Your Mind and Weight-Loss – Jon Gabriel and Lisa J. Smith

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the show. This is Lisa J. You are listening to Lisa J. Now right here on CBS radio The Sky. Very excited because it is now time for the weight loss challenge. If you are on hold, definitely hang on the line. You can listen to the show. If you want to call in and get in line, after we talk about the weight loss challenge I’ll be back to give you messages from spirit and to connect you with the other side and help you in any way that I can, but you know every Monday, 4:00 p.m. eastern time we have to get Jon Gabriel out of bed. He’s calling from down under, all the way in Australia. Jon, hello, how are you today?

Lisa, how are you?

Jon, I’m a little tired, I’m a little worn out but that’s okay because I’m here and I’m better than ever.

You’re tired? It’s 5:00 in the morning over here.

Yeah. Well, we could have a tired —

Why are you tired?

Yeah. I get up at 5:00 with my son and get him off to school so I know all about that but wake up Jon, it’s 4:00 here and we’re ready to go. We need you. So how are you doing?

All right.

Well, you are the author of The Gabriel Method and I’ve been telling people during the show and we have it up on psychiconair.com, newskyradio.com, go over to gabrielmethod.com/lisaj for the weight loss challenge. You have all the tools that we need up there. I know many people have ordered the book and I get emails and last week, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be here because I had to move but I want you to know that your book is amazing and I think about you all the time, not like that, but think about you all the time and how much your method really, really has transformed my life because I feel pounds falling off of me, literally.

Wow, wow.

I’m not just saying that. Like I feel — I put on my jeans and I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t had time to sit down in about 10 days but I pulled out my jeans and I felt like I was on one of those weight loss commercials. I was like oh my goodness, look at this.

I knew it could happen. From our last conversation I could tell that something had shifted in you.

Yeah. Well, tell us before, because right now we’re on chapter three and people can still go get the book, The Gabriel Method, they can catch up to us. We’re going to be talking about the mental causes of obesity which is from chapter three today, but catch us up to speed on some of the things that we’ve talked about so far.

Sure. We talked about Jessie’s Law which was the story of my cat and how I was able to actually shift his set point — how I was able to actually get him to gain weight by dieting. Showing that dieting actually makes your body want to be fatter and how he was able to lose weight because we had a dog next door that was chasing him.

But what we really talked about was the concept that your body has a weight that it wants to be, an ideal weight, and in order to lose weight and keep it off, you’ve got to be able to shift your body’s set point, you’ve got to be able to shift that ideal weight. That is, in essence, you’ve got to get your body to want to be thinner.

Now the things the cause your body to lose weight, that is force your body to lose weight, things like dieting, don’t get your body to want to be thin. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite. They actually get your body to want to be fatter. So what you have to do is you have to understand what gets your body to want to be thin, what are the mechanisms that get your body to want to be thin and also what are the mechanisms that cause your body to want to be fat.

Now in chapter two, what we didn’t discuss, at the end of chapter two is there’s about — I talk about 10 different things that cause your body to activate these FAT Programs, that cause your body to want to be fat. One of them, of course, is dieting. Sure you lose weight by dieting but you get your body to want to be fatter so you end up fighting yourself and that’s what causes that yoyo.

And then there’s a bunch of other things such as nutritional famine. That is when you may be eating to your heart’s content but you’re not getting the nutrients your body needs. That causes your body to go into a type of famine and that activates the FAT Programs.

Then there’s mental and emotional stress, which we’re going to talk about today. Mental and emotional stress causes chemistry in your body. Sometimes that chemistry causes the exact same chemistry in your body as if you’re actually starving. That is certain chemicals, certain hormones change, your cortisol levels go up, your triglycerides go up, your body stops listening to the hormone insulin, all these things happen and they’re the exact same things that happen if you were actually starving in a famine. So, in essence, your body gets tricked into activating these FAT programs.

So there’s a list of things. Being sleep deprived, being dehydrated, having excessive toxins, artificial flavors and certain medications. All these things can trigger your body to activate these FAT Programs that we carry around with us.

So the proper way to lose weight and keep it off is to understand what’s activating your body’s FAT Programs. What’s triggering your body, what’s tricking your body into thinking it needs to hold on to that weight? That’s what’s happening for all of us. Our bodies are getting tricked into activating these FAT Programs. So the way to lose weight and keep it off is to identify those triggers that are activating your FAT Programs. So today we’re going to talk about chapter three. We’re going to talk about mental and emotional stress and how that can trigger your FAT Programs.

I have to tell you, being under a lot of stress and moving and my divorce and selling and just so much crazy stuff, I really tried to — I kept hearing you in the back of my head and I kept thinking Lisa — I kept thinking I’m safe, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay, what are your FAT switches, and I just was listening to your language and it really helped me to stay in my moment and to say okay, don’t trigger your FAT switches. Tell us, real fast, what a FAT switch is?

I’m sorry? What was the question?

Tell us — because I kept saying to myself don’t — you know what is your FAT switch? Don’t switch your switch, just stay — you know you’re safe, you’re good. So when I talk about FAT switches, just real briefly what is a FAT switch?

Okay. The FAT switch, or what I also call in the book is the FAT programs, is a survival program that we carry around with us to protect us from famines.

Right, right. So —

Now we don’t have famines anymore, most of us don’t have famines anymore, but we have these programs that were around from thousands of years ago when we used to live outdoors and you would have to go through a whole winter where it was cold and there wasn’t enough to eat and when that would happen, that would be a stress that would cause certain chemistry in your body to alert you to the fact that your body is starving and it’s cold and your body needs some sort of protection.

So what would happen is, your body would activate these FAT Programs in order to force you to gain weight. Now when these FAT Programs are on, you’re hungry all the time and your metabolism slows down and your body starts craving more fattening foods. Your body wants to be fatter when your FAT Programs are on and they were really, really important thousands of years ago to keep us alive, to force us to gain weight and to keep us alive when there were famines and those people —

So now like a famine today would be like the mental stress, the emotional stress, like you say the daily grind.

Thank you. Exactly. You see, now today we don’t have these physical famines but we have what I call mental and emotional famines.

Yes, for sure.

This really speaks more about life, itself, than just about weight loss when you really look at what’s happening here. Our bodies are brilliantly designed to try to protect us from the stresses in your life. You go out in the sun in the summertime, you spend too much time in the sun, that’s a stress to your body and what happens is your body protects you by making your skin darker and that protects you from the ultraviolet rays. So your body is trying to protect you from sun.

Now in the wintertime there’s not enough sun and that’s a stress, too, so your body adapts to that stress by making your skin lighter so that you’ll absorb more sunlight. So your body is always adapting to the stresses in your life, to try to make you safer. If you were in a famine, your body would adapt by the next time there’s food around, forcing you to gain weight and getting fatter so that you would survive the next famine. If you were being chased by a tiger your body would adapt by forcing you to lose weight because it’s safer to be thin.

So you can run, yes.

So your body is always adapting to stress. Now here’s the thing, when you have mental and emotional stress, and this is a really huge issue, when you have mental and emotional stress, your body is adapting to that stress. It’s a miscommunication. Your body doesn’t know that mental and emotional stress isn’t physical stress. It doesn’t understand. It’s a huge miscommunication.

So when you have mental and emotional stress, your body is trying to adapt to it, your body is trying to make you safer and protect you from mental and emotional stress. So you’re sitting in your car and it’s rush hour traffic and you’re trying to get to work and you’re going to be late for work and you’re supposed to meet your boss and you know how upset he or she is going to be, you’re feeling stress. Your body is trying to protect you from that stress. It’s bizarre. But what happens is —

It is bizarre.

— your body starts activating these programs to get you to adapt to stress. Now for some people, their bodies adapt the what I call the get thin or get eaten adaptation or the program that forces you to lose weight, and for other people, it activates the FAT Programs that forces you to gain weight. And that’s why stress, the same stress to make one person fatter and another person thinner. They’re activating different stresses. Our bodies are adapting to the mental and emotional stress differently.

Now when you have the daily grind of mental and emotional stress for some people, it causes the exact same chemistry as a famine. Now if you look at a famine day after day after day after day you’re not getting enough to eat and that’s causing a subtle chemical change in your body, a subtle stress. It’s a chronic, low-level stress day in and day out, day in and day out.

Well, you know it’s funny because people have been calling today, Jon, about that and they’ve been talking about the dead-end job or what to do with my life or I lost my job, and we’re going to take a short break but when we come back from that it’s interesting because you talk about that, not a coincidence, and the whole time they’re talking I’m thinking about what you said in your book, in chapter three, is if we fail to follow our hearts, obesity is often the result. Yearning causes emotional starvation and activates the FAT Programs. If you have something that you like to do, long to do, yearn to do but you’re afraid to do it, take the chance, don’t weight, W-E-I-G-H-T, I like that, follow your heart.

Jon Gabriel is my guest. Gabrielmethod.com/lisaj is the website. We’re talking about the Lisa J. and Jon Gabriel weight loss challenge right here on Lisa J. now. We’re going to take a short break. When we get back, more with Jon Gabriel. This is Lisa J. Smith.