Episode #16:

Brain-Powered Weight Loss with Jenifer Hillman Paredes

How many of us have struggled with being overweight at some point in our life? Most of us, right? Obesity can cause an array of physical health issues, but can also be the reason for devastating emotional health issues. We try and fail at diets, then feel embarrassed when we put weight back on. It’s time to address the root cause of the problem, and Life and Weight Coach Jenifer Hillman Paredes joins us this week to show us how!

Jenifer supports a new way of approaching weight loss, which focuses on brainpower instead of willpower. Her aim as a coach is to help people change their thinking in order to achieve long-lasting results, and she joins us today to share valuable tips and advice on how to engage our brainpower and stop overeating, once and for all.

Join us this week where we discuss why so many of us feel addicted to food, and what internal changes we can make to move forward with our physical goals. Jenifer’s insight, tools, and advice will support you in having a healthier relationship with food and get those weight loss goals you’ve been striving for!

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER



Why your diet may not be working for you.



What stinking thinking is and how to address it.



Why we shouldn’t be tough on ourselves for overeating.



The reason you might crave certain foods.



How to manage your weight problems in the long term without having to diet.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW



Check out more episodes of the podcast here!

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast, with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 16, Brain Powered Weight Loss, an interview with certified weight loss coach, Jenifer Hillman Paredes. This episode is dedicated to everyone who has struggled, and continues to struggle with being overweight, so basically all of us.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, where women learn to love their lives. Do you find yourself frustrated by society’s expectations? Looking for practical advice on how to discover your talents and level up your life? You’ve found the right place. Here’s your host, US News top doctor, robotic surgeon and certified life coach, Dr. Susan Crockett.

Hello, my virtuosas, my virtuosas-in-training. I am your host, Dr. Susan Crockett. You can call me Sue because we are not practicing medicine here, we are having girl talk. And you guys, we’re having an amazing girl talk today. I’ve got an interview with Jenifer Paredes for you guys. And I am so grateful to be able to start doing this.

It is a gorgeous day outside. Like usual, I have my Ollie Bollie back behind me, my little dog, Ollie, who’s snuggled back behind me in the chair. He’s being such a good little doggy.

It is a beautiful sunny afternoon. I’m getting ready to go grocery shopping once we’ve finished this. But I had the most fantastic time talking with one of my coaches today, and I know you’re going to love the show.

Susan: I’m so excited to introduce you to Jenifer Paredes. Jenifer is a life coach and weight coach with The Life Coach School. She also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Physiology, and is certified to teach meditation. She stays active playing beach volleyball, her in-home yoga, and she lives and coaches clients virtually from her home in Santa Barbara, California.

She is currently determined to take on the project of growing more of her own food with a vegetable garden.

Today, Jenifer and I are going to be talking about weight loss, but not just any weight loss because you hear that from every direction. We’re talking about a new way of addressing weight loss. It has more to do with brain power, instead of willpower. And she is quite the expert on this.

We are going to give you three specific tools that you can use by the end of this podcast to help you manage your brain around your desire for overeating. And, therefore, manage how you are managing your body and being overweight. So, Jenifer, welcome. How are you today?

Jenifer: Thank you. I’m doing really well. It’s great to be here.

Susan: Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about how you got to this place? Because you’ve gotten to this interesting place from several different directions, several different degrees. It’s really kind of impressive to see somebody with these multi varied backgrounds coming to this point.

Jenifer: Yes, well, I have always been interested in health and interested in – actually in food. I’ve always enjoyed food and eating, even from a very like young age, I can remember enjoying and loving, looking forward to my meals. And I was always active, so weight wasn’t really an issue until I got to college. And then things started to change because I was under so much additional stress. And I started to have to live in the real world more on my own.

Susan: Yeah...

Jenifer: So I started to experience what overeating was, and having sort of that on and off again weight problem. And so it’s been kind of a lifelong for me to be interested in health and in weight and weight loss. And right now I am focusing my skills and efforts in this area because I just see so much unhappiness due to being overweight.

Susan: Right, it’s like epidemic.

Jenifer: Yeah. And it’s contributing so much to devastating health issues for people. I mean we learn – the more we learn about this, the more we’re understanding that not only is it just uncomfortable, and keeps us from really living a full life. It’s also affecting our health. So I really have wanted to devote my skills, and my efforts, and my career to this.

Susan: Yeah, the idea of not only is it uncomfortable to be overweight. But just what I see in my practice is just the health issues related to it. Not just physical health issues that we know of, like high blood pressure and diabetes and not joint injuries, joint problems, bladder issues, all of that kind of stuff. But we also see the emotional issues. Because we just try over and over and over again, I mean we try so many diets, we try so many, whatever. And you know what always happens to me and what I see a lot is just like my willpower’s good for about two days, and then it’s not.

So, I’m really excited to hear what you have to say about this. Tell me a little bit about your thoughts about why you think we’re overweight, and why – why we’re having so much difficulty with this as a society, what’s at the root of it?

Jenifer: Yeah. So the root – that’s a good question because I think we focus a lot on obesity and that everybody’s overweight. We keep talking about the problem of that, but we’re not really looking at what’s the root of it. You know, like and the root of it is overeating. So really what we want to address is why are so many of us overeating? So…

Susan: And we’re not talking – sorry to interrupt you. But we’re not talking about people that have like endocrinologic reasons for being overweight, like thyroid disorders or something like that. We are talking about – we’re assuming that people have had medical work-ups. And that it’s not a medical problem that’s causing them to not be able to lose weight, when we’re addressing them in this format, right?

Jenifer: Right, good point, yeah. For the people who are not, yeah. If we are overweight, most of us, it’s because we’re overeating. I guess is a better way to say, but not for everyone. There are other reasons why people may, yes, are overweight.

So I think it’s tackling this problem in a new way is what we want to talk about today. Is because what we’ve been doing really hasn’t been working, which you brought up. You know, the diets that we’ve been trying, which certainly help with reducing weight. I mean we can lose weight on a diet, that isn’t really…

Susan: And lots of them, right?

Jenifer: Yeah.

Susan Crockett: Like the – I mean macros and carb counting, and paleo, and points and, you know, they all work, right?

Jenifer: Yeah, because they’re reducing your caloric intake, they’re managing your portions for you. They’re taking care of some of the things that, you know, you almost can turn off your brain when you’re on a diet, right?

Susan: Right.

Jenifer: And so, what this approach is, it’s like, no, let’s engage our brains. Let’s get smart about this, and let’s get to the real problem. Because if you’re on a diet, you’re never having to address that, that’s just not part of being on a diet, so.

Susan: That’s right, yeah. So the bottom line is our brain is the problem. Our brains are what are getting in the way of us being able to follow through on the overeating?

Jenifer: Yeah, definitely. And I think what happens with the diet mentality is it kind of just – it reinforces not using their brain. And it also brings up a lot of shame under there, which is another problem for us around this whole topic.

Susan: Wow, shame?

Jenifer: Yes, because once you’ve done the diet and you – inevitably, most people go back to doing what they did before they did this short-term solution.

Susan: Yeah.

Jenifer: You feel terrible about yourself.

Susan: Yeah.

Jenifer: Because you think there’s something wrong with you now, because now you’ve gained it all back. Or you’ve – maybe you haven’t gained it all back, but you’ve just – you’re just not – you haven’t changed anything really. You need to do it again.

Susan: Yeah.

Jenifer: Or you need to become more, yeah, you just need to be a better dieter, right.

Susan Crockett: Yeah. You know, I’m glad you bring up that point about shame because to me, I listen to a lot of Brené Brown’s work on shame. And she’s such a powerful researcher and writer about it. But that is just like the undoing of everything good, right, that shame? Like unless we can figure out how to move past that. So I’m hoping you’re going to give us some tools on that. Can you tell me a little bit about how the approach to overeating is different as a life coach than it is from a nutritionist or a weight loss coach?

Jenifer: Yes, I’d love to. So there’s three main ways that I use to help people engage their brain power. And it is to stop the overeating, which then leads to not gaining weight and not being overweight.

Susan: Cool.

Jenifer: So, the first way is to address our stinking thinking, I like to call it.

Susan: Our stinking thinking…

Jenifer: Our stinking thinking. Now, most of us are familiar with this idea that our thoughts are important and that we need to be aware of what we’re thinking and how our thoughts are often driving. And maybe you haven’t heard this, but if you have, our thoughts often are driving our feelings, and then our behavior. So we have to go back and address that first, so that then we can actually impact our actions around our health, and around what we eat and how much we eat. So we start with that. That’s a very important…

Susan: Basis of it.

Jenifer: Basis of it, yeah.

Susan: So, you know, my listeners, who have been listening to the podcast, they’re familiar with the CTFAR Model. We talk about it a lot. We’ve introduced them to the transformation tool. So we talk a lot in our podcast about how our thoughts create our feelings. And our feelings are what drive our actions and our results. So I think this is a good place to kind of put this in here, that most of the time when we’re doing diet plans, we’re working off of the action line. We’re like trying to change the action to get the result, which can work.

But what I hear you saying is that you’re going the two steps above that. Like you’re going back to the shame feeling, and then the thoughts that are driving the shame or the overeating, is that what you’re talking about with the stinking thinking?

Jenifer: Yeah, exactly. We’re going to go start with your thinking, because that’s influencing everything. So we’re going to start with that. And there’s a process that we use, and the model which you just talked about, can be used as part of that tool. But we really want to reveal and uncover all that thinking that you have, that’s leading to this, to this problem.

Susan: Give me some common examples from your clients about, or the kind of stinking thinking that they come in with, what are some thoughts?

Jenifer: Yeah. One thought that is very common, which actually I watched. I don’t know if anybody out there watches or follows Rachel Hollis, but she has a documentary on Netflix.

Susan: Yeah, she’s awesome.

Jenifer: And, oh, so interesting. She asks them to write down – I don’t want to go into lots of detail. But one of the questions on like a survey that they had to fill out, was how many of you have the thought or would say that, “I hate the way I look?”

And in that group about 75 to almost 90% of the people in that group stood up or raised their hand, that they had that thought or feeling. So that’s an example right there. And there is probably a lot of you out there that maybe think this. Because I think that group is representative of women as a whole. So you can imagine if we’re starting off with a thought like that, that isn’t necessarily directly related to weight. But it’s an example of some of the thinking that doesn’t lend itself to really wanting to approach weight loss in the way I would as a coach, because it…

Susan: It doesn’t really serve us, right?

Jenifer: Yeah.

Susan: Because we think we can beat ourselves up into health, or loving ourselves, which you can’t get there by hating yourself. But it’s a – that’s a really good example. It’s a really pervasive thought, right?

Jenifer: Right.

Susan: So, when we think about – when we’re coaching clients and we’re trying to help them replace those thoughts with other thoughts. So that they can create a body that they love, how do you get to that? What do you do with your brain?

Jenifer: So, something like that we would work – that is about not loving your body, you know, the way it is, right, that thought, I hate the way I look. So we would look at – we would go from – you can’t go from I hate my body to I love my body.

Susan: Right.

Jenifer: But we would use something in between, like I have a body, something very neutral. So we work you through so that you can start to adopt a new way of thinking about your body that will support you.

Susan: Yeah, which is a process that takes time. And so basically what you’re doing as a coach is you’re like showing people their brains, and helping them transform their thinking to a different way of thinking, so that they can have better actions and results, is that right?

Jenifer: Yes, yes.

Susan: I got it, this is awesome.

Jenifer: Yeah.

Susan: Okay, so that’s one tool. What’s the second tool that you have?

Jenifer: The other tool is that we need to understand that there is something happening in our brain when we are desiring foods, especially these foods that have been concentrated down in our food system. We’ve taken food, right, whole food in our country and even in the world now. And we’ve concentrated it down into like the sugars, and the sweet, and flour. And made it so that food, when we – when it hits the brain, when we actually eat the food, it causes our brain to overreact basically, because it’s so concentrated.

I mean food is supposed to be pleasurable, right, in our – we need food and we need to have the desire for food. That’s an important part of being human.

Susan: Right.

Jenifer: Our brain is wired to desire food and also to have pleasure from food.

Susan: Right.

Jenifer: But what’s happened is our food systems have now created – taken whole food, and concentrated into a place where now our brain just overreacts. So a lot of people don’t know this, and I think it’s such an important part of what I do as a coach. Is just to help people understand this idea that there’s nothing really gone wrong with you if you feel like you kind of have an addiction to food, or there’s like an addictive nature to some food.

Susan: To sugar.

Jenifer: Sugar.

Susan: Sodas, chips.

Jenifer: Yeah, like you can’t stop when you start in on that bag of chips.

Susan: Yeah, you know what mine is? Mine’s Cheetos.

Jenifer: Cheetos, yeah.

Susan: It’s terrible, like I can do pretty good like most of the time choosing whole foods, whole vegetables. And, you know, in general, we’re kind of healthy. But my thing, like what I’m craving, is Cheetos, it’s so ridiculous.

Jenifer: Yes, so it’s a craving. And it’s coming from a part of our brain that we’re not aware of, and we haven’t been told or understood this. But we need to address that. And when we can address that, it will help us to reduce the cravings and reduce the over-desire, because we want to have a natural desire for food.

Susan: Right, we don’t want to just eat like sawdust bars all day.

Jenifer: Yes. And there are so many wonderful whole foods that we can become – we can increase our desire for, ultimately. But we’ve got to reduce these foods. And it’s in our interest to do so for so many reasons. So I get into that a lot more in my program, but that’s kind of just…

Susan: Tip of the iceberg there, yeah.

Jenifer: Just a little bit of, yeah, information about how. And I think what’s important about that is to know that if you do feel like you’re – you have this strong desire for these unhealthy foods. There’s nothing gone wrong with you. That’s a natural thing that’s occurring in our brains, and that’s how it’s related to what I do.

Susan: I don’t have to have shame about my Cheetos?

Jenifer: No, no, it’s very, very normal for you, Sue.

Susan: So what I’m hearing is the second thing you can do as a life coach, the way that we’re trained to help people with their minds. Is to help them see where these cycles of desire and over-desire due to the concentrated foods, are interfering with their ability to move forward with their weight loss?

Jenifer: Yes, exactly.

Susan: Okay, what’s your third tip? What’s your third tool?

Jenifer: The third tool is I like to call it mindlessness, but that we have quite a bit of mindlessness going on in our society.

Susan: Mindlessness, I like that.

Jenifer: It’s very easy for us to go through our day without really bringing very much awareness, or focus, or attention to food, how much we’re eating, how and when we’re eating. We eat food on the go a lot in our culture.

Susan: Like autopilot, it’s just autopilot?

Jenifer: Yeah, it’s autopilot, we get in the car, we realize we haven’t eaten. We maybe stop and get something to eat. And we realize we don’t have that many healthy choices, so we grab whatever we can. And this happens especially when we’re under stress.

Susan: Yeah.

Jenifer: And we tend to need better food when we’re under stress. But that’s exactly when it goes out the window, when we’re rushing around. So it’s creating – I like to help people create a habit of taking time and more ritual around food. And allowing food to take the place that it should in our world, and our inner lives I think, which is reverence for eating, and really taking and appreciating what it is.

Susan: That’s interesting. Like that’s the opposite of a lot of advice that I’ve gotten from diet plans, personally, in the past, and a lot of what I see in my patients. In that they’re just trying to resist food or get away from it, or minimize its importance. So that it’s not like in the front of their brain all the time. But what I hear you saying is the opposite, which is recreate those rituals. But make the rituals and your thoughts about food in a more healthy way, or reverential way, even, for the appreciation that it is in feeding our bodies.

Jenifer: Yes, because the food that we’re eating is affecting us in so many ways. And it’s a part – it becomes a part of us, right? We’re digesting the food. We’re taking it into our precious body. And so this is all part of what I do, is helping us have reverence for the body as well. And so the food that I’m eating is also a part of that. And how do I want to take in this food? And it’s slowing down. It’s, you know, chewing our food. It’s really experiencing our food too.

Susan: Yeah, yeah. Well, that sounds a little scary to me because I’ve practiced the avoidance, like minimizing it in my brain. Because I thought it was just like too much of my thoughts or – for so long, that it scares me a little bit to give that predominance back. But that’s a really aha moment for me, that’s a brain twister for me, that’s cool.

Okay, so the three tools that you’re thinking are addressing stinking thinking with thought management. You’re helping people identify the cycle of desire and over-desire due to the addictive nature of concentrated foods. And then you’re – in your program you’re addressing the habit of mindlessness or the autopilot. That’s all amazing. So tell me the bottom line, what’s the takeaway from this?

Jenifer: So, bottom line is that we can use our smarts. You know, we can use our brain and approach this overeating in a way that’s going to lead to a lasting weight loss, right? That you’re not going to have to keep worrying about this problem, or even deal with it ever again, yeah.

Susan: Yeah, like to me this seems like, for me, the missing part. Like I have been trained how to manage my mind for most of my life. And I kind of feel like, oh, well, no wonder, no wonder I continue to struggle. And it’s such a relief for me to hear that you could help me with that. So thank you, that’s awesome.

Jenifer Paredes: Yes.

Susan: Tell – how about if you tell our listeners like what other resources they might be able to find. Or where they can find you if they’re interested in joining your program and getting some help.

Jenifer: Great, yes. You know, a resource I did want to share, is the – it’s called the Food Revolution. I don’t know if anybody out there has come across this group. But they’re doing great work for our world and for this idea of everything that I’m talking about. And they definitely are working with this idea of over-desire and food addiction. And it’s called – they have a website called thefoodrevolution.org.

Susan: thefoodrevolution.org, not .com, .org?

Jenifer Paredes: .org.

Susan: We’ll put that in the links and the footnotes at the bottom of the podcast post, we’ll include that.

Jenifer: Yeah, they’re a great educational organization. And then to reach me, you can reach me at my website. I’ve got a website called, it’s Joy of Now.

Susan: Joy of Now, is that a .com?

Jenifer: .com, yeah.

Susan: Cool.

Jenifer: So, Joy – j.o.y.o.f.n.o.w.com. And I’m also on Facebook, I have a Facebook page, you can find me there with my name, Jenifer Hillman Paredes. And I guess that’ll be in the show notes as well.

Susan: Yeah.

Jenifer: And if you come to my site or Facebook, you can sign up for my weekly email, and register for my upcoming webinars. I am going to be doing more webinars about this. I really want to get it out, those will be online.

Susan: Perfect.

Jenifer: And I do all of my work online, yeah, so.

Susan: So much good information, so we can reach you from anywhere?

Jenifer: Yes, yes.

Susan: Awesome. Well, Jenifer, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and chatting with us. I am really excited about the content that you brought. I think it’s going to be very helpful for a lot of our listeners. And thank you so much.

Jenifer: Thank you, it was great to be here today, Sue.

All right, so now we’re coming to the part of the show where we talk about what I’m listening to and reading. I’m having so much fun doing this along with our interviewees. So this was actually Jenifer’s idea for what she’s listening to. Billie Eilish, I Love You. And this is a really cool song, like Billie Eilish has amazing intros and just she’s kind of a musical poet when she starts her songs in particular. And this one’s kind of a meditative, gorgeous poem of a song.

And the way Jenifer was talking to me about it when she was describing it is that she likes to turn this I Love You back on to herself, like she’s currently not in a relationship. So, she takes love songs, and particularly ones like this and she reflects them back on herself to give herself the self-love and compassion that really help to fill her heart. And help her become fulfilled and happy and feel loved. So, I hope you enjoy the song, Billie Eilish I Love You.

And then what we’re reading, she’s reading Brené Brown, Rising Strong, which I have mentioned on the show before. I’m also going to plug here a book that’s off the website she talked about. It’s off of the foodrevolution.org website. The book is called How Not to Diet, it’s a follow-up from the book called How Not to Die. And it’s by a physician named Michael Greger.

So if you’re interested in reading more about groundbreaking science of healthy prominent weight loss, this is a really great book. You can buy in this type of nutrition advice, and expertise and scientific understanding with the tools that Jenifer taught here today. And we are going to all feel a whole lot healthier and a lot less weighed down.

So next week, what I’ve got coming up is another fabulous coach interview, talking to Karen Kjaeruff next week. We are talking about plant-based nutrition, which is a great follow-up to this. We are seeing more and more evidence in our society that a whole food plant-based diet is able to reverse all kinds of genetic problems that we have with our diets. And we talked about epigenetics a little bit before. So I’m really looking forward to taking with her next week, I hope you tune in. And have a fabulous week. I will see you next week in episode 17. Love always, Sue.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. If you want to find out more, come check out virtuosacoaching.com. That’s virtuosa - with an A - coaching.com. See you next week.

DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT