your plates in order, but like what's going on in your life at the moment too, to make sure it's the right time.

Philip Pape: 19:48

Yeah, and are you? I assume there's some level of, I'll say, tolerance or flex, depending on it's like a relative improvement for the person right, or you don't want everybody to be a 10 out of 10 on everything?

Christina McClurken: 19:58

No, oh gosh, no, and yeah it. You know, and this is like you know, as a coach, and that's why there's nuance. And then the human coach you're coaching, right? That's why I say N of one, right. So there's some people that are, you know, take a little bit longer right To really kind of understand. There's other people that are just given the surface of balance in their meals and they're ready, you know. So it all kind of depends and, like I said, it depends on the dining history and how long they have. If someone came into my program and has been under eating for, you know, a decade, five years, even one year, or have come off a program like Optivia or something like that, we're going to balance their plates and build them up to like a good maintenance and learn that and stay there for a little bit, right, before we pull the trigger to skim, just like you would with anybody else, because we have to keep in mind, you know, how adapted or maladapted their metabolism is when they come into the program too.

Christina McClurken: 20:47

So that history plays into it, yep.

Philip Pape: 20:49

And again, I'm always asking for a friend on the show because my whole, our whole audience is friends. There might be people new to the show. People have no clue who I am or you are. I'm playing the idiot here as if I don't know any of this stuff, but half of it I might not, because you have your own unique approach. So blood sugar I want to. I want to touch on that because I do love this topic. I think it can get misconstrued and it could get definitely overhyped like fear mongered, but there's I talk about all the time as like a massive game changer, if you do it right. So so talk about what that means blood sugar balancing or using blood sugar as a metric to improve your food.

Christina McClurken: 21:24

Yeah, and I get a lot of with the social media world right now and everyone wearing their CGMs or continuous glucose monitors and stuff. I get a lot of questions do I need one? I'm like no, no, no, because we can tell.

Philip Pape: 21:35

If you wear one of those, it's going to tell you not to eat potatoes, right? Well, so in here, yeah.

Christina McClurken: 21:39

And then you won't. But again, I think the normal person doesn't quite know how to, you know, interpret the data. So you know, I always tell people when let's tie it into symptoms, right, someone comes to you. They're like I'm constantly hungry, I've got a lot of cravings, or I have a 2 PM energy crash, or I'm in the kitchen late at night, right. So when I, when, when we talk about balanced blood sugar versus erratic and imbalanced blood sugar, the erratic and imbalanced blood sugar is creating mood swings, energy dips, like highs and lows, cravings, hunger, so it's, that is your body's interpretation of the highs and lows of a blood sugar. I always tell people think about, like the six flags, like the biggest rollercoaster in the place, right, the highs and the lows, the ups and the downs. That's what we want to avoid. We want to be on the little kiddie roller coaster that has, like you know, it looks like a lazy river kind of thing. Because, when you know, blood sugar rises and dips are natural and when you eat food, right, it's going to change.

Christina McClurken: 22:32

But we want to avoid those high swings and lows because those are typically what's creating the primary complaints of people who are coming in struggling with nutrition and weight loss right. They have hunger they try to. They have cravings, their energy dips, they need the caffeine and the sugar at mid-afternoon. So built into the structure of my plate is keeping your blood sugar balanced right. So when we have our carbohydrates in the presence of protein and fiber right, it mitigates the effect on our blood sugar and that's what helps keep us on that kiddie roller coaster. So I really kind of I'm a big fan of you know give a man a fish he eats once. Teach a man a fish he eats for life, like I really teach women about how their body is working and how the foods they eat and in the way they which they eat them is impacting their blood sugar. I call it really food organization, not elimination.

Philip Pape: 23:19

Yeah, I love that because even how you sequence your foods in a meal can have an effect on those right, and people don't understand that. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It sounds like even just balancing your macros throughout the day could help a lot of folks who are normally jumping protein over here and then carbs over here. Where does walking, movement and even strength training fit into the blood sugar equation?

Christina McClurken: 23:40

Yeah. So movement is the second pillar of my program and that encompasses both exercise and non-exercise movement. And so you know, when it comes from the way our metabolism is broken down, our total daily energy expenditure, you know, 15% of the calories you burn comes from non-exercise movement, 5% from exercise. So the first thing I teach women is that we don't have to be stressed about not working out seven days a week, right, Because the non-exercise movement is more important when it comes to blood sugar. They both have a huge impact, right.

Christina McClurken: 24:08

So the more non-exercise movement we do, particularly timing your walks after meals and such, obviously helps balance your blood sugar, because your muscles are your biggest uptakes of glucose. So you eat a meal, you've got glucose in your blood, If you can put that to use, so go for a walk. Or if you can't go for a walk, do 50 chair squats, go up and down the stairs in your house or walk down the hall at work or whatever. You're going to be utilizing that blood, that sugar from your meal. So it's not going to be free floating in your blood and keeping your blood sugar spiked. When it comes to exercise and, of course, weightlifting is what I recommend that women are doing and everyone really is doing again, your muscles are your biggest stores of your glucose, so you will absolutely have a better blood sugar response and insulin response when you can build more lean muscle tissue and when we're exercising we actually don't need insulin to take that sugar into our blood as well, so it helps with insulin resistance and really our overall insulin sensitivity.

Philip Pape: 25:02

Yeah, I like that. I like to reframe insulin as a huge friend of ours when we lift weights. You know it's a massive friend for shuttling nutrients and stuff. Cool. So when you one other thing you mentioned was um, you know, or maybe you didn't mention this let's talk about processed foods and indulgences. Right, that's a big one, because we're big into flexibility and if people are coming to you struggling with emotional eating and you know they binge on that chocolate or they eat the baked goods or the donuts and the message is like, well, you can probably still eat those, but you know, how do we make this all work?

Christina McClurken: 25:34

Yeah, yeah. Well. So the first thing I always say is my approach is definitely a health first weight loss and health first fat loss. So I always tell women, like food quality matters, right, and not only matters for, as we know, you know, staying full and all that stuff. But it really does matter in terms of we are doing everything we're doing to promote health. I will never assist someone in weight loss. That's going to be detrimental to their health, but food quality does matter because I think this world is over obsessed with macronutrients and nobody's talking about micronutrients and it is the vitamins, the minerals, like all of those things that we need that come from our foods that are giving us that glowing skin and shiny hair and good energy and really essential for every microscopic process and cellular turnover that's going on in your body. So we can't ignore food quality.

Christina McClurken: 26:20

The way I teach women, because it is not. I think that you know when people say 80, 20, right, like that works for some people, some people like 90, 10, some 70, 30, like it's a hard thing to follow. I call and this is exactly how I teach my kids, which is a great thing, because I feel like you know, working with women that have kids. I say we have our empowered choices for food, which those are the whole foods. And then we have our sometimes foods, and that's how I call them sometimes foods, because you know, fruits, veggies, whole grains, protein, lean protein you can eat those at any meal, anytime. But the things like the cake, the cookies, the donuts, the ice cream, those are for sometimes, they're just not all the time food, and so it's a really great way for people to grasp concept. Like, yeah, I can have those sometimes and we're.

Christina McClurken: 27:03

When we're working on weight loss, I always say it's about aligning your actions with your goals, and so sometimes, if a woman has a week where, let's just say, all her meals, yes, are balanced and she's sleeping well and her stress is managed, she's doing her movement, but the scale is not moving. You know, one of the first things we do is we look back and say, well, like, how many days did you include some sometimes foods? Right, because maybe that snack is a little less favorable. Or, you know, end of the day with some wine or some ice cream, and it might be four days. I'm like, okay, well, that might be enough to put you in maintenance right now. So what if next week. We just take that down to like one or two and that's a simple way to track where they don't feel restricted and they just know okay, this is also teaching people to be intentional.

Christina McClurken: 27:38

Think ahead, look at your week. What do you have going on? Yeah, maybe there's a dinner out on Friday and you know that's the day you want your sometimes food. So Monday through Thursday you're just going to keep it pretty clean, right, and then they can see that if the scale goes down the next week, that's how they're learning their threshold of in weight loss mode. How frequently can I, you know, have some of those less than empowered choices? Okay, and then when I'm in maintenance, maybe that can be three days a week and I'm good. So it's a really nice way to help people kind of learn that like, yeah, you have that wiggle room for the fun and that sort of stuff, but we're still looking at again when we're tracking, how it's making you feel like. Did you wake up with a headache the next day? Did you feel like crap? Because then it doesn't become. I've told you you can't have anything, because I will never. I can't, it becomes. I'm choosing not to have that because I now I don't want to feel that way anymore, you know.

Philip Pape: 28:23

You're a beast at the psychology, because this is what it's all about, right, christina, like it really is, and you kind of train yourself. It sounds like if you put in place a lot of what you've talked about already, like fiber, blood sugar balance, enough protein, a lot of those tend to teach people to like those foods more anyway, and you get to. You know, I don't feel great when I go to the restaurant, or I don't feel great when I have too much of this food over here. Uh, sometimes food, so if it's more than sometimes, maybe that's that's the thing.

Christina McClurken: 28:49

Look at the frequency of it Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 28:53

All right. So you've got somebody into fat loss. They've dialed in some of these things. They're not perfect, you know 80%, like, like many of us, um, and metabolic adaptation is going to happen. Right, you're going. This is just inevitable for everybody listening, metabolism is going to decline during fallacy, even if you're doing it at a reasonable glide path. And normally somebody going through that with this history of, say, yo-yo dieting, it'd be this massive uncertainty and black hole of what's going on. And now I feel like I can't lose weight, right. So when you're working with women, they've gotten to this good state they're in fat loss. How do you deal with that?

Christina McClurken: 29:28

Uh, yeah, and again, just kind of on a case by case basis, and, as you know, it all comes with like what their dieting history was, how long they've done it, et cetera. So, uh, it let's just say two different avatars. So, for example, one woman who maybe has 80 pounds to lose, right, and she's been in a fat loss phase, weight loss phase, and she's lost about 45 of it. But you know, we're six months down the road. Uh, we take a break and that's probably one of the hardest things to convince people of, cause I think a lot of people, women, everyone thinks that it's like, from this way to go, wait is, as certainly you know, point A to point B. We're not stopping or taking a detour, but, as you know and this is where I come from educating about how their body works is that that adaptation is happening and that we do need a break for the body and also the mind. And that's the other thing is there's a level of burnout when someone has this more significant amount of weight to lose. Right To be focusing on weight loss for so long. So I tend to do that season, like on a season by season basis, right?

Christina McClurken: 30:25

So I had a lot of women who I actually had them take a maintenance break over the holidays because guess what? Maintenance is a skill. So to learn. I think so many of us come from. We're either in a in a mode of losing weight or we're gaining weight and that we don't know how to just kind of pause and maintain. So I have people, if they have a long time, a lot of weight to lose and we need to take that little break to prevent any sort of too much adaptation, that we take a maintenance break. And just how I taught you is how we analyze, you know, when we're in weight loss versus maintenance, what do they get to do? In maintenance? That can look like different for everybody. If someone likes to include more, sometimes foods, maybe that's what it looks like. If someone just wants to eat a little bit more at every meal, like even like then more nutritious fats and carbs, add those like increase a little bit right, maximize your energy, lift a little bit more right, think all this. There's so many things that can happen and it's a skill to learn how to maintain and not gain right? So we take breaks and then we resume. So I did a lot of that with people over the holidays and we resumed in January and then continued into weight loss mode and now they feel like they built that little bit of trust in themselves Like, wow, I can most people are. I used to gain five pounds over the holiday. Now I actually know how to maintain and then I can go back and lose some more and I'm refreshed for it. So I definitely incorporate breaks If someone has maybe just comes in and they only have, you know, under 20 pounds to lose.

Christina McClurken: 31:41

Oftentimes we don't need to institute that in terms of the adaptation, but sometimes we do for the psychology, like you said, the psychology piece, the mindset piece. Sometimes it can be like I've got a calendar where a month of travel for work and social events and everything and and honestly, like let's just maintain because that's what a month is a really short period of time and you can get right back out after. And sometimes that stress of trying to be focused on weight loss when food is out of your control a little bit more often we're traveling, then we don't need that added stress. So let's focus on movement, let's focus on stress management, let's focus on sleep, mindset, work and then slide back into a weight loss, fat loss mode after. So it can be seasonally, it can be situationally and again, I think it's just all embedded in that is helping women understand that they can start to trust their bodies again, that they're not going to, just like you know, turn on them.

Philip Pape: 32:29

Yeah, that confidence in physique development and or not, it's not just your physique, but you know what I mean your body, being able to control it, and control, not gaining and not just losing is really powerful because, like you said, then you could go after it with a newfound energy. I wonder how? So what about the extreme case where someone has a very over-responsive metabolism right, it drops a lot, like you know you've seen these avatars. It runs the gamut where they would just have to really eat a lot fewer calories to continue with that pace. Do you reassess and say, um, where they would just have to really eat a lot fewer calories to continue with that pace. Do you reassess and say, hey, we're going to slow down the end goal of where you're going to get to, or what Cause, even if you take a break, it's going to resume at that level?

Christina McClurken: 33:09

Yeah, I go really biofeedback based, Like I said the body will not lie to you.

Christina McClurken: 33:13

So I feel like if people, if I do start to notice, like people are telling me I have more cravings this week, or I found myself, like you know, just thinking about that ice cream in my freezer every night, those sorts of things, or gosh my workouts, I just can't, I'm sore all the time, you know. So it really kind of depends on I go by biofeedback, because that really is the language of your metabolism. I always tell you if you can learn how to speak metabolism, which is those sorts of things like, then you can kind of know. So if someone's biofeedback is all good and they're still losing weight, and even if it seems like, well, we probably should take a break. But biofeedback is fine, I don't mess with anything. Right, I don't, I don't mess with anything. It's only when I start to see biofeedback start to suffer, that then we will maybe put the pause on things until everything. Then we build that back up, get biofeedback where we want it and then resume.

Philip Pape: 34:00

Okay, cool. And when somebody takes a break? So here's where, like, our approaches are slightly different in what we track sometimes. But like one thing I like, I definitely like to calculate someone's TDEE based on their food and weight and you'll see situations where when you do take a break, they're not eating enough to fully recover. They're kind of like hovering right under there and partly it's because the skill you've given them kind of allows them to stay in that state without it feeling too bad, but it also kind of slows down that recovery. So how do you help address that? Again, is it biofeedback?

Christina McClurken: 34:30

still, yeah, no, I definitely do kind of exactly the opposite of what we do to lose like skim, fats and carbs, and you don't really notice the difference. I strategically instruct them how to add that in without really noticing like they're going to get over full right. So, oh. So I know you're feeling pretty comfortable with that. You know like half a cup of oats at breakfast and you know I don't know like one tablespoon of dressing at lunch on your salad. Why don't we actually bump that up a little bit? You know a little bit more oats, three quarters a cup, maybe put two tablespoons on. So you're not really noticing it. It's not making you feel that you're not feeling overstuffed, we're not getting digestive distress, but I know in my head that like that's a simple way to add 150, 200 calories a day without peanut butter.

Christina McClurken: 35:11

Yeah, that's what I said. I said give me a drop of peanut butter, I can crush that in like 30 seconds so I get 500 extra calories. But yeah, so that's really how I do it. It's kind of teaching them that same skill without having to look at the number. Like let's just incrementally add a little bit, nourish your body, because when we eat not enough, there's always some system of our body that's having to pull from and we don't want that right. So kind of explaining to them that, like that's again how your body's working. So we need to actually boost that back up. And that's the same method I take with them at the end, when we're kind of you know what everyone else would technically call a reverse diet. I call it like we're just going to fuel you back up. So, yeah, you feel good because your hunger hormones are controlled, but now we're going to slowly and incrementally add back in so that you don't gain.

Philip Pape: 35:50

You don't really notice it, but now we're giving your body more of what it needs Posing that loop again where you said maintenance is a skill and they'll know that, when all is said and done, they'll be able to sustain these results forever. What about? Do you use refeeds or kind of calorie cycling? Again, I know you're not tracking calories, but you said seasonally. So I assume even week to week or intro week, you might have people change their patterns.

Christina McClurken: 36:13

Yeah, yeah. And that again is, you know, I don't tend to. I don't tend to attract people who are I don't want to say attract Most of my clientele is not maybe like lifting so significantly heavy or intensely that they need these refeeds. I'm often working with more of the perimenopausal woman who needs to learn how to scale back on the intensity of the exercise and that sort of stuff. So typically with my clientele we're not really there where we need like refeed. I again am all about the more so, yeah, the mental and the physical break. So if it happens to be, you know, a weekend where there's a couple nights out or a couple nights where you just have more or whatever, like great that your body needed, that you use that, put it to use for a great workout the day after. But it's not so like strategically planned in, it's more self-guided or, like I said, I kind of use that intuition with them.

Philip Pape: 37:06

Which is consistent with it computes, and also the word refeed. All these terms we use are so uh, I don't want to say they're pretentious sometimes, but sometimes they are, like you said, reverse dieting. Um, it's funny.

Christina McClurken: 37:21

Well, I think the only reason I put that in air quotes because I always approach my program where it's not a diet, right, it's a lifestyle. But that's how I explain that is a phase of my metabolic mastery program, which is what I call stabilization, meaning we're now going to stabilize you at this new weight eating more, and it essentially is the reverse diet, which is what most people would term. You know, term it yes.

Philip Pape: 37:38

Yeah, let's talk about sleep and stress. I know you mentioned them earlier. You can lump them together, but also not there's very distinct things about them.

Philip Pape: 37:46

So there's a lot of conventional wisdom or like the same old kind of advice about both. Like for sleep, it's okay, you need a certain amount of hours of sleep, you need to do all these hacks not hacks, but you know change your environment. Ritual, sleep ritual, blah, blah, blah. And then for stress, the talk is always about sleep or stress. Um, coping mechanisms. Uh, is that the way that you frame this, or is there?

Christina McClurken: 38:10

a more targeted, practical approach for people. Yeah, when I talk about stress, I use the term stress Cause that's what you know translates to people. I really mean nervous system regulation. So you know, we, as we know, and I explained to my clients we have two arms of our nervous system sympathetic, parasympathetic, right, sympathetic is that fight or flight which most women are in from the minute they get up to the minute they go to bed. It is go mode until you hit the pillow. And then parasympathetic, that rest and digest which none of us are really accessing during the day. So you know, the way I explain it again is that that is the shift that happens with the female metabolism as we enter perimenopause is we are less stress resilient and more sensitive to stress.

Christina McClurken: 38:45

And when I say stress, it can be in all forms. A lot of people think the perceived stress like I got a deadline at work, my kids are driving me crazy, I'm playing parent Uber, I've got sports games to go to, right. But that's one form of that's perceived stress. But there is circadian stress, which is where sleep comes into the stress mix there are. There is stress from, you know, imbalanced blood sugar. That's inflammatory stress, right, there's. There's stress in our body on that. There's stress from the toxins in the food we eat and the environment we have in our cleaning products and our all of that sort of stuff. So, um, and there's stress from exercising too much, right, there's stress from moving too little. So it really is.

Christina McClurken: 39:20

When I talk about stress, it's about mitigating all forms of stress on the body as best we can. And that's where you'll hear sleep like tied into that, even though I think sleep is its own separate entity. But I really kind of am training women. When you're thinking of the perceived stress is that we're looking at nervous system regulation. So how often during the day can we activate that parasympathetic nervous system? Because when that's activated, the sympathetic is not. They cannot be going at the same time. So using simple things like breath work, right, like three squared breaths, quickest way to activate your parasympathetic nervous system grounding, you know, can be things like a guided meditation, a quick gratitude practice, a journaling. So when we're talking stress, as in the perceived stress, um, that is really how I'm talking about it. It's like let's actually talk about it as nervous system regulation. So taking out out of our stress nervous system and into our rest nervous system.

Philip Pape: 40:08

And what are your thoughts when it comes to perceived stress, if you can't change a situation right which is oftentimes true, but two different people perceive the same stressor differently, causing different internal stress in that part of the nervous system, so do you talk through that? Are there mechanisms where people can let things go when they happen to them?

Christina McClurken: 40:29

Yeah, yeah, and.

Christina McClurken: 40:30

I use a lot of. That's where it comes from. It's not about, like, everyone's perception, like you said, it's different. This is subjective, it's not objective. So it's more about you know.

Christina McClurken: 40:39

I always get that cliche saying like what happens around you is not a match for what happens within you. So it's like it's not about removing the stressors in your life. We're about mitigating the stress on your nervous system. So it might take somebody, you know, and that's some salt bath for a half hour, some legs up against the wall of meditation and 20 minutes of breathing to get over a snafu during their day, where for somebody else it might take, okay, a quick little release, like, and that's it. So that's on a person to person basis.

Christina McClurken: 41:06

It's about how, you know, I always say we have this like stress management toolbox and it's like how many tools do we need to pull out of the toolbox at any given time? And that is going to be based on your perceived amount of stress. So, um, you know, for one person it might mean like, yeah, let's just insert a little bit of midday breath work like a physiological site, and that's enough for them. For someone else, it's like well, I'm doing that, but I'm still, like you know short, with my kids craving sweets and all this stuff, then we need to add in a little bit more layers to that puzzle.

Philip Pape: 41:33

Okay, and I asked do you know Adam Badger? And he's in our group.

Christina McClurken: 41:36

Yeah, he's local to me. Actually I was on his podcast.

Philip Pape: 41:40

So he was on the show, I was on his and he was on my show and his episode will be coming out soon Probably a little before yours actually and one of his specialties seems to be helping people understand the trigger of why they react the way they do to stressors, and I just thought that was a very intriguing. Yet other helpful angle for folks, cause I was thinking of my own life, how I used to like be road rage was easy to come to me and then I, and then I had kids and I got too many speeding tickets and I started to like actually obey the speeding laws and then when I met my wife was like super kind and forgiving of people and she'd be like that guy's just having a bad day and I started to integrate that thinking just by osmosis. We're now like all this shit on the road doesn't really affect me and I'm like, well, can we train ourselves by digging into the tree? That's why I bring it up. It's just a cool. No, I love that. I'm actually reading.

Christina McClurken: 42:28

I don't know if you've ever heard of the motion code and the body code, so I just but yeah, I use a lot of you know and just pulling from my own experience because, as we were talking about the cancer card of my family before you know, when I was going through some real hard times with my sister being ill and I'm an empath and I worked in healthcare and I was working with sick patients, I was just holding everything right, like everything.

Philip Pape: 42:54

Oh, you were a vessel for everyone's emotional stress.

Christina McClurken: 43:02

And so you were a vessel for everyone's emotional stress, and so I do work with women on specific mantras and things and affirmations that can help them. So one of my favorite ones that has become now a favorite of my clients is when you're supporting people through things, I would say to myself I help but I don't hold. I'm helping you but I'm not holding this energy. Or I care but I don't carry. I care about you but I'm not carrying this as something that's happening to me or you, but I'm not carrying this as like something that's happening to me. And or deep breaths, like you know, inhaling, saying I release and a big, open mouth exhale, I let go.

Christina McClurken: 43:23

So I really use kind of strategic things and mantras because, as we know, those have to like, resonate with you, to use, but like for each individual and whatever they're going through. And this is why coaching is coaching right, it's not a transfer of information, it's not just I manage your stress and get seven, eight hours of sleep. It's like let's actually dig into your own stressors and what will help you around that. So, yeah, I definitely believe there is a nuance to all of that, depending on the person, depending on how they react in response to certain things, and then what tools I can give them to help them manage that on their own. Got it.

Berkeley: 44:02

Hello, I am Berkeley and I wanted to give a huge thank you to Philip of Wits and Weights. He has helped me so much, gave me a completely free 30 minute call where he answered all of my questions, gave lots of great insight into programming and nutrition. All of his content is really wonderful and he has a great Facebook group that is supportive and informational. He has tons of free resources that I really really enjoy and they're all super science-based. What I really love about Philip is that he always updates his guides and he makes time to answer any questions, even though I am not currently a paying client. He really has helped me so much and I'm just so grateful.

Philip Pape: 44:49

All right. So there's something you like to talk about that is also very popular now and the research is still being developed. It's gut health, right. Well, I want to talk about that because it's one of your pillars, it's like a whole pillar, right, and that's important because I used to be kind of skeptical. This is like two years ago. I was just getting into coaching, like what is this? But it's powerful. Tell us why it's so important to everything.

Christina McClurken: 45:11

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you'll hear a lot of those terms Like the gut is the second brain. I actually kind of think of it as like the first brain. You know it's not just brain communicating down to the gut, it is absolutely the other way around as well. So you know the gut brain access is very for real. So, psychologically, what's going on with us will affect our gut. What's going on our gut will affect us psychologically. So when we, you know our gut, if you think of it as this, you know the microbiome, right, this big series of all these little microbes in there. You know they're all feeding off of what we put in our body, right, and if they're not healthy, then we could be eating all the healthy food in the world and not absorbing those nutrients, right, and so and there's a lot of women who are coming from a place of, yeah, completely eliminating food groups, right, and if you're eliminating an entire food group, the microbes that like to feed off, that will die off until you start to feed them again. There's people that might be coming from something like Optivia, eating a lot of highly processed foods. Right, your body's not getting nourished, it's not getting the nutrients that it needs and it cannot translate those to you and your body. And sometimes that's why women wonder I lost all this weight on a program like that, but I felt like crap.

Christina McClurken: 46:13

My stomach hurt, my digestion was really crappy, Crappy. No, I'm dead dead literally. I mean I came from healthcare. There's never TMI. I think of bowel movements as like an additional vital sign, so it's kind of an inclination of what's going on in your body.

Christina McClurken: 46:28

And inflammation stems from the gut. We both know systemic inflammation is one of the biggest disruptors of your weight loss attempts, fat loss attempts. So we really do have to care for our gut and the way I do that. Again, without being eliminating foods or being nitpicky, I'm all about nutrition by addition, right. So when we part of my plate is, yes, two to three cups of veggies, but how many different colors are you getting right? Those sort of things? The whole foods, the new. That's why we're choosing our empowered choices and not our sometimes foods all the time, because those empowered ones are feeding our gut with what they need to to digest our food properly. You know our serotonin is made in the gut primarily. So if you're wondering why your mood is imbalanced, we have to have a healthy gut to have a happy life. So, yeah, it's an entire pillar built in, because if we're not-.

Philip Pape: 47:11

Some amylose is tied to the gut.

Christina McClurken: 47:13

Yeah, exactly. So you know it's a pillar that, again, I address in, not a way that we have to. You know, I'm not bombarding people with tons of supplements, because I think that's also one of the worst things. There are certain ones. Yes, I'm a functional nutritionist. I strategically supplement with people that who need it. But a lot of people are looking for, you know, the, the bloat, debloat pill or something on Instagram, or not even slowing down enough to chew our food Right, even slowing down enough to chew our food right. So we, you know I talk about even the process of chewing and meal hygiene and how it impacts your digestion and then what you absorb from your food, and so it's all built in around the habits and the plate that we are working on improving our gut health throughout.

Philip Pape: 47:50

Yeah, and even even, like you mentioned supplements, prebiotics, probiotics, people think supplement, and yet the food you eat and how it ferments in your gut creates all of those four Correct yeah, so in my gut health module we talk about the prebiotics, the probiotics, the postbiotics, which are made by the two, and what those roles play, so that again it becomes okay.

Christina McClurken: 48:07

I'm choosing my foods now because I know the benefit they're having in my body, not just because it was on an approved or not approved list.

Philip Pape: 48:13

Yeah, and you mentioned different colors and diversity of food. I mean, if I suppose, if you're trying to get a certain amount of fiber and vegetables, naturally you're going to have a little more diversity. But do you, do you advise on specifics like, hey, get different types of apples, different types of this, different like to that level of diversity?

Christina McClurken: 48:35

bottom, like how many colors you know are you getting? Yeah, for that reason, because obviously, like you know, our purple veggies are going to come on and red are going to come along with different than green and orange and um, so that's really kind of you know, the. It's again a visual representation of just be mindful that we're getting different colors. And I'm not, you know, I'm a very realistic person. So if I have someone that comes in, they're like I don't like veggies that much. I'm like let's pick the one or two you like and let's roll with that at first, right? So again, it's just part of the process eventually. So if I don't want someone stressing over not getting you know 10 different colors of veggies in a week, if there's fruit too, right, yeah, well, exactly, exactly, yeah.

Philip Pape: 49:13

No, I asked that cause I man who was on the show a long time, a long time ago he was great Um, judson Brewer I think it was Dr Judson Brewer talking about all the different compounds and the different varieties of the same types of fruits and vegetables can help with your gut bacteria. I'm just curious. I'm going to call out the carnivore people here, uh, and you're going to call them out with me, I think. And basically, what do you say to the person who's like I did carnivore, I cut out all my fiber. Now I did carnivore, I cut out all my fiber. Now I'm feeling great, everything's awesome, and of course, it's the one. It's the you know this is going to work for everybody type of deal. My theory is just you know you did an elimination diet and you're just haven't reintroduced anything.

Christina McClurken: 49:49

Yeah, I mean I think you know you cannot. If you know this fiber is not a sexy topic, right? So there's not a million Instagram reels on the power of fiber, although they're coming now, like there is protein and stuff. But you cannot, if you go and read any of the research, right, you cannot deny that you are significantly lacking. You know you're a vitamin and mineral deficient if you are only eating meat. And you know, oftentimes you know, having worked in healthcare, I did counsel a lot of clients on nutrition and I would encounter some that were doing carnivore and were great, and then a few months down the road they've got gallstones and kidney issues and you know. So I think that there is.

Christina McClurken: 50:25

This is why I always say my approach is health first, weight loss, because, sure, carnivore might help you lose weight Great. But you cannot deny that when you're removing a lot of essential vitamins, minerals, nutrients from your body, which we get from our fiber and our gut, there's eventually going to be a catch to that right, your body will let you know. So, again, I think, when we're talking about weight loss, there's a million ways to do it that might not contribute to long-term health, and so I and I'm not opposed to those for short periods of time, if that's what people choose to use. But again, having worked with geriatrics and people who only wish they could go back in time and get their health back, you can't deny that having those foods in your repertoire that are providing you with fiber and all of those sort of things are eventually going to be needed to be reintroduced.

Philip Pape: 51:15

Yeah, I agree, and it's one thing to have flexibility and say, well, if it works for you, but it's another thing is long-term, is it really working for?

Christina McClurken: 51:23

if you're not tracking the right things here no-transcript cake on your birthday, right, or your wife's birthday, Like I value that and maybe not, but eventually you know there's going to said you mainly work with peripostmenopausal women who aren't like big, huge into lifting.

Philip Pape: 52:10

Do you ever work with, like physique goal oriented folks who are wanting to be really precise and are they tracking?

Christina McClurken: 52:13

or do some of them also use this approach? So some it depends Again, some of them are using this approach and having great success with that and some of them I do try to understand into tracking and I will say I kind of am like the backward approach, where most people will come in and have a program where you track macros and the goal is eventually to wean off, to not track macros Right. So I actually do the reverse. We come in and we actually like, don't track that stuff, because we get them back in touch with you know, understanding how their body works hunger, fullness, why we're choosing the foods we are, how to balance our plate, biofeedback from an actual like in, you know, inside, we get it now.

Christina McClurken: 52:43

Then all there is people that then we're like, okay, now we're at a point where we need the more meticulous data and then we go to tracking right, and then we go to tracking and then now usually, even if they've, this is where I am in my life Now I can do that without being swayed by numbers or having that negative connotation, because I've kind of relearned that process.

Christina McClurken: 53:02

So there are people that we definitely end up now Okay, and even even someone who's maybe doesn't have extreme physique goals. But now we're just kind of stuck right. We're like it seems on paper that we're doing everything right but the scale is not moving. So like let's actually put numbers to this because, as you know, there's an human error in tracking, even whether it be in, you know, writing it down or in an app and so yeah, so then we'll, we'll use it and, like I said, I tend to use chronometer or chronometer, I don't even know how you say it, but it is my favorite, because then we can also look at, you know, vitamin and mineral and are there gaps that we need to fill in and that sort of thing, when people are getting a little bit more, more in that we want to optimize, kind of stage.

Philip Pape: 53:36

Yeah, that makes sense. You got a right tool for the job, depending on what level of precision you're trying to get, um, even if it is by hand. That's why you made your tracker, so that's awesome. Um, do you have time for a couple of rapid fire questions? Absolutely, love it. All right. So what food is worst for your blood sugar balance, if that's a thing um, it's not a food, it is how you eat the food right?

Christina McClurken: 53:58

So I say food organization, not elimination. I think there was this time where it was like pick the lowest glycemic index, everything. Well, you can essentially lower the glycemic index again by pairing it with protein and fiber. So my whole thing is just try not to eat carbs alone and pair it with fat protein, because that will buffer the blood sugar response. So the worst thing for your blood sugar is to just eat a simple burning carb on its own. That you know. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 54:22

Is there a caveat right before you lift?

Christina McClurken: 54:26

weights, your muscles will put it to use. And then but, I, also still think you should have some protein before you lift weights. Well, that is when I tell people have the simplest carb you can find right. Like we're not talking high fiber or anything right before you go lift.

Philip Pape: 54:43

For sure, for sure, and there's other reasons for that which we're not going to get into. Yeah, is there?

Christina McClurken: 54:46

one habit you would say is most important than all others for success Sleep, yeah, sleep, okay, yeah. I think sleep sets people up for success. I think people don't realize the effect it has on your eating choices the next day, your hunger, your craving. So if I could say that the habit and break it down to the micro habit, get off your phone an hour before bed, that's the habit.

Philip Pape: 55:01

I can see that, because it's also one of the hardest, I think, for people to change. It's just so ingrained in, like everything about your life. So then my next question is what is the hardest of your pillars, would you say the most challenging to implement? Is it the sleepers and one of the other ones?

Christina McClurken: 55:15

Gosh, you know, I really think the mindset pillar is probably the hardest for a lot of people and again, that there's so much that we encompass, whether it be relationship with the hood, behavior change, right, the all or nothing thinking. So I, and that is what will hold everybody up, you know, it's how long we can get to before we can kind of really peel back the layers of the onion of the mindset.

Philip Pape: 55:33

Yeah, and that can be its own episode.

Christina McClurken: 55:34

We didn't even dive too much into that.

Philip Pape: 55:35

But yeah, much about that. But yeah, how long you talk about hunger cues. So how long does it take for someone to see their hunger cues? Basically normalizing, let's say.

Christina McClurken: 55:45

I mean it can happen in a week. I've done even like a free challenge. I did in January. The first week was the theme was protein and produce right and it was just like get 30 grams at your meals, get your two to three cups of veggies. The amount of people that are like I can't believe. My hunger, my cravings, that nighttime like binging is gone in like five days. So it can take. It's like rapid fire if, depending on you, know where you've come in in your life. But to actually feel that physiological difference it can happen in three days.

Philip Pape: 56:11

Yeah, that's good. That's good for people to know. It's not even though you have to be patient for some of this. That can happen quickly. What's the most overrated supplement that people keep recommending?

Christina McClurken: 56:21

I would say, oh my God, there's so many that yeah, there are, it's a tough question right.

Christina McClurken: 56:26

That could be a whole nother episode itself, but I think you know, I honestly will say supplements like the, you know, melatonin I'm just going to say that for state and I'm going to use this example because, and whether it's melatonin or some other, like nighttime sleepy something, I'm all for it, right, but it's a supplement and it cannot take the place of you should not be scrolling your phone till 11 and popping a melatonin to try to go to bed, right? Well, I think, I think a lot of these sleep supplements because the world is slow, so sleep deprived, and that is one of the things that almost everybody struggles with that they're trying to supplement for when, when they're not realizing that if we can get natural sunlight during the day, balance our blood sugar, stop eating two hours before bedtime and get off our phone and like dim our lights, you're going to sleep way better. And you could save that 80 bucks a month on your like sleep supplement.

Philip Pape: 57:13

For sure I love my Amber. Amber glasses. You know throw them on at night, um, and I just started using a pillow that helps my head kind of hang back a little bit. So you know I'm a, I'm a side sleeper, so I'm trying to be a back sleeper now and kind of support my neck a little bit more evenly.

Christina McClurken: 57:29

It's a little bit of things like that.

Philip Pape: 57:31

It's um, it's a oh my gosh, I should know what it is, Cause I had them on. I just had them on the show. You can put me on the spot, Dr Martoni Neck nest.

Christina McClurken: 57:40

I use pillow eyes. It's one of the like PTs and chiropractors use, like a little curve, and I love it too. It makes I sleep on my back as much as I can too.

Philip Pape: 57:47

Yeah, you can get that cervical spine supported, and I wear a sleep mask too, which is so awesome.

Christina McClurken: 57:52

Yeah.

Philip Pape: 57:53

Okay, last one, what's the number one benefit? Your clients report. That has nothing to do with weight loss or fat loss to fit your client's report.

Christina McClurken: 58:00

that has nothing to do with weight loss or fat loss, not fearing food anymore, being able to eat like a normal human. I always say that's like the goal of my program is like I can just eat, like I think many of us forget, like what it's like to just eat and not, you know, over-.

Philip Pape: 58:11

Confidence in food and like you're not going to lose control. That's awesome, all right. Is there anything we didn't cover? I know there's a million things. Oh my.

Christina McClurken: 58:24

God, I know I could talk to you for days Anything you wish. I asked in this topic specifically around tracking and not tracking. Yeah, no, I don't think. I think the take-home message should be when people hear like you can lose weight without tracking, it's really not. As you know, we need to track right, we need data.

Philip Pape: 58:36

It's not quote-unquote, just like not tracking.

Christina McClurken: 58:38

You know, and there's there's guidelines to it that are going to inherently build in that control, but it's like we are tracking. It's just a way to track without numbers, without weighing and measuring, as you know, so that you feel like you're not, I guess, like so encompassed by by all of that sort of stuff. So just to remove the stress, but there, but there's always got to be tracking to it, because you know, like we say, what good measures get managed, so we have to have an awareness of some way. It's just a different form of tracking right To, to pull a little bit of stress off that.

Philip Pape: 59:05

I agree, and you're covering the key variables, Like, I think, even people who subscribe to tracking calories and macros. Like you said, if it's just about macros, you are missing out on so much other context. But if you can put it as part of an overall system and now you can kind of pick and choose pieces that work for you. There was Dr Sarah Balanzai. She was on the show and she wrote the book Nutrivor and it's funny because she has a little comment in there about like you don't have to track calories and macros, but then she has a tracker based on nutrient quality. So I'm like, okay, there you go. So anyway, where can people find you, Christina?

Christina McClurken: 59:37

They can find me on Instagram at it's underscore Christina, underscore McClurkin, which I'm sure you can write that out, and my website is yourhealthybestiecom.

Philip Pape: 59:47

Awesome, we will do that. Let's see website and IG. We'll throw that in the show notes. Thank you so much, christina. It was a lot of fun. Listeners are always looking for just different approaches. Something's going to work for them, something's going to resonate, so I hope they reach out to you if that's right for them.

Christina McClurken: 1:00:00

Amazing. Thank you so much. I totally enjoyed it it was a lot of fun.