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The Four Pillars of Weight Loss- Part I, Stress Management with Jason Seib, Episode 026

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Show Notes

We are bringing back Jason Seib of AltShift to do a four part series of interviews to discuss the Four Pillars of Weight Loss in more detail. This is Part 1 where we focus on Stress Management.

What is AltShift Diet?

It’s a diet that was created after Jason lived in the Paleo world. Paleo makes people healthier, but doesn’t necessarily lead to fat loss. The AltShift Diet cycles fats, carbs and calories, and people are finding the it easy to follow. It is a fat loss protocol and people are achieving astonishing results. There is scientific research backing the diet protocol.

The reached #1 on Fitness & Nutrition category in iTunes, and received Paleo Magazine’s Best of 2015 Award for Best Ebook. And the testimonials are amazing!

 

Four Pillars of Good Health and Fat Loss

The following are the four pillars of fat loss. We will be dedicating one whole episode to each, so be sure to come back the next few weeks to listen in on discussion about the other pillars.

  • Part I- Stress
  • Part II- Sleep
  • Part III- Nutrition
  • Part IV- Exercise

Not one is more important than the other. If one is missing, it can dismantle your goals.

 

The Effects of Stress

Most of what Jason sees in his clients is based on “heads” more than it’s based on “bodies”. Most people believe that they don’t have stress as it relates to finances, relationships, kids, jobs, etc. But we live by an alarm clock and most of us couldn’t survive well if we lost our jobs today. These are stressors we’re not thinking about or conting on. They spike our cortisol throughout the day, which increases insulin and glucose, which then leads to storing fat.

When you’re trying to lose weight, and do diet & exercise but don’t pay attention to stress, your cravings are through the roof.

 

How to Eliminate Stress

You’ll have to know “it’s going to be difficult and will take work”. You will not be able to get rid of daily stress. What you do have control over is how you deal with it.

As humans, we ruminate over things that happen throughout the day. If a car honks at you while you’re walking, you wonder why, then look at the car and remember you need to fix the transmission on yours, or maybe it’s time to get a new car, but you really can’t afford it right now and you can’t ask for a raise because your boss is not very kind or understanding, and you can’t leave because the convenience of working close to home is priceless, and you’re close to the kids school, etc….and the thoughts keep coming. Women do this more than men, by the way.

What we need to do is get rational.

Practice Mindfulness- Instead of  letting stressful facts and thoughts ruminate, that can lead to more negative and stressful thoughts, practice mindfulness through meditation. We’re not turning hippie and rubbing crystal here. Stay with us. Science and research shows that you can change your thoughts.

  • Sit and take deep breathes.
  • Focus on your breath.
  • When your thoughts start to wander, which is normal and they will, catch yourself and focus on breathing again.
  • You can train your mind to interrupt your thoughts and change to a new normal. It just takes practice.
  • Do 5 minutes of meditation daily for a month.

Even with no further instructions, you will see amazing results after a month. Clients have said “meditation is a game changer”. It has been proven to work and there is no need to do it for more than 10 minutes. Very doable!

Jason has had clients that were finding little or very slow results in fat loss. Once they started meditating, they saw immediate results with better sleep, improved productivity at work, had more will power to avoid junk food and started losing weight.

Calm, a meditation app- Jason likes this one because you can pick a background noise like waves or a stream, and reduce background noise during your meditation. He doesn’t particularly like the guided meditation it provides, prefers to do his own. The other great feature of this app is that it keeps a tally of the consecutive days you’ve meditated, providing an incentive to do it daily so you don’t break your streak.

Time of day- It is best to schedule it in everyday at the same time so it becomes habitual. Whether it’s in the morning, or in the evening, as long as it’s at the same time every day. But if your schedule impedes doing it at the same time, that’s fine; it just becomes a habit when it’s done at the same time.

8 Minute Meditation Expanded: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life. This is a great book to get started with. It takes you through one week at a time and adds layers every week. It’s a small book of daily reading and can be done in 8 minutes.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story by Dan Harris. Dan Harris is a correspondent for ABC News and the co-anchor for the weekend edition of Good Morning America, and he shares his story with meditation.

AltShift Diet Ebook– has a section on meditation where Jason created instructions on what to do without any confusion.

Breathing Exercises- after you’ve done meditation a couple of times, you can take deep breathes wherever you are and whenever to help you center yourself.

Listen to Fiction Books- they’ll help keep your mind from creating negative and stressful thoughts. Specially when driving in traffic.

Figure out when and where you ruminate- and find what you can do to replace that, that won’t stress you out. Be in the moment, go for a walk, enjoy nature, etc.

 

You won’t be successful to eliminate stress if you don’t take care of the other 3 pillars: sleep, nutrition and exercise. More details on these pillars in upcoming episodes. Come back in the next few weeks to listen in on them.

In the meantime, listen in on our first interview with Jason a few months back: Thinking Yourself Thin- Fact or Fiction with Jason Seib

Four Pillars - stress management

Jason’s Bio:

Jason Seib is the creator of the popular AltShift Diet, the author of The Paleo Coach, co-host of the popular JASSA Podcast and AltShift Podcast, founder and co-owner of AltShift Fitness and Fat Loss, a successful small gym in the Portland, Oregon area, as well as founder and co-owner of JassaFIT.com, an on-line training site and community. He speaks on the subject of fat loss regularly, delivering his Sustainable Fat Loss Seminar around the US. Jason’s passion is guiding normal people to extraordinary levels of health and fitness and he has built his career by helping thousands of people to change their perspective and find a healthy, sustainable path to their goals.

 

Links and Resources