Why Starving Yourself Was Never the Answer

Summit Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

Hello. Hello and welcome back to the Future of Menopause Medicine Summit, formerly known as Mastering Your Menopause Transition. I'm your host, doctor Sharon Stills. It's my joy and honor to be here with you all where we are unapologetic, uncensored, unfiltered. Giving you the information from the heart, the science, the clinical experience, all the things that you need to know to go through your hormonal dance journey, whatever you'd like to refer to it as with, you know, just well equipped and feeling your best.

This truly can be your sacred second act. And today I have a very special guest and a topic that I know you're going to be all ears about because we're going to be talking about weight loss. And I know almost every woman that comes in to see me in my clinic has a complaint about her weight and that her weight is going up since her hormones started going down. And so this is a very real issue and one that deserves attention, and not just to be told to eat less and move more. And so I have an agenda.

Abdullah, she's a weight loss coach for women in midlife and founder of the top rated website Masala Bodycon. She has a degree in molecular and cell biology. This is one smart lady from UC Berkeley, and she did an MBA at NYU in my hometown, and she's helped more than 1500 women in midlife successfully lose weight permanently, and create lifestyle change, which, you know, is what we're all about here. She lost 40 pounds herself, her metabolism naturally. So if I didn't have your attention, I've got it now, right.

Boosting your metabolism. And then she started to coach other midlife women to boost their metabolism, especially when what worked before no longer works. Which is like, verbatim what I hear from patients. Right? I what work what used to work doesn't work. And so she focuses on adding and combining natural metabolism boosting foods to reduce belly fat and get women unstuck so they can live in their dream body. She's also, I'd like to shout out and bow down. She's one of our sponsors and as you know, we owe everything to our sponsors because without our sponsors, we couldn't provide all this free information to you that, you know, I keep on doing it.

It's my fifth year because the feedback I get is that these interviews change your life, set you on a journey, help you lose the weight, help you in every step of the way.

Nagina's Weight Loss Journey 2:51

And so it's my honor, my privilege to be here with all of you and to welcome Nagina to the summit for the first time. Thank you so much, Doctor Sharon. I'm very excited and looking forward to our conversation today. Yes. So I guess, you know, if you could briefly just tell because I'm like, you look amazing. So I was shocked when I was reading your bio, it says you lost 40 pounds. So maybe just briefly tell us your story because it's always inspiring when you know, we're teaching from experience our own personal. Yes.

Thank you so much. Well, I you know, just to jump into it, I struggled with sugar cravings and with my weight for my entire life. I was the person that knew how many calories every single food had on them. But I looked like I was the person that didn't know any of that because I always was the chubby person or the slightly overweight person in the group that I would be in. And I really tried every single diet out there, from Weight Watchers to Atkins to Nutrisystem to eating less and exercising more.

And I would be able to lose maybe 5 or 10 pounds. But then once I would hit that number, I would start eating all the foods that I had to restrict myself from in order to get to that place. And I would put the weight back on, plus some. And the thing is, I struggled for this for with this for decades. But it actually became even harder when I hit midlife. And then I started experiencing bloating and just more stubborn weight. And so what happened is that I realized I just did not want to continue feeling uncomfortable in my clothes.

I didn't like looking in the mirror because I wanted to be able to be in a in a place where I wanted to be for my body, and I also didn't have a lot of energy, and I felt like I could be more confident if I was if I was just living within the body that I wanted to. And so what I did is I started studying a lot of science based information based on my degree information that I had access to because of my degree in molecular and cell biology. And I started reading that instead of dieting and restriction, we can actually add foods to what we're doing, and we can combine foods in a way that increases our metabolism and helps us burn fat.

And I thought, oh my gosh, this is opposite of everything I've heard in my whole entire life. But I started following some of the science that I've been reading and also adding what I'll talk about a little bit as well. Adding flavors in the forms of metabolism, boosting spices and herbs to my foods. And I could not believe it, but I was feeling full. I was feeling satisfied every day. I felt like I was not eating healthy food because it tasted so good. And nine months later, I lost 40 pounds and I got to the lowest weight but the healthiest weight, because I was also stronger.

And I was. But I was leaner and I had less body fat. And the thing that's most amazing is that this weight has actually stayed off for over a decade now. I have been able to work through all of the things that come up as we are in midlife, but actually solve those problems and, and keep this weight off. And so as I lost the weight, a lot of people started asking me, you know, what have you done? How have you done this? And so that's how I started coaching other women and creating lifestyles and creating very specific plans for them and letting them know, you know, here's what you should should be eating.

It's not that you can't be eating foods. Here's what you should add. And now I've helped over 1500 women lose weight as well, and live in a life and live a healthy lifestyle in a body that they dream of. So I'm sure everyone's ears perked out because you're saying lose weight and add foods. So I'm like, tell me more, tell me more. So yeah, why don't we dive a little into that? And if you have any tips or tidbits on how to get started, that would be amazing because everyone thinks they have to restrict, oh, I want to lose weight.

I'm going to cut out sugar. I'm going to cut out grains. I'm going to cut out this, I'm going to cut out that. And is there in your way of approaching this or you cutting out anything, or are you just adding things in? Yes, I know it seems like it's too good to be true. But here's the thing. If you you know, if you focus on weight loss as a negative journey, meaning taking things out, then it's something that seems dreadful. And as a mindset, you actually don't want to do something that's dreadful, you want to stay away from it.

And it seems like a lot of a big endeavor to go on a weight loss journey, because it sounds like it's going to be so miserable. But so and that's why the way that I approach it is actually a very realistic way that works for the long term, because the journey is very positive. And what we do is it's very true that we have to add more foods. We just have to add metabolism boosting foods.

Why Midlife Weight Loss Changes 7:54

And once you add metabolism boosting foods, you don't have a craving for foods that are causing your blood sugar to rise. For foods that are causing you to store fat more quickly, though, you still may want to eat, you still may choose sugar. You're not going to be craving it as much. And so one of the key things that the way that I teach does is that it actually gets you off of sugar where you don't crave it, but you can choose it. And that's because you're so full and satiated and loving what you're eating, that you're very that you're feeling very content.

But let me take you. Let me explain a little bit about, first of all, why is it that eating more is helping us lose weight? And this is really a shift that happens in midlife as we are going through menopause and post menopause, where as our estrogen is declining and as our hormones are declining, as we know we are, we often are going to be in a more stress state more easily. And the other thing that's happening is that we are not able to absorb nutrients as easily as we were before. And the other thing is that our insulin sensitivity goes down in our insulin resistance increases.

And so what that means is that when we're eating sugar and when we're eating carbs, it's being stored as fat more quickly. And so foods that didn't affect you, you know, a certain amount of decades ago are now going to start causing fat belly fat because it's stored on our bellies first and also causing bloating and inflammation. And so because of these changes, if we don't eat enough, we put our body in the ultimate form of stress because our body is experiencing stress much more easily. And stress is not only from our external lifestyle, which is what we hear a lot we hear a lot about.

We need to understand how much we're taking on and how much we are doing for others, and that is absolutely true. But there is a form of stress that is not talked about, and that is the stress that most midlife women are putting on their bodies by eating too little when women preach it. Sister. Thank you. Yes, I know, and you know I. And I know this because, you know, when you see, once you start eating more and you start dropping belly fat, you believe it because it's very true. And then it all makes sense.

But if we are, you know, we as humans need to have a certain amount of food like we are. We're using energy throughout the day, we're using our bodies. So we need to fuel our bodies. And by not giving our bodies fuel, what's happening is that our metabolism is slowing because our body has to get used to existing off of less food. And it's also in a stress state. Imagine you're giving your body hardly any fuel, yet you're still asking it to perform all the daily activities. It's going to be stressed, and it's not going to be able to release fat as a result.

So one of the key foods to start adding to really get our body out of that stress state and out of that slow metabolism and into a fired up metabolism, is the number one food that is causing women that are in midlife and later life to really just start dropping fat, starting in their belly. And that is by adding protein to their diet. And, you know, a lot of women are trying to add protein because this is something that many women are hearing right now to add more protein. But it's really surprising, actually, how much protein we need.

It's likely more than it's likely more than you. Who is listening is eating. If you're wondering about how to lose weight, because the moment that you hit those numbers and you hit, you hit the amounts that you need, and then you're also eating other foods that keep your your body balanced, your weight starts just melting away. So we'll talk more in detail about adding protein is really key, but it's important to start at breakfast time and not skip breakfast, because a lot of women are doing what's called intermittent fasting and thinking that it's balancing your hormones.

But what it's actually doing is it's causing you to underwrite even more, and putting your body in a more stressful state. And intermittent fasting can be used as a tool for certain things like clearing inflammation. But when it's used every day and it's used often, it's very ineffective and it actually works against you. So, you know, that's a little bit that I'll just share around, you know why why our bodies have changed. What's different, why it's very to actually eat too little. And one of the things that you can start doing to start adding more.

So I'll just pause. But I'd love to give more details around how to add this food and what other foods to add as well. Yes. So how much protein is there a formula you use, or how much do you recommend and like? Ladies, stay with us because this is true. I have this at a patient the other day who told me she it's like one meal a day. And I was like, like this, you know, it's too good to be true. It's actually it's true. Like you need to be eating more, most likely. And yes, if you if you're protein deficient, right, then you're craving sugar.

Protein, Breakfast, and Metabolism 13:01

So protein first. Right? I say I'm a hormone first doctor. You know we we get the hormones balance before we tackle other things. But in diet protein first. So tell us how you figure that out or how women and like give us some ideas. And the breakfast conversation I have this conversation on repeat all the time because yes, a lot of women are not hungry. In the morning they wake up, they just have their coffee. They don't eat to like noon or one. And so let's, let's talk about protein and let's talk about breakfast.

I love the saying, you know, it was always like eat breakfast like a king, you know. So I'm like, eat breakfast like a queen and eat lunch like a princess. And if you're going to skimp on anything like a pauper, do it. You know, later on when you're getting ready to go to bed and rest and digest. But I think when you're a little younger than me. But when we were growing up, right, like, they were like, breakfast is so important. And then they would like, have commercials for like Lego My Eggo or like sugary, sugary cereal.

So I think they had the right idea with the wrong things they were pushing. But breakfast really is like crucial, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh, thank you for asking that because it is very crucial, and it really is important to fuel your body to get your metabolism going right in the morning and not skip breakfast. And in fact, you know what you were saying, Doctor Sharon, about women having coffee in the morning and skipping breakfast is actually putting your body an even more stress because you're you're get your cortisol is increasing by the coffee with no food.

If you have food with your coffee it's it's much more balanced. But otherwise your cortisol is spiking up. You're already stressed because you haven't eaten. And you may you may feel like, oh, I'm helping myself lose weight because we've been taught mentally that we need to eat less, and eating less did work before, though it it always, it always would have been a good, you know, a good strategy to eat more of these foods. And so starting in the morning, having 30g of protein at breakfast is extremely important.

And I'm going to give some ideas on how to do that. So and the first thing I want to let you know let you know. And those of you that are listening is that if you're not hungry in the morning, that means that you have a slow metabolism and that can change. And the way that it can change is by adding some food to your breakfast. You may not be able to get to the total 30g in one in your first day or your first week, but definitely by the second week you should. You're going to start to feel hungrier, and that means that that's a good thing.

That means that your body is getting out of survival mode and it's starting to burn fat. And so what you want to do is I'll give you the 30 gram breakfast, I'll give you some different options, but you can start, you know better than you are before, better than you are now, have more protein than you are now. And that's why I call this my mantra protein more. And so just more than you were eating before. And that's going to help your body get going. And then you're going to feel hungrier. And then you can eat even more and you're going to lose more weight.

And that's actually what's going to happen. So with 30g of breakfast, I'm going to give an egg breakfast, a vegan grab and go breakfast, and then another grab and go breakfast. Because I know a lot of women, you may be busy in the morning, or maybe you don't want to, you know, do extensive cooking in the morning. So the first thing is it's an egg breakfast. But here is a big myth that I want to bust to have two eggs. Because two eggs, one egg is only six grams of protein. So when you have two eggs, you're only getting to 12g of protein, and that is less than half of that 30g we're working towards.

Now, what happens when you have less than 30g once your metabolism is high, is that you are going to feel very hungry because you're not giving your body the protein that it needs. And protein actually breaks down much more slowly than other foods like carbs, sugars, and, you know, and those kinds of foods that we crave. So if you don't give your body protein that breaks down slowly, you will crave carbs and you will crave sugar. And though we need to have carbs, we don't want to have the carbs that have that we're craving, that we need in the moment to get our energy up.

So proactively eating food and having it ahead of time is going to. This is a really key strategy to keep your blood sugar even and to to get your fat burning going. So having two eggs is just half of your protein. You less than half. You want to add more. So what I suggest is adding a half cup to a cup of liquid egg whites. And egg whites are pure protein. That's going to give you 10 to 20g of protein right there. You know you can move, you can work up to having that full cup. And so that's going to altogether give you over 30g of protein, which is actually really good.

Because remember our bodies are not absorbing the nutrients like they used to. So getting even, you know, more a little bit more than 30 is absolutely excellent for our bodies. So you want to have the eggs with the egg whites. If you don't want to have egg whites you can also do a smoked salmon. You can also do some like 2 or 3 organic turkey sausages like Applegate. And you can also do some type of lean meat or lean fish that you had from the night before. It doesn't have to only be the egg whites, but that's a lean source of protein because you're getting your fat from the egg yolks, and then you want to have a side of berries or other low sugar fruit, like, you know, you could do tangerines, you could do small apple.

But berries are really great. They have polyphenols in them, which decreases your inflammation as well, and your bloating will go down. And what I love to advise is to add cinnamon on top of your berries, because cinnamon brings your blood sugar down and it helps you activate that fat burning, as well as giving you that sweetness without spiking insulin and causing fat storage. So that's one breakfast, the egg breakfast with the side of berries. The next one is a metabolism boosting morning smoothie.

And this is a really great way to get so many nutrients. So I'll just run through a quick you know, the ingredients for an example is to you start with a plant based milk, like almond milk or like macadamia nut milk or something like that. I recommend not having a full cup of milk, but maybe a half cup of oat milk with complemented with water, because oat milk does have a lot of sugar. Then adding a protein source which which could be protein powder, which I definitely recommend. If you have a protein powder, it's going to give you an easy 25 to 30g of protein.

But if you don't want to use protein powder, you can use a Greek yogurt. And that's going to also give you 20 plus grams of protein. Then you can add a cup of low sugar. Fruit like strawberries taste really good in a smoothie. You can also add a cup of spinach. And guess what? You won't even taste it because it's going to be blended and you're going to get all the antioxidants and all that energy that comes from those greens, and then add what I call my secret ingredient, which is a tablespoon or two tablespoons of ground flax seed or of chia seeds.

And this is extremely important for giving you fiber that helps you stay full for even longer. But it's even more beneficial for you to have a really healthy gut that's digesting food. And that you can you can start to eliminate any bloating and inflammation you have with that. And then if you want, you can add some couple sprigs of mint and some cinnamon. The mint is going to help you decrease sugar cravings and overeating. That's the benefits of it. And cinnamon, like I mentioned, helps you decrease, helps you get that sweet kick.

But it also keeps your blood sugar. Even. So, that's a metabolism boosting smoothie. And one more I'll add is a quick grab and go, which is a Greek yogurt with a cup of or a, you know, a half cup to a cup of berries and some cinnamon. And if you want to add some crushed walnuts or pumpkin seeds, that's an amazing, amazing, fat burning breakfast that's also really great for your digestion. So those are three options that, you know, once you start eating like this, it starts to become very doable and very easy, and you start to really want and need to add more to your breakfast.

It's just getting it going. So, you know, you could choose any of these and you could have a little bit less of it if you feel like it. Or you could just try to go for it, and you'll see that you will be full and satisfied all the way until lunch. Give it three days and you are going to start seeing your fat start melting away. And so are you a fan of just like breakfast, lunch and dinner? Do you like snacks? Yes. So, I mean, I think it can be flexible. You know, I've seen women lose weight doing all of those things.

But, but, but I do recommend having a proper breakfast, like I just mentioned lunch and a dinner. And then if you need a snack in between those meals, then adding it in. But we don't want to go for snacking all day because it's really easy to eat more sugar, more unhealthy fats, and not get enough protein when you're having when you're kind of

Carbs, Fats, and Meal Pairing 22:08

grazing throughout the day. And we also have to give our digestive system a break. And so having 90 minutes before eating helps you flush things out and really helps your your stomach not look swollen or bloated and helps you just feel so much cleaner inside. And so I agree 30g at lunch and dinner. Two. Is that your recommendation. So like 90g a day and does it differ if someone's little or big or so. So 90g is. So that's what it sounds like it comes out to if you just did the three meals. But I do recommend having minimum of 100g a day.

But so you want to do 30g at lunch and 30g at dinner. You could do a little bit more at each if you want. And it's very simple and straightforward to do the 30g at lunch and dinner, because all you do is you have 5 to 6oz of any kind of meat or any kind of fish, or you could have Greek yogurt, or you could have lentils and add in hemp seeds to it, and that's going to give you that amount. And if you just focus on that protein more you're going to hit that. But I 90g is a little low. So hitting at least 100g and actually 120g is going to be the numbers.

That's that's really the amounts that's going to activate your metabolism and get your fat loss happening. And so you might want to add in one protein shake, one Greek yogurt, one cottage cheese, either to your meals or as a snack as well, in order to get to that place. And then how how should women look at their like their plates so protein more? I love that you need like bumper stickers. And then what? What's your viewpoint or stance. Like where do the carbs and the fats come in? And can you speak to carbs? Right.

Because carbs, you know, carbs are kind of like estrogen. They've been vilified and they're very misunderstood. So if you could speak to fat. I mean, fats, I think have made their comeback. They definitely were like back in the 80s, right? Everything was fat free. But we know there's healthy fats. If you can just speak a little to that, I think that would be helpful for the women listening. Yes. Thank you so much. And I advocate having all of the food groups we can we should not take out any of the food groups.

And our bodies need carbs. And, you know, in fact, if you are eating low carb or you've been eating low carb, it's really creating a lot of stress to our gut health and to our digestion and to our thyroid. Because our thyroid is dependent on carbs. And the reason our thyroid is important is because it's our metabolism boosting gland. It is. It's a very key part of our body to really keep our metabolism high. And when you're starving it, then it's going to slow down. And that's why many women are experiencing hypothyroidism as they're entering menopause as well.

And so or in menopause. And the other thing about carbs is that we definitely need them every day. But we want to have carbs that I that I call slimming carbs. And so these slimming carbs are carbs that also have fiber in them. Because what happens is when you have carbs that have more fiber, then they don't digest as quickly and cause the blood sugar spikes that carbs had been vilified for. And and so if you eat carbs that have more fiber in them and that are very complex, even more complex and typical complex, complex carbs, then they digest very slowly and they keep you full very for a long time.

And so that's why, you know, I have a framework called the Fat Burning Food Framework, where I talk about how to pair and combine your foods. And when you combine your foods in the way, I'll share right now you are going to keep your blood sugar very even, which is a big trick. It's really it's not about calories, actually. I mean, calories is a bullet point. Calories is a part of the conversation, but it is not the main part of the conversation. It's actually the kinds of foods that you're eating.

And also, are you keeping your blood sugar even? Because if you are, then your body is able to burn fat and insulin is not being released to take that sugar out of your blood and store it as fat. So. So when you have a slimming carbs and combine them with protein, combine them with your 30g of protein and then combine them with a full cup of vegetables. Those vegetables also have fiber in them. That is a fat burning lunch. That's what I call a fat burning lunch. It really works, Doctor Sharon okay, I mean, it's going to burn fat if you eat this and you're eating more, you're eating a cup of vegetables, you're eating healthy, slimming carbs, and then you're eating that 30g of protein.

You're going to feel full and satisfied. And so healthy carbs or slimming carbs examples are beans and lentils. Those are really, really very high fiber. They're they're very easy to digest. And so they're really good to have about a half cup to a cup. Also having sweet potatoes or potatoes but that are cooked and then cooled. That's the trick. Put cook it and cool it. And that creates a resistant starch. And so it spikes your blood sugar about 30 to 40% less than if you had just eaten it warm without cooling it first.

The other thing though, can I just ask you because I have this conversation a lot. So you cook the potatoes? Yep. You cool them by pouring cold water over them or by putting them in the fridge. And then do you have to eat them cold or can you, can you just talk a little bit about the details of that? Thank you. I know this is a very frequently asked question for a lot of people. And so when you cool it, so what you do is you cook it. And I recommend cooking in bulk. So cook for like 3 or 4 days of what you can eat in 3 or 4 days.

And then and then you cool it to room temperature, you know, on the countertop just so that it, you know, it cools nicely. And then you put it in the fridge so it really cools down overnight. Now you can you don't have to eat it cold though, because once it goes. Once you cool it, that resistant starch has formed. So now you can heat it back up, whether it's on the microwave or on the stove top, and then eat it. So that's why it's good to cook it in bulk so that the first day, also the first day that you cook it, if you want to have it warm, you're not going to mess everything up.

It's going to be fine if you eat it that one day warm and then you eat the rest of the days, cool. So that's going to be, you know, really helpful. So potatoes, sweet potatoes. The other thing that this resistant starch does is it really helps decrease bloating. And that's because our our bodies are needing that. Our gut our gut is needing more resistant starch in order to feed our good bacteria. That digests more of the foods that we're eating. And if you don't have enough of that good bacteria, you're getting a lot of bloating from the bad bacteria that's growing.

So that resistance starch is really helping to really help to maximize that good bacteria. So and it's also keeping you full and satisfied. So we talked about potatoes. We talked about sweet potatoes. Also rice is another resistant starch that you cook in. Cool. And then for those of you that like to eat grains, having what I call slimming grains, the carb. So those are things like millet, quinoa, farro. They're grains that are more low glycemic. They don't spike your blood sugar as much, but if you have the rice and cook it and cool it, that will work as well.

And then finally, if you want to eat breads, you can have sourdough bread, you can have rye bread, and you can also have Ezekiel bread. So so those are some options for for those carbs. But you definitely want to combine it with the you know, you want to combine it with your protein and then with your with your vegetables. And if you're eating a snack that has carbs, just remember to always combine it with a protein or, you know, or a healthy fat. Those are some, some things. So for example an apple is is is a good food to eat.

But if you eat it alone, you're going to spike your blood sugar twice as much or three times as much, actually, as if you have a tablespoon of peanut butter with it. So. So this is why protein more, but also eating more is actually going to help you lose the weight because it's about the chemistry between the foods. And it's how those are going to keep your blood sugar even but keep you full and satisfied. So that's the that's the the fat burning lunch. And then for healthy fats, we absolutely need healthy fats for so many reasons.

One of the major reasons that's affecting us in midlife is inflammation. It is actually helping us decrease inflammation to have healthy fats like omega threes, but it's also helping with our brain health, and it's also helping to keep us full and satisfied. So what I recommend is having at dinner, having a serving of fat with vegetables, a cup of vegetables, and then your 30g of protein because that fat at night. It also helps us sleep better. So that is something many of us are struggling with.

And so when you eat that, that fat, it keeps your blood sugar even. But it's very satiating for a long period of time. And so it really helps you sleep so much better. I've had so many women tell me how much more soundly they can sleep after adding the serving of fat, and a serving is about 14g of fat, and that is one tablespoon of olive oil, or coconut oil or avocado oil. Or it could be half an avocado, or it could be a tablespoon or two tablespoons of nuts or seeds. Those are other those are different ways to get that healthy fat.

And I recommend having fat at your breakfast, dinner and one snack, or adding it on to your lunch if you if you want to do that. So you have fat three times a day. And this formula really helps you get what you need in terms of keep getting your metabolism high, but not overeating unhealthy foods because you're feeling so satiated and fat really burns away systematically, and it continues to burn away until you're at a really great place. Awesome awesome awesome awesome. Are there any I talked to you all day?

Are there any last words of wisdom, tips, anything that you want to share with the audience?

Spices, Resources, and Closing Remarks 32:28

I would say, you know, we talked about foods and we talked about combining foods, but the thing that really makes this fun and actually gets, gets you to the next level of boosting your metabolism is to add herbs and spices to your foods. And so we did talk about cinnamon, which is amazing. And for those of you that drink coffee or tea, I recommend you sprinkle some cinnamon in your coffee or tea. In fact, that was the first thing that I did as I started my by 40 pound weight loss was that I started sprinkling cinnamon into my coffee and it really helped me get off of sugar.

And also it helped me avoid sugar and a lot of the things I was eating. So cinnamon is really great. Also adding turmeric. Turmeric is anti-inflammatory and it's very mild and flavor, it's not spicy at all and you want to combine it with some black pepper whenever you use it so that you can. So you'll get the absorption more. And the way that you can use turmeric is to add a half teaspoon onto your eggs, or put a sprinkle or a half teaspoon into your smoothie with a sprinkle of black pepper. You won't taste it.

Believe me, I do this regularly and then you're getting those anti-inflammatory bloating effects as well. So, you know, playing with those, those spices as well as other ones that you like, like cumin or coriander or ginger. These are all great digestive, fat burning spices that are also helping us to keep our gut very healthy and, and and decrease the fat and the bloating. So having fun with those flavors and spices, that's what really got me to lose the weight, was that I loved what I was eating because it was flavored and and I enjoyed it.

Yeah. Spices. I think we tend to crave sugar. And I know personally that was my my flavor of choice. But when we think about all the different flavors and I was in India doing Pancha Karma, where we were really, you know, from an air Vedic perspective, really using the different flavors. And it was this was about ten years ago, and it was like the first time in my life where I actually liked spicy. Like spicy was always too much for me, and all I wanted was sweet. And then after I did that, it was like, no, give me that hot sauce for my eggs.

Like, you know, to learn. So sometimes, like our we're protein deficient, we're just craving sweets. And we are not getting the value of all these beautiful spices that you're talking about. And I love that tip like mint for to to creasing sugar cravings. And you know, you could put some mint in your water that you're sipping on or mint tea. And so spices are, you know, medicinal. And I think we forget that. So thank you for reminding us. So where can the ladies learn more about you? Oh, thanks so much.

Well, I have my website, Masala Bodycon, where you can find out what I'm doing and what's happening. And then also I'm very active on Instagram which is also masala body. And so if you follow me there, I'm posting regularly and giving tips and strategies, especially for women that are 50, 60 and 70 on how to burn fat and increase your metabolism as well as decrease bloating. Awesome. Well, you're a gift to the ladies. Do you work with men too? I work only directly with women, but many women who are married will be eating with their husbands, and their husbands will also lose a lot of weight.

The guys always lose the weight really quick. They always say yes. They're like, oh, I'm three hours in. I've dropped 10 pounds. Very true. It's very true. And it does work for men. But I work directly with women. Gotcha. Well that's amazing. So that's masala masala. Go check her out on Instagram. I'm going to go follow you on Instagram. And you know just great. And I love it and truth. And I think it just speaks to this whole part of our life. Like we need to feed ourselves more, right? So many women, by the time you pull into menopause, you're exhausted spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically and like, this is not the end.

This is just the pause, right? I'm going to pause to refuel. And literally what Nagin is talking about is, you know, refueling. It's okay to feed ourselves. I know some of you may need to listen to this again, right? Because it's like it's like when I first learned what I can't do hardcore cardio, and I need to slow down to stay in shape as I am getting older. Like it's the same with this. We were taught, you know, starve yourself, starve yourself, you're going to lose your weight. That's how you're going to get into it.

And so it's so appropriate at this time in our life where we're changing everything about how we nurture ourselves, how we nourish ourselves, how we heal, that we hear this very, very important message about it's not about restriction, it's about fun. It's about Bountiful, and it's about feeding yourself more with the correct things. So protein more everyone and thank you is a joy to be with you. Go follow her. Go check out her website. And thank you all for being here. As you know, I don't take it lightly that you've chosen to come learn, grow, be in our community here and from the bottom of my heart.

I love you all and we'll see you at the next interview. So go eat some protein. Bye bye.