She Lost 160 lbs and Reversed 15 Chronic Illnesses

Introduction and Weight Loss Journey 0:00

I've run them up Tracy L. Got over 10 quickfire questions for her because she has lost 160 pounds. She was morbidly obese, she was 54 BMI through a whole food plant-based diet. She's transformed her life. She's reversed over 10 chronic illnesses. 15. 15, not just 10, 15. First question, what are like the two or three key kind of habits or tips that you would give people? I know you do coaching online, I'll drop a link to your website I'm Tracy the Uplifts. What are the kind of like two or three kind of habits or keystone rituals or tips that you tell people? I would say to start with vegetables and protein shake for breakfast. I would say to cut alcohol and processed sugar. You know, you you don't need it and with alcohol, when your body is processing alcohol, your body is going to prioritize that over burning fat. And so, when you cut that out, it also makes this a lot simpler. And number three, I would say work on the brain. Learn about the role of dopamine and more about the way that you respond to certain foods and learn about why it's hard to imagine not eating something that causes you so much pain. Yeah, and people know that it causes so much pain and they still do it. It's you ever have that feeling when you're you know what you're about to do is going to cause you pain that's

Core Habits for Healthy Eating 1:24

emotional, mental because you know you push put a cookie or something in your stomach but also just then you know you're going to wake up feeling gross. That feeling of like you're on the fence of whether to do it or not and often the dis- that you know often you know you've done it before you actually have done it because you've committed to that cookie jar. Yeah, I mean it's like it's it's literally like you said, you've done it before you actually do it. Like I knew eating this particular thing made my knee pain worse. I knew that when I would eat a bag of hard candy in one sitting that my teeth were going to hurt the next day, which I mean it was horrible thing. And I still did it cuz it was like in that moment, this is more satisfying than stopping and not having this moment. And that's the another thing is love your future self. Think of your future self. What do you think is the root cause? Addiction, isn't it?

That's what you're saying. Food addiction, basically. For me, it was the access that I had to things that just damaged my health. So, getting stuff delivered and I always tell people delete the apps for 90 days. Like just 90 days. So true. I love delivery. I love Uber Eats. And it's so convenient and you just see something for me. I'm a person with a brain who just just the other day I saw the word cookies and I'm like, oh, I could go for some cookies right now. And I'm like, no. And I didn't get them. But even seeing the word when I was in that mode, it's like cookies. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I can get cookies delivered in like an hour. Mhm. It's crazy. But you can get healthy stuff. Sometimes I've got a couple healthy places I order from. But I guess we're talking about if you're trying to break that habit. Tell us the kind of dinners you'd have several years ago compared to the dinners you'd have now. I'll tell you a funny story. I was eating so much oil at

Breaking Food Addiction and Delivery Apps 3:08

one point my husband said that I smelled like it. Like I smelled like the oil that I was eating. Back then, a typical dinner for me, I would take a bag of French fries and fry them myself and I would make sure to not put it on paper towel. I wouldn't do that. I would I'd want that oil there. And I'd have some kind of sandwich, a couple of greasy sandwiches. And after that, I would finish it off with a couple of desserts like maybe it was a a piece of cake and like a handful of cookies, a couple pieces of pie or the whole pie.

I'd finish that with a bag of hard candy. What is up with people's obsession with oil? People, especially in bad health, they just love just oil. It's like so many hundreds of calories of it and it just fire never stops. And then you're dipping the bun in grease, and that's amazing. I would say one of the challenges I have when I really want to get in shape is cutting back on the processed fats, this oil. And it's the you know, things like falafel, right? This oil is in that tasty bread. You know, you look at the ingredients often, you know, like 6 7 8 9 g of fat per couple slices. So, things even if they seem healthy, they're just dripping in in oil, which is essentially processed food, right? >> Yeah, just completely drenched. And I think that that gives it flavor. It makes it even more hyperpalatable.

Because when you take fat and sugar and salt and you mix those together, it just lights your brain up like Christmas in New York. So, what kind of stuff do you have now then? Is that bean burritos, salads? Talk to the point of satiety. People think salads and healthy plant-based isn't filling. What do you think about that? It's too filling. It's very filling. I mean, it's very filling.

Old vs New Meals and Oil Overload 4:46

Like, I can take a big old bowl of soup, and I'm full after that. And sometimes I'm full for hours. So, you're basically saying you just have a whole foods like salads, burritos, soups. Are a lot of them homemade, or do you have a meal delivery service, or So, I kind of go in phases, and I allow myself to go in phases. So, sometimes I'll do meal delivery, and then sometimes I'll take a break from that and buy frozen meals. But what I like to do is I'll take a plant-based frozen meal and add vegetables to it. And I'm almost using it like a bulky kind of sauce because I've taken this meal and I've added my own beans. I maybe add tofu. I add broccoli or some kind of vegetable. And so, now I've taken this little bitty frozen meal and made a nice big hearty meal out of it. And it's that's enough to share with someone. So, you can make two meals out of that one meal. And what resources do you recommend online about healthy plant-based and about healthy eating that you'd recommend? Outside of my website, Dr. Greger. Nutritionfacts, yeah. Mhm, nutritionfacts.org. What is the hardest habit you've had to break? Oh, getting getting food delivered.

Delete the apps for 90 days. Healthy food you didn't expect to enjoy but now love. Brussels sprouts. Oh, they're like little mini cabbages. They're so good. Your go-to quick meal. Vegetables and protein shake. It I have it for breakfast but if I if it's night time I and I want it I have it. Biggest misconception about weight loss. That it should be slow. And I say that because when you are losing weight slowly, you aren't necessarily seeing those wins that keep you motivated to stay on your journey. So, you lose a pound every couple of weeks or whatever and you're not fueled and fired and in the game as much as you could be if you're seeing wins week over week. Especially when you started out at the size that I was. One thing that motivates you on difficult days. Oh, thinking about my husband and just wanting to be here for him and

Plant-Based Meals, Satiety, and Meal Prep 6:41

wanting to be the best wife that I can be because when I was in my wheelchair he wheeled me around everywhere every day and never complained. So, thinking about him. The food you used to eat most before your transformation. Oh, was it french fries or was it pasta covered in oil. One of those. And of course like all sorts of just junky desserts. The best investment someone can make in their health in your opinion. >> Coaching. Coaching. I I absolutely whether it's me or whether it's another coach, coaching is one of the best investments you can make because you have all these things out here whether it's the diets and the pills and the this and the that and what people still aren't sticking to it and it's because it's what's up here that people aren't sticking to. And I I first I don't ever promote anything that I don't preach. I have my own coach. I love her very much and so I say coaching absolutely. Is there one food that you thought you'd never enjoy eating when when in poor health that you now love? I do love eating blackberries, and I didn't like them before because they're kind of like there's some kind of hard chewy thing on the inside, but I figured out ice speed blender, throw them in there with some water, that kind of gets rid of that, and then you can make smoothie, and I do love having them smoothies. Berries are so good for you. Your go-to breakfast? Vegetables and a protein shake. Go-to dinner? Some kind of frozen meal with vegetables and tofu added in. A snack you always going to keep in the house, so you always recommend people keep in the house. I do love to have like little bags of frozen vegetables, like the smaller bags. You can throw that in the microwave, and that is such a good snack. Also, I like these little packs of tofu that they're already seasoned, and so I can take one little piece out, and it's about 200 calories, and it's just a perfect little snack. What do you think of that just lastly? What do you think about the carnivore diet? I I wish I had thought of this way to describe

Best Resources and Hardest Habits to Break 8:40

it, but it was actually Dr. Greger who said, "It's like an online troll dressed up as a diet." I think it's unfortunate though. I I think it's unfortunate because I don't believe a lot of the big names who say that they're on this are actually on this. I think that this is a trend because if you tell people, "Yeah, you can eat bacon. Yeah, you can eat steak." Then they're going to go for it, but I I feel bad that a lot of people are being misled about that. >> If you were to sum up your advice for people that want to get in shape, they want to lose weight, they want to transform their health, what would it be? So, I think it starts with the brain, and everything else kind of will fall into place with that because at the end of the day, it should be simple, or it is simple, but why isn't it simple? At the end of the day, eat plants, eat stuff that grows out of the ground, and move more. But why is that with everything that we have? There's all sorts of programs, potions, pills, powders, everything. Like why aren't we all skinny? And the reason I think is because it's the brain is an overlooked aspect of this. We think about how we look, we think about oh my hips are this way or my stomach looks this way, but we don't think about the role that dopamine in the brain plays in how we react to food. When you say dopamine in the brain, do you mean when people have junk food for example, is that a source of dopamine and that makes it very difficult for people to get back onto the healthy bandwagon? Or what do you mean by that? So dopamine is your brain's reward center and it makes life fun. So for instance, like you eat an apple, you get a small hit of dopamine

Motivation, Breakfast, and Weight Loss Mindset 10:11

and that's evolutionary, it's biology because if you didn't, you would forget to eat and it wouldn't be as enjoyable and you wouldn't be as healthy. Well, the problem is that food manufacturers figured out combinations of things that they could put together to make food hyperpalatable and this massive dopamine experience and they exploited that. And then some people, myself included likely, have brains that really go crazy when we have certain combinations of food. And one such example, one of my earliest memories is when I was a kid my my my parents used to hide everything, but I but I found the chocolate covered peanuts that were on top of the refrigerator and I remember I ate one of them and I just had this this this this just blissful experience that I had never experienced before. Like it was just this amazing euphoric experience and so I snuck a few more and then I found that they got them at the dollar store. So every week with my allowance, I would buy two bags of them and eat them on Saturday night in silence in my room. Now I know that I was experiencing a just a dopamine rush and really it's at that point where food goes from being food and something that keeps us alive to being white powdery substances in smaller bags dressed up as food. Wow, and and I've heard you say that you've got to go all in if you want change. You baby steps don't work. And I guess is it to do with the dopamine point that you're talking about?

>> Some of it cuz you know another thing I want to say is that whole dopamine

Coaching, Snacks, and Favorite Foods Now 11:48

aspect, it applies to a lot of people. It doesn't apply to everybody. And I I know for me I've had experiences where I'm telling friends of mine like about a piece of carrot cake that I had and I'm like, oh, but you know what I'm saying? This carrot cake was so good and it was and I just ate it and I was just in bliss. They're kind of looking at me like you know, with blank stares kind of like, carrot cake? I mean, it was really good, but like because I had a stronger experience in my brain that we ate the same thing, but our bodies reacted to it differently and that's why I have a lot of compassion and I want to inspire people to have a lot of compassion for people who are overweight. We didn't choose that. People didn't choose that. No one says as a child, you know, I want to make sure that when I grow up I am winded going up the stairs. But when you look at people with different weights, a lot of it is in proportion to how their brain reacts to this. >> And so tell me about plants then. Whole plant foods. This is what led you to overcome so many chronic illnesses. Do you get a dopamine hit when you when you have, you know, your your vegetables in the morning? Cuz that's what you said you have for breakfast, right?

>> You do, but not in the amount that you get when you eat a Big Mac. Like in nature, those dopamine hits that you find in those hyperpalatable foods don't exist. Believe me, they don't. There's nothing in nature that gives you that kind of a hit. >> And how long do you reckon it takes for people they go cold turkey, give up the junk food like what you did and they go to whole food plant-based diet, again what you did. How long will it take for these people to kind of get over that that food addiction? And how long did it take you? It's something that you have to have the tools. For me, I still have

Dopamine, Cravings, and Food Addiction 13:27

that brain, but I have the tools. It's kind of like, you know, it snows here a lot. Before, I was hoping that the snow melted and just going outside and slipping and sliding, but now I actually have a shovel to handle the snow. And so, it's like that when you have the proper tools. So, for instance, I can treat myself, but I know that if I have a donut or a cupcake or whatever, I'm going to have cravings tomorrow. And so, I have to tell myself, is that something that I want to deal with? Sometimes it's, yeah, sometimes it's worth it.

But, I have to remind myself that this is how my brain works, and so I'm going to struggle a little bit because I had that donut. I'm going to struggle a little bit, but overall, I'll be okay. Like, have your vegetables and sit down. Yeah, yeah. One thing I'm always thinking about myself is that question of how much responsibility lies with the the consumer, the citizen versus the food environment. So, that's a good question. There's actually a good quote, "The trauma is not your fault, but the healing is your responsibility." And so, it's not my fault, it's not anyone's fault that this stuff is out there, and that maybe we fell prey to things that were designed to not be eaten. Like, you were not designed to eat just one cookie out of the pack and then you're done and then you're happy. These things were designed to be eaten in the quantities that we eat them in. That might not be my fault, but the healing is my responsibility. It's my responsibility to recognize it, and it's my responsibility to make the changes necessary. Yeah, like we've got a responsibility to respond to the situation we're in. And lastly, where can people find you? tracyuplifts.com, t r a c i uplifts.com, and on my YouTube channel, which is linked below. tracyuplifts.com.

Responsibility, Carnivore Diet, and Closing Advice 15:10

We're going to link that, we're going to pin it in the comments section, we're going to link it in the description, and if you're on your phone and you don't want to click and you just want to go on Google, tracyuplifts.com, unbelievably inspirational. Thank you so much for for coming on. Any closing remarks? You can do this. You can do this. Think about your why and your reason and really just hold on to that. Let that be your guide everyday. Think about the people that you want to be here for. Think about yourself. You deserve this. Think about what it would feel like to look in the mirror and like what you see. To have doctors surprised that you're not on medication, which happens to me. Think about how you want to feel and think about the life that you want to create for yourself.