Host: Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast where we talk to wellness professionals from so many walks of life from around the world and get their insight to living healthier. I'm your host Wes Malik. Today's guest is Dr. Candice Seti a.k.a. The Weight Loss Therapist. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, a certified personal trainer. She is also certified as a nutrition coach, weight management specialist and expert life coach and is very unique combination of education and training provides the backbone for Dr. Seti’s unique approach to weight loss and weight management. And she's able to go beyond simple diet and exercise plans and address the psychology behind weight loss and weight gain. Dr. Candice, welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast. How are you today?
Candice: Good. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Host: Okay, so I want to dive into things and ask you. What in your personal opinion does well-being actually mean to you?
Candice: Well, I feel like it encompasses many different things, but overall, I feel like it represent the outlook, perspective. You know, from a self-esteem and self-efficacy standpoint, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about your body, how you feel about your capability, how you feel about, you know, your interaction and how you carry yourself. All of that kind of encompasses the idea of wellness. Obviously, when we talk about wellness, we talk about health a lot. But for me, that’s not just physical health, that’s emotional health, that’s mental health, you know, the whole package. So it doesn’t just hit one thing, it hits all of them. And when somebody is, his true wellness that hit every single box in that category instead of just one.
Host: In your work you meet so many people every day because you’re a certified expert life coach, personal trainer, nutrition coach, weight management specialist, weight loss therapist, licensed clinical psychologist. What is the major problem or issues that people bring to you in general?
Candice: Primarily, I specialize in what I call weight loss therapy that I work with the yo-yo dieters, people who have been on and off with yo-yo diet, train for a while and wants to do something different, want to obviously lose weight, wants to maintain that weight loss, but that depends on diet. Because the primary population I work with what I see most commonly with them is, you know, maladaptive thinking patterns and self-sabotage, which is kind of fancy ways for how you stand in our own way and how we, you know, use our thinking to screw us up, so to speak. You know, how we lump things into this all-or-nothing categories so that we don’t allow for the gray in our lives. An example would be the idea either I’m on a 100% on a diet where I’m restricting everything and I’m super planned out or I’m 100% off it and I’m doing everything in the world wrong and eating all of the bad stuff and eating massive amount and not paying attention at all. And you see those all-or-nothing thinking tendencies that really get in the way of our long term success because in reality is, that nothing exist in that black and white spectrum, everything kind of falls in the gray. And so we learn to change your thinking patterns and, you know, ultimately can move yourself out of your own way and remove that self-imposed roadblock in order to achieve so much more success, obviously with weight loss but in life in general.
Host: I think the yo-yo diet is a diet that pretty much everyone, including myself, is on.
Candice: Yes and I’ve been on it, myself. I mean, it’s how I get into this field in the first place. Having been there myself and realized how frustrating it was and thinking there had to be another way.
Host: And what is that other way then?
Candice: Well, really for me it’s about…Well, for starters, understanding that it doesn't have to be as simple as like counting your calories and exercising more which is, you know, it’s just about every diet is based on some kind of restriction and some kind of increase in physical activity. But for me, the other option is something that’s not temporary, something that’s not restrictive, something that’s not going to set you up for failure long-term because as we know 98% of diets fail. But I think it’s really more about understanding yourself, understanding your motivation, understanding your triggers, understanding the way you're thinking because sometimes it work against you. And once you have kind of understanding and insights into these things, you can start making small behavioral and lifestyle changes that really set you up on the path for long-term success. So that's what I do with my clients as I help them kind of understand those behaviors, their motivation, their triggers, their thinking errors and use that to create the really positive, small but positive changes in their life that set them up for long-term success.
Host: I'm sure every individual is different and has a different pattern and responds and reacts differently, but are there any generalizations that you can make the most of the population that comes visits you in and talks about, you know, changing their thinking patterns or are changing their diet? Is there is some general kind of practice that you give?
Candice: Sure, you’re absolutely right. Everyone is very unique. I strongly believe there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to personal wellness but there are definitely some themes that you see and things that come up pretty regularly. One of the most common is our relationship with food and the way we use food for just about everything, beyond satiation, beyond addressing hunger. The way we use food emotionally, the way we use food as reward, as escape, self-soothing, as distraction, as avoidance. And everybody does it differently. We all have different relationship with food but most of use food in some sort of emotional-behavioral way beyond just satiating our bodies, you know? So looking at that, being able to identify that and then kind of building skills to change that, to replace those behaviors with healthier behaviors, to understand that, to get a hell of that, to definitely change habits is the way to change that relationship with food.
Host: Do a lot of people ask you about the latest fads and does that bother you? Do people just come up to you and say, “Hey, I want to go on a keto diet”.
Candice: Well, yes of course. I mean, everybody is interested in the latest fad because we all want something that’s quick and easy and we really, really want to believe that it exists, right?
Host: Yeah.
Candice: And like I said we all know 98% of diets fail. We always gain the weight back and sometimes even more, but we keep doing it. And I think we keep doing it because it's all we know. It’s all we’re taught, right? If I were to tell anyone in the planet, “Hey, you should go and lose some weight”. They’re going to say, “Alright. Well, I should go on a diet” because it’s the only thing we’re taught. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And because we keep doing it and we keep failing, we’re always looking to what's the next thing because this is the thing that’s going to work. “And I knew somebody and they lost 40 lbs in doing this, so I should do this, too”. And all of those fad diets, they work just like any other diet does but all of them work just short-term because as soon as you stop doing it, you undo all of the games that you’ve made. You’ll gain all of the weight back. And again sometimes amend some and you’ll become a yo-yo dieter and yo-yo dieting can wreak havoc on your body. And almost to a point where it's not worth having lost it in the first place because of the damage you’re doing internally.
Host: Sometimes I feel that diet is all I think about and then I think about, “Oh, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that” but then I give up. And I'm like, “Well I just, you know, figure out on some cheese sandwiches and french fries and I feel better. I honestly do.
Candice: Yup and you’re talking about the impact of restriction. And, you know, most diet have some sort of restriction component to them, right? Either you can’t have any carbs or you can’t have any fats or you can’t have dairy or whatever it may be but I always say “Restriction equals power”, right? I mean by restricting foods and making them off-limits so to speak, you’re giving these foods absolute power and ultimately taking away your perception of self-control, right? When you have the thought, “I can't have blank in the house” so “I have no control around blank”, I believe that’s set up through restriction. And if you feel you have no control around something, let’s say, for example you feel you have no control around pizza and you don't ever let yourself have it, what do you think is going to happen when you do actually end up eating it? You end up eating all of it. And again, really feeling like you’re out of control like you have no self-control on that situation. So, when we restrict something from our diet, we don't allow ourselves to enjoy it, we give that food so much power and it can consume our thoughts. And you see that a lot in diet and it’s why a lot of yo-yo dieters do just about every diet for three weeks because for three weeks you can do anything. I can restrict anything, no problem. But, about around the three week marker, that restriction really starts to have impact and whatever we’re restricting is all we can think about and all we want. And we end up breaking it because we feel like we don’t have control anymore.
Host: So we think, we restrict things like sugar?
Candice: Uh-huh.
Host: And, the first thing we think about is carbs, we might think about like fast food or junk foods. Hey, don't eat any Doritos or chips or things like that and then, of course, like you said we end up. So if we're not supposed to restrict all these things, what do you suggest a dieter does then?
Candice: I talk about getting rid of this concept of no-no food, off-limit food. Getting rid of that concept for good and understanding that no food is all good or all bad. Yes, ice cream may not be the healthiest thing in the world but it doesn’t mean it’s bad per se. And we put things in that category again, we’re restricting and we’re looking at things in those all-or-nothing black and white term. So, taking things off your off-limit list means adding those foods back into your diet but in moderation in a way that’s maintainable. Taking away the restriction so that it no longer has that power and, you know, I usually example pizza a lot because pizza is often high on people’s off-limits list.
Host: Really?
Candice: Yeah, pizza and ice cream are the two things I see most commonly. You know where somebody will say, “I can never have pizza. It’s terrible. I’ve no control around pizza so I’m not having pizza anymore”. And they don’t have it for a month and then they go in and they order two pizzas and they eat both pizzas by themselves like Ben John because they again feel like they have no control. So, if pizza is on the no-no list, then I work with people in making a plan to start incorporating pizza in a moderate way to take the stigma off of pizza, to take this perception of a lack of control away from pizza. So, if you have it on your no-no list forever and now you say, “You know what, I’m going to have pizza twice a week”. I’m going to go out for pizza, I’m going to get a slice, I’m going to enjoy it” and we’re also kind of working on mindful eating skills at the same time. So, I’m going to enjoy it, I’m going to eat it mindfully, I want to feel good about it and I’m going to stop because I know in 3 or 4 days I’m going to have it again and I’m going to look forward to that. It doesn’t have this power over me because it’s not restricted anymore. So, by taking it off that off-limits list, you know it’s always available to you, you get to have it regularly and that drive to over consume is greatly diminished. So, it’s about taking away that restriction.
Host: So if we can sum it up, stopping yourself, restricting yourself might lead to consequences, whereas moderation is the key.
Candice: Uh-huh. And if you love pizza, I don’t want you to have a life without pizza, right? I mean if it’s something you enjoy, it’ something that you should be able to have in your life. It’s just a matter of sitting it in in a way that feels healthy.
Host: Well, I know what I’m going to have for dinner tonight. It’s going to be pizza. (laughing) I love pizza, everyone loves pizza.
Candice: Hopefully in a mindful way, right?
Host: I love the way Italians make pizza and they make it fresh. I always make pizza at home. We never ever order and we haven't ordered pizza in years.
Candice: Oh, that’s great! So that also builds your mind from this because you’re part of the whole process with that food, right, and you’re more appreciative of it and more connected to it when you’ve made it yourself.
Host: Yeah, absolutely. I love picking out the fresh ingredients. I love getting that little bit more expensive, you know, Italian cheeses, that you know, and I use them sparingly because I know they’re little expensive so I’m not loading everything.
Candice: Uh-huh, sure.
Host: But getting away from pizza, what are some simple changes we can make at meal time, you know, to help eat healthier, stay more mindful like you just mentioned?
Candice: Well, mindful eating is a huge part of what I work on with people because most of us are…we eat on autopilot, is what I call it. We’re not really aware or connected to what we’re eating. So, I use this example a lot with people, right? Maybe you’ve made a sandwich and, you know, you’re very excited to put all your favorite things on the sandwich. And you put it on a plate, you walk in the living room, you sit down in front of the TV, turned the TV on. And you take a bite of your sandwich and, you know, it’s pretty delicious. You’ve put all of these wonderful stuff on it and you’re very excited as, you know, you take that first bite and you really enjoyed it. And you know, you glanced back up the TV and put the flavor in your mouth, kind of decreases. But at some point you look down at your plate to grab your next bite of sandwich and you realized you’ve eaten it all. And this is the autopilot eating, the mindless eating that I’m talking about where we are just not connected with our food, we’re not savoring our food, we’re not appreciating our food. We’re not present while we’re eating our food.
Host: Oh!
Candice: Yeah, because we’re often distracted, right? I mean, I talk about this concept of screen-free eating, eating without a screen in front of you, without a phone, a TV, a tablet, a computer. And for some people that’s just a crazy concept because they don’t have a single meal without a screen in front of them. But when you’re eating in front of the TV or eating in front of your computer or eating while on your phone, what happens is, the thing that you’re watching on your screen is the primary thing that your brain is doing and everything else is secondary. So your eating experience becomes secondary. It’s not what you’re focused on. So you’re not really connected to it, you’re not really appreciating it, you’re not really savoring it. And so building, you know, mindful eating skills really being able to slow down your eating, appreciate your eating, savor your eating, you know, relax your eating, enjoy your eating, right? All of these things start building a healthier relationship with food and help us reach satiety, satiation, you know, in a healthier way. So, building mindful eating skills is something that just about everybody can benefit from.
Host: We’re talking about well-being and what to eat, and you know, what things are good for us, what things are bad for us. We've never touched upon how to eat and that's a wonderful insight screen-free eating. I did that several days ago. You're right. You don't think about what you're eating if you're watching something else. You're absolutely correct. And if I want to lose weight is that a good practice to start focusing on what I’m eating?
Candice: Absolutely. There’s a massive amount of research on mindful eating and weight loss. And what most of them have shown that increasing mindful eating helps people, well one gain awareness of their bodies, but more be in tune with hunger and satiety to more accurately recognize external cues to eat, decreasing food cravings, decreasing reward-driven eating, which is one of those aspects of emotional eating I was talking about. When people slow down their eating speed, which is part of the process of mindful eating which is usually slowing down your eating, they have a significantly lower rate of obesity. You know, slowing down the speed of their eating not even changing what they’re eating. Sometime slowing down the speed of their eating I think that, I have to check the data, but I think that they have categories for fast eating, normal speed eating and slow eating. And when people moved from a fast eating category to slow eating category, they are 42% lower rate of obesity than if they eat quickly.
Host: Incredible!
Candice: Yeah, it’s massive the impact that it has on your body.
Host: Okay, let's talk about this a little more because morning, we're in such a rush to get the kids to school and get to work ourselves so we get to grab something from the coffee shop, you know, on the drive, get a bagel or something.
Candice: Yeah eat it in the car while driving not that all that different from being in front of the screen.
Host: Yeah. I used to be a salesperson 20 years ago and I wanted to make more sales, so I would bring my lunch over to the cubicle and sit at a desk and while I was typing away and looking at phone numbers and, you know, prospects to call I’d be with my right hand I’m just eating and typing with my left hand and I think I still do that. I might still be doing that. I haven't thought about it. I have not thought about it. So those are two meals right away that I think most of the population and maybe many of our listeners are doing in front of, so basically doing something else and eating as a secondary.
Candice: Yeah and you see it all the time people who like you just described rushed through breakfast or eat breakfast on the go or throw something in their mouth as they’re running out the door or whatever it may be. And also people who are at work, working through their lunch or eating their lunch at their desk while they’re doing work.
Host: But wait a minute, you go to any Starbucks or you know anywhere there is free Wi-Fi and everyone's on their phone, computer typing away furiously while they're having their meal.
Candice: Yeah and that’s like multi-screen. (laughing) Yeah, absolutely. And for almost everybody if you ask them why they do it, their answer relates to time, right? “I don’t have time”. I don't have time to stop, I don’t have time to take a break, you know, I don't have time for breakfast, I don’t have time for lunch break, whatever it is. And I always follow up by asking, “How long does it take for you to eat breakfast?” If you’re having two egg muffins for breakfast, how long does it take you to eat that? And most people would say, “I don’t know. Maybe, you know, 4 or 5 minutes?” And so then when I ask, “Okay, you don’t have 4 or 5 minutes in your day? If you would have to take 4 or 5 minutes out of your work day, what would change?” And you know, most people cannot come up with anything that would be different in their life if they took 4 or 5-minute break from their work day. But we have this, again perception that we don’t have time. We have this perception that we need to keep going, we need to keep moving, we need to keep working. And the reality is that we have the time, we just don’t prioritize it. On a whole another scale, we can talk about work breaks and the impact of taking breaks at work on productivity because all of the research shows that you’re actually significantly more productive at work when you take breaks throughout the day as opposed to people who are constantly working. But again it's just this perception that you always need to be doing and this idea that there’s never enough time in a day so you're not allowed to take timeout for something that feels unimportant or feels like it doesn't have enough value. What is more important than taking care of ourselves? What is more important than taking time out for our own self-care, for our own self-wellness? There's really nothing because we’re better at everything else we do when we do that, when we prioritize ourselves, when we take care of ourselves.
Host: So the priority of eating is, you know, task we do for our bodies, for life has taken such a low precedence over all the other things that we do that we don’t pay attention to it. Today, starting from lunch onwards, I’m going to really try to do screen-free eating or distracted eating.
Candice: Alright! I’m glad to hear that.
Host: No, it makes sense to me. It really makes sense to me and I never thought about it and if you as a professional who's been in this many many decades is giving this advice to your clients that meet you everyday at your clinic and I will definitely take that advice if you're giving it to me for free, of course.
Candice: Absolutely! I’m glad to hear that. I mean, there's so much, I could talk about mindful eating per day. There is so much benefit that comes from becoming over a mindful eater even well above and beyond weight control or weight loss. It has impacts on our triglyceride rate levels, it has impact on our blood sugar, it has impact on our digestive process, it has impact on our disease risk, it has impact on our absorption of nutrients from our food. All of these things are impacted and improved by becoming a more mindful eater, which is slowing down your eating, connecting to your food more, savoring your food more, appreciating your food more, assessing your hunger and your satiation. All of these, so many factors in your life, your health, your wellness improve when you make changes and how you eat.
Host: I will discover how difficult it is to transition to distraction-free eating. Is it difficult?
Candice: Well, it’s definitely an adjustment. I mean, it’s like changing habit, right? Every time you look at changing any habit, it requires focus, it requires commitment, it requires time and effort. You know, the more you do it, the more you keep at it, obviously the easier it becomes but you have to keep at it, you have to keep focused, you have to keep aware. It’s easy to lose sight of that if you’re not making it a priority just like any other habit that you’re trying to change. I usually tell people give it three weeks of really committing, really focusing, really trying to make this happen. Put reminders everywhere, you know, wherever you sit to eat, put a little post it there that reminds you to be screen-free. Tell the people that you eat with to remind you. Do what you need to do to keep it front and center because eventually it will become habit but you need to put in time and effort to make that happen.
Host: I think I’m able to do it. I'm just thinking how do I get my kids to do this?
Candice: Well, hopefully one aspect of that is simply role modelling, right? I mean our kids learn so much just from watching our behavior and learning from our behavior but simply doing something different and showing them you're doing something different is an effective way to have them do that. So if you have family meal times and there's no screens present during family meal time, it become something that they start to incorporate. If they see Dad take a lunch break and sit down without a screen and actually enjoy his lunch, they may be more inclined to do the same.
Host: Lead by example. You mentioned the relationship that we have with the food and how that relationship is one of the factors that causes or whatever problems that we might have. What are the tips and tricks to take control over the relationship with food and maybe stop this yo-yo dieting and stop overeating?
Candice: Well, obviously some other things we talked about primarily being removing the restriction of certain food and then again building in mindful eating skills but also looking at deep diving into your relationship with food and looking at when you eat and why you eat and identifying if there are other causes. Am I eating because I'm bored? Am I eating because I'm self-soothing? Am I eating because I'm procrastinating or I need some distraction? Am I eating because I'm around people that are what we call food pusher, people that are constantly pushing me to eat? What are the reasons that I’m eating? And if they are not because I'm hungry, I’m trying to nourish my body, then we need to look at those things and think about what else you can do. If you’re eating because you’re bored, right, what can you do to address your boredom besides eating, right? Do you need to have more social time? Do you need to take on a hobby? Do you need to get yourself out of the house more? Do you need to move more? Do you need to connect with people more? If you’re eating because you’re self-soothing, other things in your life can give you that soothing complex. What other things can help control your anxiety? What other things can you add into your life that do the things that you’re looking to food to do but then do it in healthier way. A big piece of this is obviously stress management, because stress is one of the primary things that leads us to eat. And so looking at our stress levels, looking at how we use food and doing some simple…I look at stress from a proactive and reactive standpoint. What can you do from a proactive standpoint to keep stress at bay or to keep the impact of stress minimal? And then obviously, what can you do in the reactive standpoint when stress does come up? When I talk about proactive, you know, there are several things that I look at right off the bat. One is physical activity, getting up, getting blood flowing, getting fresh oxygen can be a key component for managing stress. It's all about, you know, hormones and neurotransmitters building serotonin and oxytocin. These hormones can counteract cortisol, which is a stress hormone.
Host: Right.
Candice: So, you get all these benefits from physical activity and that really helps with long terms proactive stress management. In addition, movement can be a welcome distraction from your source of stress. It’s a great way to kind of reset your brain and, you know, change your perspective, feel refreshed, right, whatever it may be. I talk a lot about physical activity from a proactive standpoint, it’s something that most people can do it. It doesn’t have to be going to the gym, right?
Host: Okay.
Candice: It can mean taking the dog for a walk, it can mean dancing around your house having what they call a one-person dance party, it can mean climbing up and down the stairs in your house, it can mean doing yoga, it can be anything. Something hopefully that you enjoy but something that you can keep going, to keep in your life on a regular basis that makes you feel good.
Host: I was going to ask at what level of physical activity it creates those chemicals to counter stress?
Candice: It can be as little as five minutes. It doesn’t have to be a massive time commitment and none of this has to be a massive time commitment and that’s really, really important point because again, we all have this perception that we don’t have enough time in our lives, we don’t have enough time in our day. Again, if you blast the music and dance around your house for five minutes you probably feel completely different at the end of that five minutes from when you did that from the beginning. These little things can have big impact, right? They get blood flowing, they change your perspective, they give you a break and those things have a lot of values, so it doesn't take a lot of time.
Host: So, how we feel is one of the most important things that leads us to yo-yo dieting at the end, meaning the relationship that we have with food. So, changing the way we feel with activity, relaxing ourselves, reducing stress, there’s many other ways…
Candice: Yeah, sleeping better, meditating. There's so many things that we can do on a regular basis to just take care of ourselves. Any of those things that make you feel good help change your relationship with food.
Host: I read a study recently about, you know, insomnia and the amount of sleep that you got changes, it impacts, you know, weight loss and weight gain. And you’ve studied this in depth.
Candice: Well, yeah. I actually treat insomnia.
Host: So what impact does sleep, less or more, have on weight? What's the correlation?
Candice: Well, sleep is kind of the time when our body balances everything and refreshes everything. Sleep is when all of our hormones get produced and balance themselves out. I’m talking about hormones like insulin, leptin, ghrelin. And these are hunger and satiation hormones. These are the hormones that tell us when we should eat and tell us when we should stop eating. If your sleep quality is poor and you're not getting enough sleep, these hormones can be out of whack. And what that means is you can have hormone, kind of raging in your body telling you to eat even though you're not hungry or the hormone that’s supposed to tell you to stop might not be there when you need it to be so you might not stop eating. So, all of these hormones are directly impacted by the quality of our sleep. They all impact fat storage, metabolism, hunger management and simply getting better quality sleep can have a huge impact on our relationship with food, right understanding our hunger and our satiety levels and ultimately, you know, controlling our metabolism.
Host: So not only the sleep but the quality of sleep as well. Are there different types of sleep?
Candice: Well, there are different stages of sleep, right? We have different stages of light sleep, deep sleep and then REM sleep, which is our deep sleep. When we talk about quality of sleep, we’re really talking about getting deep sleep. Deep sleep is the rest of sleep that we keep want. And what that means is being able to sleep well, right? Sleep in the right environment, sleep with a limited light exposure, noise exposure, sleep in the right temperature, you know, avoid caffeine and alcohol in your bedtime things that disrupt our sleep and keep us from getting into that deep sleep. So, the more we can control those environmental triggers, the more likely we are to get good quality, deep sleep.
Host: Right, okay. We've established that having deep sleep and your sleep is very important. What are the ways that we can get a better deep sleep? Are there any tips and tricks you can share?
Candice: Yes, for sure. For starter, I always talk about temperature in your bedroom during sleep. You know, our body temperature changes throughout the day. It gradually arises throughout the day and then, in the evening on sunset time, your body’s temperature starts to drop. And that’s a signal for your body to sleep. And we can do things that help or hinder this kind of internal sleep mechanism and if the bedroom that’s too hot, it’s definitely a hindrance to go to sleep.
Host: Okay.
Candice: Whereas a cooler bedroom it will help facilitate sleep faster.
Host: Aha!
Candice: So, Usually I talk to people about, you know, if they have an AC in their bedroom try turning it down to 65°-70° overnight. If not, using fan or using light blanket instead of heavy blanket, things like that to help you cooler at night and have a big impact on your sleep.
Host: Okay.
Candice: Also, going back to the idea of screen, talk about kind of powering down at night, limiting blue light exposure. People talk about that a lot blue light from your TV, your phone, your computer, your tablet. And blue light actually suppresses the natural rise of melatonin in your body that you need to fall asleep easier. So, most electronics now have what's called like a night mode or blue light filter?
Host: Yes.
Candice: So, I encourage people to set that up on their phone, their tablet, their computer so that they are limiting their blue light exposure at night to help prevent that suppression of melatonin which can be very helpful in terms of improved sleep quality. And then also, you know, light and noise at night can be a factor in interfering with our sleep quality. So we want to sleep in darkness, right? Total darkness like you can’t see anything kind of darkness. And most of us don’t do that, right? Most of us have lights on somewhere in our house or maybe we have an alarm clock by our bed with a digital display that’s creating light or we have a phone by our bed maybe, even though the sound may be off it’s lighting up every time an email or text come through. We have light exposure that we really want to limit for the same reason to control our melatonin. Light basically can signal the brain to stay awake and prevent the continued production of melatonin throughout the night. So we don’t want that. I always talk to people about removing any light sources from their bedroom. Making sure the windows are blocked out, phones are covered, alarm clocks we can’t see the display or whatever it may be. Removing light sources or simply using a sleep mask, right? Something that will just block out the light for you and allow you to sleep in total darkness. So those things can have a big impact on your sleep quality as well.
Host: I think the sleeping eye mask, the easiest and quickest way to reduce light from.
Candice: Yeah, so simple.
Host: I know a lot of night shift workers, you know, who sleep during the daytime have to use the sleeping eye mask because it is almost impossible to block out light unless you have really, you know, heavy blinds and window coverings and you have double blinds and stuff. And usually for night shift workers, sleep is a huge problem
Candice: Yes. (laughing)
Host: But I will say this I am addicted to watching television before I go to bed. Sometimes I can’t even sleep until I watch something before going to bed.
Candice: And that’s a habit, right, that you’ve developed that association in your brain that you need that. TV’s, a lot of TV’s still don’t have blue light filter whereas computers and tablets do. So, I encourage people if they're going to watch TV at night to do so on a screen that does allow you to block out the blue light to bring back that impact on, you know, impacting sleep. So, if you can change the TV watching that you’re doing to be on another screen that does allow you to block out the blue light you want to minimize that impact. But if you don’t want to be feeling like you have to watch TV at night ,just like we talked about, the habit building of being screen-free to eat, you can also build the habit of not watching TV before bed. And again it’s the same thing it requires a little bit of effort, a little bit of focus, a little bit of time commitment but same, you know, for three weeks I’m going to do a plan to do a plan before bed. I’m going to, you know, sit down and read a book for half an hour, I’m going to get up and wash my face and brush my teeth then I’m going to do a 5-minute meditation then go to bed. And that’s what I’m going to do for three weeks and that’s going to be my plan. There will come a point where you no longer feel like you need to watch TV to fall asleep because if you break that habit, you break that association and you can do that with just about anything. It just requires the time, effort and focus to make it happen.
Host: This is something that you also do for your clients. You have a six-week insomnia treatment program online.
Candice: Yes.
Host: The website, it’s the same website, theweightlosstherapist.com, is that the one?
Candice: Yeah. The theweightlosstherapist.com has all of my online kind of DIY programs as I call it. The insomnia program is on there, too. You can go to theinsomniatherapist.com to get all that information and that is a six-week insomnia treatment program. It’s not DIY, it’s sessions with me but we can do them via video or online so that’s generally how I meet with people. And it’s well-documented, well-researched program based on cognizant behavioral therapy that has 75% success rate and has successfully gotten people off of sleep medications and allow them to ultimately treat their insomnia because insomnia is a behavioral disorder, not a physical one for most people.
Host: All these wonderful things that you told us in our podcast, do you share this on your website? Do you share tips and things for time management and sleep online as well?
Candice: For sure. Yeah, everyday I post stuff like this everyday on my social media, on my Facebook, on my Instagram and I offer a lot of different freebies, free guides that people can download from my website on, you know, making changes to meal time or taking a little bit of control back in your relationship with food. Simple changes you can make to improve your sleep and you can get all of that stuff on my website, theweightlosstherapist.com
Host: And how can we follow you on social media?
Candice: Weight Loss Therapist is my handle on Instagram. On Facebook also, The Weight Loss Therapist.
Host: Okay.
Candice: And there are links to all of my social media on my website, theweightlosstherapist.com. so people can get there that way as well.
Host: Absolutely, all the way at the bottom and you’re also on Twitter at Weight Therapist and that’s it.
Candice: Yep.
Host: Alright. I learned a lot today and in fact…
Candice: Oh, that’s great. I’m glad to hear that.
Host: There's a couple of things that I’m going to apply immediately. They don't sound too hard. Hopefully I can break some bad habits, you know? Like everyone else, I’m always out to improve myself and do something better and this knowledge and that learning that you provided today can help me do that. Thank you very much for being in the show today.
Candice: Oh, it’s so great. I’m so glad to hear that. Thank you so much for having me.
Host: You’re very, very welcome. And you know, I’m glad that you're doing this online as well because that gives an opportunity for people all around the world to get in touch with you and get good advice from you.
Candice: Yes.
