It’s a beautiful sunny morning here on Fire Island, New York, and I write this to you on Day 3 of my 10 days of vacation at my family’s summer home in Ocean Beach. A lot has happened in the past year, and because of all that, this is my first time away from my business in a little over a year. Quick funny story: The trip got off to a fun start…
Since we need to take a ferry to get to the island, we tend to load our wagon up with all of our bags. My girlfriend carries the bunny and her purse separately, while I carry the dog in a carrier case on my shoulder and drag the wagon. We loaded up the wagon after parking in the lot across from the ferry, and within five feet, the wagon BROKE — One of the wheels completely fell off! Thanks to technology, we Googled and found a sporting goods store that sold wagons less than a couple of miles away, and since there was a sale, we got a BEAST of a wagon on the cheap!
It’s been pretty relaxing ever since :-)
Now then, as you may already know, I’m a HUGE proponent of eating right! You can work out ’til the cows come home, but if you’re fueling your body with sludge (added sugar, grains and processed foods), it ain’t going to look or perform very well.
That being said, there are RARE instances where clients of mine will seemingly 100% fix up their nutrition, will eliminate the added sugar and junk in their beverages, and will STILL plateau! If this persists for more than a few weeks, then we know we have a more complex issue on our hands…
To keep things simple and short, there are TWO things that can cause a plateau despite proper nutrition:
1) An unknown food allergy, and/or
2) A hormone imbalance.
Let’s tackle these one at a time, shall we? Today’s focus will be on the food allergy side, using a personal story to help illustrate how important it is to make sure you’re not unintentionally sabotaging your health or your weight loss effort…
Since the end of my ‘studies’ in college, I noticed that my stomach started to bother me regularly in a couple of disconcerting ways: First, I’d get these sudden pangs, like someone was stabbing me in my midsection. Second, I’d get a sudden onset shortly thereafter of ‘the runs,’ having between 30–60 seconds to find a bathroom, or else!
Fortunately, I never missed the mark on finding a bathroom when this happened, but I could never figure out what was causing this to occur. My stomach issues continued to get worse, and at one point, they got so bad that shortly after starting my personal training business, I’d have to literally RUN to the bathroom in many of my clients’ homes halfway through our sessions.
It was embarrassing, it was unprofessional, and something needed to be done!
Interestingly enough, a chiropractor helped point me in the right direction. One of my younger brothers, Matt, is a chiropractor, and after he received his degree in the field a couple of years back, my family and I stayed in San Jose (where he lived at the time) for about a week. During this time, I met the guy he had done his preceptorship, and he offered to examine everyone in the family.
Literally the FIRST thing he did was poke me in the stomach gently, which felt similar to the stomach pangs I mentioned earlier. He told me that my intestines were inflamed, and that I’d better get a food allergy test to eliminate any foods that might be causing this type of constant state of inflammation. I found out shortly thereafter that I was mildly allergic to a few foods here and there, but that I was EXTREMELY allergic to the whey protein (and moderately allergic to the casein protein) found in dairy!
Up until this point, I was a dairy fanatic! I had cheese with practically every meal, drank whey protein shakes after workouts, and had a glass of organic whole milk or two every day!!
It was tough for the first week, but once I adjusted my diet to NOT include dairy, I noticed that my stomach issues went away practically overnight :-). With better peace of mind knowing that I wasn’t going to be doubled over in pain or running to a toilet, this made the cravings for dairy a lot easier to manage. In fact, I RARELY crave anything cheesy anymore!
Additionally, I lost the final 15 of the 100 lbs I’ve lost from my heaviest to where I am now, and I literally didn’t do anything differently but eliminate the dairy that was causing all of my issues…
Moral of the Story: If you feel that you’re doing everything right nutritionally, but you’re STILL not making any progress, then I highly recommend you get a food allergy test! The results may not only be revealing, but can help point you in the right direction of taking that next step forward to improving your quality of life!
Until tomorrow.
Sincerely,Pete Weintraubpete@weightlossbypete.com
P.S. If you feel you need more help on the nutritional side, then you’re definitely going to want to invest in my Food Guide and Healthy Recipe Book!
The Food Guide lays out the three phases of nutrition I use with my Permanent Weight Loss clients. Phase 1 gets you in the habit of making healthier choices, while Phase 2 really cleans up the frequency with which you eat healthier. Phase 3 is a strict macronutrient breakdown that will help expedite the process of weight loss, all while improving your health and making your body a well-oiled machine!
My Healthy Recipe Book includes 72 recipes spanning breakfast,lunch, dinner, snacks, appetizers and desserts. I’m constantly adding to it, but these recipes are easy to make, simple and enable you to have your cake and eat it, too!
Normally, I sell each of these books for $10 a piece, but because I’m feeling generous today, you can get BOTH for just $13.99! :-)
To get your copies, please go to www.weightlossbypete.com/foodguiderecipes.