Introduction: Expert Panel Discusses Metabolic Balance

hello and welcome to the metabolic balance AZ podcast so this is the expert

panel Edition and I am delighted to welcome back Karen Pike Heather Musgrove

Alexandra Brewster and Arina YY we are discussing all of different questions

about around metabolic balance and how it helps clients and the experience that we all have so I want to get going

straight away a big welcome welcome to everybody uh this morning and I want to

Adapting Metabolic Balance for Athletes & Chronic Health Issues

start off straight up with the question how do we adapt metabolic

balance and the use of metabolic balance for people with sort of very specific needs like um athletes or um chronic or

complex Health clients Alex do you want to go first sure as I was saying earlier when

we were having a chat you know people approach us with Med iic balance because they see they often times they friends

colleagues loved ones who have had great success in fat loss and weight loss and we know that it does that very well you

Surprising Fertility Success with Metabolic Balance

know and I'm pretty sure one of the reasons it does it so well is because it reduces inflammation one of the one of

the things I think that MB works so well on that often times forgotten is fertility I've had so

many I've had I've had oh not so many I've had probably at least half a dozen

women who came to to me for MB for various health issues and F fat loss you

know it's really stubborn fat loss thyroid whatever whove conceived which is really exciting in

one in one in particular like her her her one and only child was nine years old and she' had failed IVF and um all

sorts of things and I didn't it was because she just saw me as MB and wanted

to lose fat and they didn't even come to the equation when I said have you got any other health issues and stuff cuz

she just thought well I just can't have another baby she was heading towards 40 and um five weeks in she says oh

Alexandre you wouldn't believe it I'm pregnant and I said is that a good thing or not and she said yes I've been trying

for nine years two failed ivfs you know so I think that's a chronic health issue that's becoming pervasive in our um

Western Society anyway and MB works so well I think it's from reducing the

inflammation and and uh also educating the immune system yeah

yeah we definitely have quite a few MB babies around the world I was going to say definitely um I even interviewed on

the podcast there's an episode um of a lovely couple who yeah they got pregnant

were they were totally not expecting that to happen but Heather have you experienced that as well have you for

Resolving Chronic Allergies Through Personalised Nutrition

for for adapting MB for chronic you know for using it for different reasons other than weight loss I suppose in different

areas yeah I had a husband and wife came together and I think initially he

basically came to be supportive of her but he'd had

chronic allergies and they had uh Jasmine all up their driveway and he said all through uh flaring season he

couldn't walk up his driveway and he was living on um telfast every single day

and he he was a trady and working really hard and I did have to personalize his

plan for him because he just lost he wasn't trying to lose weight but he lost a lot of weight so we added extra meals

in for him but his sensitivity to that Jasmine completely disappeared and he

said that he can walk along his driveway now no problems now he he had no expectations of what he was going to

gain from metabolic balance it was more Curious interest but he got a fantastic

lasting health benefit that he's very grateful for yeah and using it for of um

Enhancing Athletic Performance Naturally

specific groups like athletes um uh Karen you've you you you're a PT of

course as well so you've got a bit you've got that extra um interest going on there so where would you know what

would you say about sort of adapting a plan for you know specific um like

athletes yeah absolutely it's interesting I had a client in just before who is a cyclist and for a long

time he had heard about metabolic balance and and approached me and said but I don't think it's going to work for

me because it's so specific and we had a bit of a chat what do you mean specifically he said well

there's no way that I can still train and eat that much I need to be able to eat other foods and that's what I love

about metabolic balance is that we can adapt it and we can change it and we get the foundation and then as practitioners

we use our knowledge to make it work for them um to make sure they heat all meet

all of their energ requirements their recovery requirements as well and I know

a lot of practitioners incorporate sort of body composition as well so for athletes I definitely bring that in to

make sure that they're not losing too much muscle mass and their body fat percentage is still sufficient to

support their hormone production um but one of the comments he said to me this morning is is that he has never felt

better and he has never been able to ride as fast as he is at the moment

moment and um like I mean he's he's a 48 year old male so he's been riding for a

long time and he said this has just given him that extra Edge to be able to

push his performance forward um and we have made tweaks and modifications but

yeah using good Whole Foods even like his preworkout nutrition is Whole Foods

he's not using gels and all of those sort of things he's actually taking dates on the right with him now and he's

that sufficient enough to support him while he's doing that which is great absolutely because yeah I was

going to say the personal best so many people get personal bests when they're on MB that's what I hear all the time

yeah and Arina what what's what would be your take on this I actually just had a

Listening to Your Body’s Metabolic Cues

client uh report to me yesterday who was a like an avid Fitness fanatic um that

she was on uh a a big bush walk with a whole lot of um other people and she was

like everybody was stopping every sort of 20 minutes to have a snack and um she

was like I was really surprised but I really didn't need to fuel myself the

way I had before so she just listened to her body and her body told her actually

I'm going to be able to make it to lunch and then she was like on another day it was like actually this um I burnt up all

my fuel and I need um some refueling um and she was she was really

surprised at how her body made it very clear whereas before she was like I

would fuel because that was the right thing to do and now I fuel because I can read

what my body needs and when it needs it and I think that that's a real um game

Cher for athletes but also just for people who are really active

you know if you might have an active job you might have a very active life and

once you get that metabolic shift and you're able to read your own body's

metabolic cues um because you've had the support of a metabolic balance

practitioner to help you read those cues and understand them that then you can

actually feel yourself the way your personal individual body wants to be fueled

that's a really interesting point though uh what you just said before I just want to come back to that you said that you

know she was people often fuel themselves by what they believe they

need to be doing as in they you know you read an article or you know it's like oh yeah you know multiple snacks you got to

keep on snacking and all this kind of stuff and it may not actually be making

somebody actually feel that great but they kind of can't quite put the two together or understand why and actually

we often when we realize at how we really do need to fuel ourselves during

a day then the health just just goes into an a whole new place um you know

it's cut with it's again down coming down to this generic idea of sort of

General nutrition advice which constantly changes all the time I mean that's the thing it's like I get

confused by the what the latest latest advice is to actually what's personally

best for you absolutely it's it's the individualization of the plan itself and

then the support of qualified uh experienced practitioners

who help you to understand your own body's cues and everybody is so

individual so different every plan I have I Implement in a different

way yeah yeah absolutely and so if we

were to kind of think bit a little bit more about where we see the program

really aligning with some great nutritional principles if we sort of take that because we've got new

researchers come out in the last 10 15 years um well I mean it's constantly

changing over the last sort of 30 40 years really metabolic balance has been

like putting in place the framework and the structure and the advice for the last 25 years but we're getting all this

extra research about the cadium Rhythm and the microbiome and the you know the

importance of um mitochondrial Health would um where would you go with

Microbiome Insights: Apples and Gut Health

you know what would you say about that Heather well that's really interesting and I say this to my clients all the

time metabolic balance knew this 30 years ago and I think one of the outcomes this year was all the promotion

about aam manesis as the desirable microbe to have in your gut and the food

that upregulates acamesis is Apples the icon of metabolic balance do you want to

just explain aamanis a little bit a little bit more well Alex probably could do a better job than me but aamanis is a

a microbe in our gut that in in infects our metabolism and a metabolic rate

and Studies have shown that people with a higher amount of acamesis have less

obesity and higher metabolism and then when you look into

well what can you know obviously the supplement companies are driving this because they're saying well we can have supplements now with aamanis in it but

what foods drive it apples yeah and just a healthy gut basically isn't it yeah

but it's but there's there's something specifically in apples that supports the breeding of that particular strain in

our gut Flora so the and you know you go it's not just metabolic balance I don't know where the term an apple a day the

doctor away came from but that's that ancient wisdom coming through and now science is putting up its hand and

saying oh we've got all this groundbreaking research but all they're doing is um validating ancient wisdom

Benefits of Ghee: Detox and Gut Health Explained

and in this case metabolic balance intellectual property from 30 years ago yeah Alex what would you say it's it's

it's it's fascinating when we found that out wasn't it hether was like oh my gosh metabolic Ballance one apple a day and

the other one that really has been validated is ghee you know I I and I'm

sure we've all had this uh experience where the patient will come back and say oh but the doctor says I can't eat

saturated fat and you're telling me to eat all this ghee and um you know and it

that again ancient wisdom if we go just to even to Arava they use it as a form

of um of of theraputic food but what has the research now shown about GE people

that it's the only food source of berate now berate for those um of us who

aren't as uh scientifically minded is basically what coms the farm in our gut

which pre preserves you know that mucus where all the all the beneficial microorganisms um sit and is one of the

uh the three main short chain fatty assets that yeah basically keep our gut healthy and our immune system properly

educated and the uh other thing with we found out at ifm in in Vegas in June

this year was that there was they presented a study where 14 days of ghee

and it was only about a tablespoon a day massively bound up circulating toxins we

didn't know that one it's like so there's this other big benefit to ghee that none of us knew or know Alex and I

didn't know about and here's this person presenting this recent study you know

you know if someone's got a toxic load make them have gear every day well hello yeah fat soluble toxins via the bile

yeah but it's coming back to just like bringing everything all in together in

um we are you know what the body has been used to eating for centuries as

well that's really where we're coming back to recognizing it's great Fuel and then we're adding in all of the other

aspects to really support the Cadian Rhythm because Cadian rhythm is so closely linked to microbiome balance of

How Meal Timing Boosts Your Circadian Rhythm

course um and um who would like to jump in on that one I'm

wondering what I notice is that there's such a tendency especially amongst women

um to eat really only one major meal a day and to sort of a little bit of

grazing and then dinner and then wonder why after dinner they are stuffing

themselves with chocolate and lollies um and I talk a lot about how um

eating um the three meals a day at the regular times the same time every day

actually creates uh cadium flow through their day gives their body an

opportunity to expect meals reduces um the stress hormones in the body and

increases the Sensi ity to glucose and almost um that alone the the regularity

of eating um and ensuring the way that metabolic balance ensures that breakfast

has uh good enough protein in it that people are eating um vegetables if they

need vegetables at breakfast to actually fuel themselves and this bringing the

attention to the fuel like how am I actually fueling myself would we put

diesel in a petrol car and expect it to work we wouldn't would we expect to be

able to run our car for a month without refueling it no we wouldn't but we have

the expectation of our bodies which which in itself shows how awesome it is that's actually the one thing I find

about metabolic balance when I when I get hardcore not myself like CU you know as we get in a bit we take a bit relx is

the quality of my sleep is insane I've never been a good sleeper I'll put it down to my years of night Duty and shift

work whether that's true or not but the quality of my sleep and how well I sleep

when I do my program is is actually life-changing I'd like to just add to

Why Women Should Avoid Long Fasting Periods

what Arina said again in Vegas there was lots of research presented then and I I

talked to my clients about this every day predominantly women is that all those studies on fasting were done on

men and women structurally have a different part and I can't tell you which part of the brain that is we have two centers

that detect starvation and men only have one so it's they were very much saying

over there that women shouldn't be going much more than 12 hours because it does have an effect on metabolic health and

when you explain that to women the lights go on they go a because they've been trying to do what's working for

their husband and he can get through to 1:00 and he just has lunch and tea but it's not working for me and and it's so

often in research all the research is done in men because they don't have the hormone fluctuations that don't have

periods I don't get pregnant so for research it's it's easy just do it on men but then that evidence gets

replicated for everybody and it's not the case and I think you know the things

that I leared in July or June July over there that was one of the most significant is that women shouldn't be

doing long-term fast especially postmenopause because of the effect on muscle mass and that we actually do a

lot better doing it the way metabolic balance advisor because it's still fasting you're still getting 5 hours

between meals and you're still getting an overnight fast there still get the benefits of that but without the

potential harm to cadium Rhythm to metabolic balance uh metabolic rate so

it's you know it's the same old thing isn't it you know we've just got got to look in dive into the research but often

that's not delineated the study will say 3,000 people were studied it doesn't say

3,000 males will study yeah it rarely does and the the thing that's really

interesting is that almost all women that I work with

uh will be limiting or dropping what is the key meal of the day

breakfast and that shift to a metabolic breakfast I think is one of the really

big key um changes to the health the energy their hormones their fertility

their inflammation their ability to focus at work you could just go on and on and on I think as well like it's um

when we look at like all the all of the research that's coming out and there's so much research on the microbiome and I

don't think any of us would ever be able to fully delve into every bit of research would be

researching gosh I couldn't imagine how many years we'd be researching for but like a lot of my clients will ask about

about the microbiome and the effects that it has and things like that and I I quite often will just simplify it and

say look your gut is full of good bacteria and it's also full of some bad bacteria as well and the foods that we

eat will influence the diversity of the bacteria that we've got and that that

nasty little bacteria that we don't want that's the one that's probably craving the sugars and the bad foods and things

like that whereas what metabolic balance is giving you is this huge diversity of

foods that are feeding all that good bacteria and all of that good bacteria needs different foods we can't just feed

it the one food and expect to have great results we've got to get this big mix in there and that's with with metabolic

bals the thing I love about it is is that you can encourage people to then broaden the foods that they eat to

actually take them out of this narrow mindset of I've got to have this for breakfast this is my lunch this is my dinner I'm not doing anything different

and they're not feeling great but you give them then this list of foods and they start to kind of Branch off and try

different things and actually enjoy those foods but they're then getting that benefit to that really good gut um

Health that's helping with that Cadian Rhythm that's helping with that metabolism so it's like metabolic

Metabolic Balance: Focus on Foods to Eat, Not Avoid

balance just kind of like I said it's going back to what we used to know Works

we're REM moving all of the foods that we've introduced that we know don't really work and going back to to the

basics I love how metabolic balance focuses on foods to eat it's not about foods not to eat it's

about what food to eat um what food does your metabolism need in order to become

balanced and then we move on to experimenting from from all foods to

work out well what does my now I know how my body feels when it's happy what

what other foods does it love yeah what would you say is the most surprising

Life-changing Results: Reduced Inflammation & Pain Relief

feedback that you've had from from a client after they've got going on

MB I think so for me I the one that

always comes to me with all of my clients is the reduction in inflammation

the pain the joint pain that just working with a lady and she's

been on the journey with me for she's actually been working with me for 12 months um she continued to want to work

with me she's released so she's 68 she's released at yesterday's check-in she had

released 30 kilos but she said she had never not been in pain in her life she had always

had pain and once she started on metabolic balance the pain the

inflammation went down and she was painfree and she said weekend she had a

party and it was a grandchild's party and she had some cake and the cake

caused so much pain in her feet that she needed to take um some Panadol to

actually get through the day and she said the one thing she said to me was that metabolic balance has taught her

what she needs to do to reduce that inflammation and have a life where she

is pain-free so that it always that story from clients when they're in some

sort of pain that it it resolves through eating the right

foods and the energy everybody I I don't think we you

know we don't talk about the first Sometimes they have few hiccups when they're trying to detox from the sugar

and what but um they all report this amazing energy and that's probably goes

to mitochondrial inflammation yeah and that can take a while sometimes so it's probably important to to sort of clarify

that because we don't know how the detox is going to happen in those first few weeks but yeah Al yeah absolutely the

energy sometimes the results are very very gradual I notice for some

people um the progression forward takes a really long

time um and that there's a fair bit of patience

that's required but when you start breaking it down um I take pictures of

my clients and they might say I'm you know I'm I'm not losing the weight that I thought I would lose but when I

actually show them pictures of their face um and uh pictures of them uh side

by side they're really profoundly shocked by how different they look um and how their faces changed I had um one

client recently who felt that she hadn't lost that much weight um and came in for

some photographs and it was only once the photographs were taken and she started

really seeing the difference in her appearance that she actually commented

that she was in the second photo wearing a pair of jeans that she hadn't been able to wear in 5 years and they were

comfortable so it's it's so gradual that sometimes the people that are actually

on metabolic balance don't recognize the shift until they have the evidence in

front of them I think one of the points you made there arolina was really important as well is that not everybody

gets results at the same time and again I've had clients that have

come to me because somebody else has done it and they've come in after the first wi G but I don't feel the same as

such and such felt and it's really then bringing them back and going this is your personal Journey this is not their

Journey this is about you so your results are going to be different and we

may it may take longer you might see other results that they haven't seen and I think that's a really important thing

with metabolic balance and this approach is that we don't guarantee that week one

that's it your energy is going to be 100% week two you're going to be out of pain week three your hormones are going

to be back in Balance everybody's different um which is why metabolic works this way balance works this way

completely agree in fact that client that I just mentioned had come in um

based on seeing the results of somebody else and was that exact that exact

situation really frustrated and feeling like she was failing but actually when we brought it back to what she had

achieved she realized actually I'm I'm achieving so much I I think of it like a

Understanding Weight-Loss Plateaus & Progress

I think Cherry you use this analogy um but I think of it like a stairwell um in

our society we go right weight loss this is where I am and I'm G to go downstairs and I'm GNA finish at this but it's not

actually how it happens in reality there are all these little Landings on the way down and you don't know where your

individual Landings are going to be or how long you going to be on a landing but when um people that I'm treating are

on a metabolic Landing I'll often talk about that's when their body is

gathering the resources um conducting um the the

detoxification and really um starting to get better pillars down and that you

can't lose weight until those pillars are in place the body has its own um

wisdom and its own order of priority and it will be addressing things that you

can't see but are actually more important yeah that's a great Point

that's a great point and Heather um have you have you got sort of specific um

memorable clients that you feel you know that you would you would talk about right

Transformational Success Stories with Family Support

now yeah one that comes to mine is a uh a family and I think I've shared this

before I have a lot of clients that are Italian and their social life is epic

like they honestly have an event every weekend it's a christening a confirmation an engagement of 21st and

18th it just goes on and on and on and it's really difficult for them to manage

weight and and their social lives but anyway this young um boy came in so he's

around uh early 20s he's studying and you know he's quite overweight and he

started the journey and again that's difficult he's living at home mom's cooking Italian food but his mom was

really supportive and and in his first well we say first round of MB he dropped

about 15 kilos and it was really fantastic and he looked and his self-esteem improved and he looked much

much better so so important for a young 20y old isn't it that I mean that is so

important yeah yeah he hadn't had a girlfriend or anything like that and then he had a plateau for several months

um he didn't gain weight in that time but he just didn't lose and then with his round two mom and dad came in with

him and so once so there were three adults living in the home and once the

whole three of them went through the two-day detox together and got on on plan even though their Foods were

different mom was fantastic and she was like oh well I'm cooking salmon for you and uh Whiting for you and but we're all

having this vegetable so they were able to make it work with three different

plans and the trans inform in that family was nothing short of remarkable

and he's now down about 30 kilos his dad's down about 20 and when his dad got

the plan his plan cuz I presented the mom and the dad's together the Dad's plan had no red meat on it and his face

just hit the floor he was like oh my God you've got to be joking and I said look just stick with it trust the plan trust

the plan said in in 30 days time you can have a treat meal a week so you can have some steak then and and and his wife had

red meat so there was a bit of plan Envy going on there but it was what he needed and

that's why he's released the weight and the redness and the blood pressure and everything settled down so the whole

three of them have had remarkable outcomes but quite different uh

complaints and issues have come but I think the success was the family support

and you know in that envir environment where the social life is so full on you

probably need that to really make it work so you know fantastic to watch

parents follow their son in and then you know I often see the three of them

together and it's just fantastic it's made so much difference to their family

that's so lovely yeah I think and I think everything when there's a plan and a

structure and the actual you know what you're do needing to do and then you're

feeling better too then I think also the mindset and the motivation well how can I make this

work um uh how C how can I actually really um make things uh you know

different because I always want everybody to enjoy social occasions but

equally not be damaged by the social occasion so you can go to a social

occasion choose the right food that you're going to partake in still be

there at the celebration of the engagement and the 18th and the wedding anniversary or whatever um but actually

then come away still being standing Standing Tall and feeling

good yeah Arina I I think that um metabolic

Achieving Sustainable Results: Real-Life Nutrition

balance really educates people about how to participate socially without

crippling themselves basically um and I think it's Unique in that way like I'm yet to find

um uh any sort of food and eating support which actually

encourages and um educates as to what to do when you're not eating your planned

Foods so when you're out what do you do what are some ideas as to how you can

address um socializing and how you can um speed up your metabolism balance your

metabolism and still be able to work out how socializing works for you because I

find it's uh very different for different people that um phase four or

the long-term phase of metabolic balance really is um about finding your unique

Rhythm and what works with your social engagements what works with your body um

what works within your family um but I I don't know any other

program which actually has a component which is about addressing

that yeah because we are want we want the long term we definitely want people to stay in a great lifestyle and feel

good for life it's not just it's not just a diet yeah it's not just losing

the weight and gaining the term I use when I explain CL metabolic balance and what I do so I class it as

scientific holistic but realistic so it's got to fit all of

those so it's got to fit like we can't just say you have to do this and you cannot go out of the boundaries because

nobody's going to stick to it um we know ourselves like we're not perfect like

there's times where we're going to make choices that might not be the ones we might have consequences or we might go

out and go you know what I'm going to have something off my plan but it's still going to make me feel good it's got to fit into everyday life it can't

be something that doesn't um because we want long-term success you don't want it six weeks that's it I'm done forget it

all it's that lifestyle change well I think we've actually even un uncovered a few more questions for

next time as well with this I can already think of quite a lot we should carry on with but I think that's a a

great place to wrap up um today um is anybody want to just come in with a sort

of a Qui quick word of wisdom about what would be a key to a success with MB just

sort of 30 second kind of what's the key to success it's always with me trust the

plan I agree with Alex and I I know also think timing is everything you know if

you can't dedicate that first 30 days wait till you can because if they nail

at the first go they they are devotees for Life yeah you can really reset

yourself you can do an amazing reset when you I I say the first two to three

weeks if you can really find a good two to three weeks stretch it out to four weeks

Amazing then we can really get some change yeah Arina and Karen sorry I

didn't hear what you said I really feel like the key to success

is listening listening to what your body's telling you

so I'll often hear um my clients say oh I reintroduced this food and um my

inflammation went straight up but like maybe I just need to persevere I'm like wait a minute let's just listen to what

your body told you there and I think yeah I agree with everybody else and I also say just a little bit of focus

sometimes you just need to focus um bring the focus back in sometimes everything's got a bit blurry the noise

that is around everybody at the moment when it comes to food and nutrition

let's just bring that Focus back in and let's let's look look ahead um as to

what we what can be achieved yeah awesome and well I think I would add in my little um thoughts as

always be willing to do things differently to get different results if

you are determined to just keep doing the same thing but suddenly think okay

my body's going to start liking it no MBA actually is about bringing in let's

do it differently let's really get it everything reset let's let's change

things around so that you actually get different results you get the results that you want that would be my little uh

advice okay awesome thank you everybody I really appreciate you joining me today

and um we'll uh we'll pick up where we left off next time okay thanks everybody

thank you bye [Music]