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Aug. 19, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:49
Stop Your Mind from Racing & Get Better Sleep | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 80 | Full Episode
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Up all night obsessing over your to-do list?
We have the power plan to stop your mind from racing.
So you can stay asleep.
This is really simple, but it works.
Plus, that day off diet.
For surprising reasons, the scale isn't budging.
I plateaued.
What do I do?
Don't freak out.
There's a lot of reasons why.
And how to fix it fast.
Your friends are going to say, you look really good.
Coming up next.
We'll save lives today. - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
You guys ready to get healthy?
If you feel like you've got a lot of balls in the air right now, your work, your family, everyday worries, stress, I know your health feels like just one more thing on your pile throwing you off balance.
But when we drop the ball on health, everything else follows.
So today I'm showing you the best ways to balance it all without dropping your health.
The first and most important way to do it, a better night's sleep.
So I'm giving you a power plan to stop your mind from racing.
And for everyone wanting to balance out their weight this year, we're revealing four surprising reasons the scale isn't budging and how you can fix it fast.
Plus, Fuller House star Candice Cameron-Bure is here to show you how she avoids a burnout while still checking everything off her list.
So let's get started.
Now, when your head hits the pillow, does your mind sound like this?
I get to send that email about the meeting on Friday.
Don't forget to pick up the anniversary present at the mall.
I need to go to the bank.
If this all sounds familiar to you, then I want to give you the power plan to stop your mind from racing so you can stay asleep.
I brought together my sleep power players.
We're approaching the plan from a scientific, more traditional Western approach and A spiritual, sort of more Eastern approach.
Both schools of thought are essential for cracking the code to our quiet mind at night, because guess what?
Folks all over the world struggle with this, and they have for all known human history.
So I'm going to start with my trusted sleep specialist, Dr. Carol Ashe.
She's joining us with the first step of the power plan, and she says to use your phone to record your stream of consciousness before bed.
So how do we do this?
You know, Dr. Oz, this is really simple, but it works.
What I want everyone to do is take a recorder and record your thoughts for 10 minutes, whatever it is, even if it doesn't make any sense to you.
So you record it.
And the reason why I want you to record it and not write it down, because I don't want you to omit anything.
I want you to get all the thoughts down.
And then I want you to say, sleep on it.
And what that does is it takes advantage of what we know about how the brain works.
Your brain isn't designed to solve it at that moment before you're going to bed.
When you sleep on it, your brain can actually come up with solutions and it does a few more things.
The rested mind has more clear, crisper thoughts And in addition, when you play back that recording, you're hearing it in the third person almost, so you come up with a new perspective, and you have more solutions to the problems that you had in the middle of the night.
And it really does work.
Sounds like the advice a mother would give us.
So I decided to test it, because I trust my mom's advice, and she never told me that, but the idea of sleeping on a problem is a good one.
So I tried it myself.
You want to see how I did?
I'm going to let you in.
My bedroom.
So I usually have a little sleep device that I use to judge my own sleep.
So I tried your task, but I first tested my sleep, and then I came back with your task and tried it again.
So my baseline, this is what happened two nights ago.
I had four disruptions, usually from Lisa waking up, by the way, not me.
I had a sleep score of 80. It's a B minus, C plus.
It's not the best in the world.
It's broken down in different ways, but the score is what you have to focus on.
And then I just for, you know, five, ten minutes recorded things that were in my mind and just got them out there.
Things that I didn't solve.
And then I slept on it.
And here is my last night's sleep.
You'll see why I look so rested today.
Based on 80, 97, 97. I went from a B minus to an A, a flat A. So I tell you, when I find simple ideas like this that work and they don't cost you anything, all you got to do is try it.
Doesn't work for you?
I'm impressed.
It really worked.
Let me know how it went for you, but I think it's worth the effort.
All right, I'll be back in a second.
Okay.
All right, I want you to next meet a power player who's from the eastern side of the spectrum, Pedram Shojai.
He's a former monk.
He's a monk.
And he also has worked and trained with the Dalai Lama.
So he's got street cred.
So I've got to ask, by the way, does the Dalai Lama have these issues?
Does he have a to-do list to keep him up at night?
Have you ever asked him that?
You know what?
I actually asked him that very question.
And the answer is a resounding yes.
It's noisy upstairs, right?
So it's about increasing the depth of the ocean of the mind so that we don't have the choppy waters at the bottom affecting all of it, right?
It's a peaceful force field that we create.
Look, as a former monk, as a dad of two, I got a one-month-old baby at home, noise is always there, so you have to learn to create some distance.
So give us some ideas.
If there's a pre-bedtime routine you think will make a big difference for us, and to sort of switch that brain a little off so we can get to this peaceful sleep.
Yeah, so if you want to go from sympathetic, which is fight or flight stress, to parasympathetic, which is rest and digest, you can use the body to drive the mind.
So mind-body exercises are huge.
Huge for this.
And they work really well.
I use a practice called qigong, which balances the yin kind of inward passive energies with yang, which is that outward expressive where we always live, right?
So to help balance that out and bring that in, qigong will help us do that and build some resiliency in sleep.
I know qigong like they do in China with these motions like that, but you have a routine you think we can do in our bed.
Yeah, absolutely.
You'll demonstrate it?
Let's do it.
All right, let's put in the bed.
All right.
Put the monk in bed.
All right.
All right, Pedram, show us the deal here.
All right, so you get in bed, get comfortable, right?
And then what we want to do is we want to spiral inward.
Just kind of pull in on the inhale.
And on the exhale...
Your hands are bending over.
Yeah, so everything's twisting in, right?
So twist in towards your core and your center.
Breathe into your core.
And as you exhale, everything opens.
And then, do this a few times and then put your hands on your lower abdomen and just start taking some deep breaths over here.
Chances are, you'll wake up in the morning.
Yeah, it really is.
I hope we wake up in the morning.
It's a good start to your recommendation.
Yeah, you just go.
You're gone.
Oh, you mean you'll fall asleep?
You'll fall asleep.
I want to show what you meant by that.
I have the whole audience do it, but I'm scared, plus you don't have beds.
That's wonderful advice.
My next guest has tried everything to quiet her racing mind like so many of us before bed, but nothing has seemed to work.
I want you to meet Lakia.
I try to get to bed at a reasonable time, 10, 11 o'clock.
My husband comes in, hits the bed, he's out.
Me?
Not at all.
The minute my head hits the pillow, my brain starts to race.
Indy 500. It's zooming, zooming.
I start thinking about all the things that I have to do for my nine kids.
We got doctor's appointments, school supplies, and my oldest two?
I have to get them ready for college.
All the information is overloaded and it keeps my mind racing.
I can't sleep.
I've been an insomniac for years and I've tried everything.
Chamomile tea and warm milk.
Meditation.
I even keep a box of wine tucked in the kitchen and believe me, I'm not afraid to use it, but nothing seems to help.
And Pluto!
Basically, I'm Mama Bear.
I take care of everything.
The shopping, the cleaning, the cooking.
It's just hard to settle down.
At night, if I can't sleep, I just give up.
I get out of the bed.
I go downstairs.
I might cook.
Who knows?
Anything to get my mind to calm down.
I'll never stop being Mama Bear.
I'll always continue to race around and take care of my children and my family.
But when that alarm goes off in the morning, I'm physically drained.
I'm exhausted.
I haven't had any sleep.
My body is tired from being up all night.
I wish I had an on and off switch to turn it off.
We pulled Lakia away from her nine children and her husbands.
How's your racing mind affecting your physical health?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, besides the fact that I'm groggy all day, everything is in a fog.
My delayed reaction, so I'm tripping, I'm falling, I'm losing kids, dogs, everything.
Half the time, I don't know what's going on because I'm so tired.
I'm so tired, physically tired, because I'm up most of the night.
Come on over here.
Dr. Asher is the right person for this.
So, you need a plan of action for the middle of the night.
And I think you've got one for us.
Okay.
So here you go.
Here's your middle of the night action plan.
So there you are.
You're in your bed.
The racing thoughts.
I want you to get up out of the bed.
Go to another room.
Keep it as dark as you can.
Just enough light to read.
And I want you to get an instruction manual.
An instruction manual?
An instruction manual.
Something monotonous.
Now why do I want you to read an instruction manual?
Because that instruction manual, be it for the refrigerator or the TV, is just enough to keep your mind engaged but block out intrusive thoughts without hyper-arousing the brain.
There's some books I've read that'll work too, by the way.
Kind of like when I go to the bathroom without my phone and I read the back of the Clorox bottle.
You do that?
Yeah.
I thought I was the only one.
Okay.
The next step, I want you to go back to bed.
But this time, I want you to change things up a bit.
I want you to...
See the headboard's here.
That's where it was before.
Look at your feet.
Your feet are down there now.
Yes.
Exactly right.
So you take the pillow, you put it down by your feet.
Okay.
Now you might say, what is the point of that?
What it does is your brain is looking for cues and it changes again the mindset so that you can break that pattern of racing thoughts.
It's when you're at the head of the bed, you're just putting yourself back in the same dynamics.
Right.
You want to change it up a bit.
And that'll work.
What do you think about that?
That sounds like it'll work.
I wanted to pick ideas today, again, from East and West.
They were out of the ordinary.
The idea of just changing things up a subtle way, so you're not in your usual routine, staring at the clock, waiting for it to come to dawn, it'll help you.
And it'll help with those headaches, too, I think.
I think so, too.
I think that they're all great, great steps, and I'm going to start using them.
Good luck with the nine kids.
Thank you.
For everyone that can fall asleep, but you just can't seem to wake up when the alarm clock goes off, we haven't forgotten about you.
Watch you up next.
Dr. Ash has solutions to make waking up easier.
And we have a little feedback from the monk as well.
Coming up next, now that we got you to fall asleep, you just can't seem to wake up.
Do you have to take extreme measures to get yourself out of bed every day?
The real reason you can't wake up in the morning.
Find out what happens in your brain when that buzzer sounds off.
The Talk's Cheryl Underwood.
Why have you decided to talk about this publicly?
The condition that left her devastated.
Plus, why Montel says these children need marijuana to survive.
This is saving lives.
All new eyes.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Thank you.
We just got you to sleep, but some of you tell an entirely different bedtime story.
You can't wake up in the morning.
You hear this, you're all reminded about it.
If you have to set more than one alarm to even wake up in the morning or to take extreme measures just to get yourself out of bed, you are not alone.
I want you to take a look at this video that has gone viral.
So now everybody makes their own hand-slapping alarm clock.
Well, it's not a bad idea to get themselves out of bed.
Dr. Carol Ash has looked into all the latest research on the real reason you can't wake up in the morning.
So please share this with us.
What's the problem in the morning?
Well, Dr. Oz, we're in such a great time.
There's so much science that we're learning about the brain and how we actually sleep.
So there's something called a confusional arousal.
Most people may have heard of it as sleep drunkenness.
And essentially, it's very, very common.
But what's happening is you're almost in a state of purgatory.
You're We're caught between not being fully awake and still being partly asleep.
And when you have these episodes, they can last from 5 to 15 minutes, sometimes even longer.
And the symptoms you'll experience are confused thought.
Your speech can be slurred.
You could have problems with your memory.
You could be grumpy.
And in extreme cases, you could even be violent.
So it's very common and people are doing it more than they realize.
Okay, so it's not drunkenness, it's sleep drunkenness.
Sleep drunkenness.
It's not a hangover.
And Lisa is here.
She says she finds it hard to wake up in the morning, and that's so hard, in fact, that her sister literally has to shake her out of bed.
Here's the evidence.
Don't you hear the alarm?
It's been buzzing for 20 minutes.
Come on, get out of bed.
No, no, no, I don't care.
I'm tired.
Don't be messing with you.
Out of bed.
No, don't touch the box.
Don't touch it.
Let your feet touch the floor.
Out of this bed.
How could you be tired every single day of the week?
I'm going to the bathroom.
Yeah, you do that.
Lisa walked right from her bed to here.
How long does your sister have to do that to you for?
My sister has to do that for at least 20 or 30 minutes.
And the weird thing is, I have four alarm clocks.
I have the 1902 alarm clock that should be in the Smithsonian.
I have my phone alarm clock, my television alarm clock, and my human alarm clock, my sister.
Show us this research now.
This is really cool.
This is what happens inside your brain when that alarm goes off or your sister starts banging at you.
Oh, God.
I'm scared.
Well, it's really a very simple concept once you understand the science.
Think of it like you have two engines in your brain.
You have one engine that's controlling the movement, and you have a second engine that's controlling your consciousness.
You can be consciousness.
And I'll be movement.
We're not racing.
We're trying to stay in sync.
When we're awake, you're awake right now, right?
I think I am.
Pinch yourself.
So when you're awake, just push slowly forward.
See them moving together there?
Beautifully.
You have to get out of sync sometimes, but not too often.
They're usually like that, moving along.
Then what happens, Carol?
Well, so as Dr. Oz is pointing out, if you wake up normally, both engines are full throttle moving ahead.
Okay.
So consciousness is slow.
It needs to catch up.
All right, so we know about seven hours of sleep and getting up at the same time.
What else, what else might work to get folks who are having trouble waking up on sync?
Well, normally when you wake up you have an alarm clock, but that sound only alerts one of the senses.
So when you want to get somebody up in the morning, using just one sense to alert the brain is not all you could do.
I want you to use every sense possible to help you get up in the morning.
So give me examples of how you use extra senses besides sound.
Okay.
Well, what we can do is in the morning when you wake up, instead of just having a routine alarm clock that has the sound, get an alarm clock with light, and when you set that alarm clock in the morning, not only do you have the benefit of the sound, now you have the light to stimulate the brain and get that brain alert.
And the other thing that is huge, so you have the light, you have the sound, The sense of smell.
So coffee in the morning, you want to get a coffee maker.
Set the timer so when you want to get up the same time as the alarm clock going on.
Delicious.
And you get all those senses going to alert the brain.
So can I have some collard greens percolating on the stove or something?
Whatever smell gets you up.
Alright, we got one last one.
I'm going to break.
I'm a former monk here.
You get in the middle so we can catch you.
Oh no!
Oh no!
I get the light and I get the smell.
Okay.
Just turn us on.
But this is a whole different sense.
This is a sense of where our body is.
Okay.
So walk us through this, Pedro.
Okay.
So what we're going to do is we're going to get on these balls.
You might want to get out of the heels there.
And we're going to step up on the ball because what that's going to do is it's going to challenge our balance.
And we want to stimulate our brains to get some mind-body integration, right?
Oh, okay.
So getting up on the ball.
Oh.
Is the easy part at first, right?
Okay.
So then what we're going to do is get your hands out to the sides.
Doesn't seem so easy.
Are you okay?
A little harder, right?
So hands out to the sides.
Now, in order to get balance, right, so now the eyes are helping you balance, and so you want to balance your brain with your body.
Be careful here.
Close your eyes and try to maintain your balance.
Really?
Yeah, really.
I'll catch you.
That makes it harder.
Let's see what that does.
Whoa!
Whoa, right?
So what we're doing is we're taking away one of the senses, and now the brain has to work that much harder.
Dr. Oz, we're a little too close.
You're married.
Stop playing.
Stop playing, Dr. Oz.
For the morning, anything will work.
Yes.
Thank you very, very much.
We've got the balance.
You'll find lots more tips on how to calm your mind in the podcast.
We'll be right back.
Keep doing that.
Coming up next, get a look inside what The View's Candace Cameron Bure is carrying around in her purse.
There's a lot.
I travel so much, I'm on and off of an airplane.
What she can't leave her house without.
Because I really love it.
I'm holding on to this.
Coming up next.
Today I'm watching a new series in It is called Show Dr. Oz.
There it is.
I'm looking for whatever you can show me.
I want to see it.
Whatever you want.
Like what's inside your medicine cabinet or your kitchen pantry or your fridge or maybe even show me that weird thing on your body.
Anything's in.
I'm curious about it.
Now my next celebrity guest will kick it all off by showing us what's inside her purse.
Take a look.
Here it is.
So whose purse is this?
I'll give you a hint.
It looks pretty full.
I bet she keeps it in her house.
More?
All right.
I think you have a pretty good view of the purse.
Guesses?
Oprah.
Oprah's not on the view.
Who else, though?
She's the co-host of it.
She's a full house star.
You got it.
Candace Cameron Bure.
Come on out.
Hey!
Hi!
Hi!
Say hi.
Thank you for coming.
Thanks for having me.
Hi!
They got you.
They first thought it was Oprah, and they went to you.
How Oprah?
I don't know.
I didn't think she was on the view.
That's okay.
I could be Oprah.
I want to give things away.
That's right.
Okay.
And you get a purse, and you get a purse, and you get a purse.
And you get a purse.
So what do you bring from your purse?
What are the things that you cannot leave home without?
There's a lot, but one of the things is my shake, because I am on the go a lot, and I don't always have good food to eat, or I just don't have time to eat, so I always carry a little packet of my powdered shakes in a shake bottle.
And then my other one is my makeup, because I really love it.
And I love all my lipsticks and my powder, and I always have to look fresh.
I travel so much.
I'm on and off of an airplane.
This is a 2-4.
There's seven lipsticks in here.
I know.
I'm a lipstick junkie.
How do you pick the one you're going to use?
It depends on what my outfit is, how I'm feeling.
Bold, shy, I don't know.
So you're a mom of three, co-hosting The View, you're doing all these fantastic things, making a spin-off of Fuller House.
It's called Fuller House, right?
Yes, it's called Fuller House and it'll be on Netflix in the early spring.
Well, I'm proud of you for all that, but the big question we're all asking is...
Thank you.
With all that scheduling, all that craziness in your life, how do you keep it all going?
How do you not burn out?
I do burn out.
You do?
I mean, yeah.
Doesn't everybody?
I think no matter what you do, and I do have a lot on my plate.
I'm working a lot of jobs, and I have three teenagers and a husband, and I'm going coast to coast.
But I'll tell you, when I was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, and that was all I did, I feel like I was just as burned out, just in a different way.
I think we all burn out, and we have to refresh, and, you know, it's a big juggling act.
I want to hear all your secrets.
You're going to sit down.
Yes.
We're going to come back.
We're going to talk to Candice about how she avoids the real big burnouts.
And we're going to reveal the last item in her purse that she says helps her do just that.
I'm holding on to this.
That's a big purse.
Next, find out how Candace keeps up with her busy life, balancing home and career.
I had no idea that that was going to become a controversy.
And the secret item she always carries around to keep her from getting stressed out.
next the talks Cheryl Underwood why do you decide to talk about this publicly the condition that left her devastated plus why Montel says these children need marijuana to survive this is saving lives all new eyes that's coming up tomorrow you We are back with Candace Cameron Bure, who has mastered balancing it all.
She's best known as DJ Tanner, of course.
She grew up into a busy-working mom.
You've got your own full house now.
You're busy as stinking, 100 miles an hour.
How do you avoid the burnout?
Well, there's a few things.
I mean, really, I have to be flexible.
That's the biggest part of keeping it all in balance.
I can't have such rigid schedules, even the exercise, the eating.
I have to make things work for me because I'm on the go so much.
So knowing that I'm flexible kind of helps me keep it all in perspective.
And what else?
Well, that's enough.
If you can just keep yourself flexible, that's a home run for most people.
Yeah.
I'm going to come back to that in a second because I'm curious how you actually get to the nitty-gritty.
But the one part that throws you off balance and sometimes you've got to be super flexible for is the controversy you get into.
And the view is really good at making us provocatively think about what's important in our society.
And if we all agreed, it would be interesting, frankly.
You get into it all.
You get into public prayer debates.
It's just serious topics.
When you go to the social media feed afterwards and you see comments, how do you deal with that?
How about your co-hosts?
What do they say?
Well, I mean, that's the beauty of the view.
We all have different viewpoints, and I think it's really good that we're able to have healthy discussions about our different viewpoints and not be upset about them.
But hearing other points of view is how we learn and we grow.
And if it comes from...
Compassion and a loving place that maybe we will give some information that might make someone else think or you'll tell me something might make me think differently So I love that part about the show, but I'll tell you social media can be really tough I I can't avoid it.
I can't say oh I'm gonna turn it off and just not read it because it's part of my job and Quite frankly, it's like hard to stay off of it, but I've you you I've Learned to use the block button really really well social media People on social media, if they're really nasty, I just, I block it, because I just don't need that feedback when it's coming from a really ugly place, which people, you know.
It happens to everyone, whether they're making commentary on the view or not.
And some of the things you get into are fairly personal to you, like when you talk about being a submissive wife, which I'd love you to explain to everybody the thought behind it, but I'm sure some of the attacks were very personal around that.
Yeah, it was funny.
My second book that I released called Balancing It All, they took an excerpt out of the book that I said I was a submissive wife, and I had no idea that that was going to become a controversy or something that would even become of debate.
And for me, it was really a biblical term that I was using, and I don't think it, a lot of people don't understand the meaning because they think of it as something that's very oppressive, and that's not how it's explained in the Bible.
It means, it's bridled strength.
It's strength under control.
And so when I say that, I love that my husband's a strong man and he's a leader of our family.
And I'm a leader as the mother of our family, but we have different qualities.
And I like that as a man, he gets to have his.
And as a woman, you know, I'm more nurturing and all that.
So it's kind of the yin and the yang.
But ultimately, I love that my husband leads us the best that he can, and it's all in love.
It doesn't mean I don't have a voice or opinion.
Clearly, I'm on The View, and I have an opinion and a voice.
But, I mean, that's what it really means to me.
We just work together as partners, and I think it's more about working together, if we want to talk about it in non-biblical terms, than what people think of the word submissive.
Well, good for you for speaking your mind.
Thank you.
So let me transition if I can.
Since family is so important to you, and part of staying flexible is getting sleep.
And with kids around, you have to fly back and forth from California to be with them and then come back here and do the view.
There's something I understand you have in your purse that I think folks in the audience would enjoy hearing about.
This is something that lets you sleep anywhere you are and everywhere you go.
It does.
So I've become an essential oils fan.
I have my purse right here.
Let me put it up here.
I know.
It's so heavy.
I have my computer.
Oh, my shoulder.
Oh, my shoulder.
I can't live without it.
That's how I keep my muscles.
Rub it right there.
That's much better.
My goodness.
Okay.
So I use essential oils and I have lavender and this has been great.
So I put a little on my pillow.
I might put some on my neck around, but it really helps me fall asleep.
So if I'm at a hotel and it's also a familiar smell, so that part's nice too.
But I love my oils.
I'm, you know, big into health and fitness.
So I try to use all the little tricks of the trade that I can to stay healthy, especially while traveling.
Doctors have studied it.
It's been used for millennia.
I think you're very wise to carry it around with you.
And it just smells good.
So you just put it on anyone smelling good.
Who doesn't want that?
Can I ask one question as a favor?
Yes.
I'm getting a lot of pressure about your co-hosts.
They want to know what you think about them.
What?
I'm going to put there your co-stars actually on Fuller House.
Oh, okay.
I'm going to leave your co-hosts.
My co-hosts on The View.
I was like, what do you think about me?
Not what I think about you.
I'm the newbie.
So we all know about the Mary Kate wedding, right?
All that fantastic stuff.
And you've got some of your stars that are coming back.
So I'm going to put their pictures up here.
You're going to tell me what you think about them.
A little celebrity gossip.
Are you ready?
Okay, I'm ready.
All right.
You're going to be honest about this.
I'm always honest.
All right.
Here's the real scoop on the Full House cast.
Tell me some pictures.
Tell me what they're really like.
Put it up there.
First picture is...
It's Comet, it's DJ's pillow person, and Mr. Bear.
What do you think about him?
I love them all!
Comet, Comet.
Comet's old and not around anymore.
Neither is my pillow person, because my dog ate it.
Your dog ate him?
Yes, I took DJ's pillow person, and he ripped the arms and legs, so the pillow person is no longer.
I could have sold them back together again if you brought them to me.
We'll be right back. - Next, you're watching What You Eat, You're drinking plenty of water.
You're even exercising more.
But the scale just isn't budging.
Chris Powell is here to shed some light.
The surprising reasons you stopped dropping weight.
And how you can fix it fast.
Next.
We are bringing a healthy back this season.
I want you to bring it too.
Grab your prescription pad for fun and sign up for free tickets today.
You can go to dros.com slash tickets and sign up.
Today's show is all about giving the tools to balance everything in your life without dropping your health.
Now, there's one thing that can really throw you off emotionally, get you off your balance.
It's the scale, right?
You're watching what you eat, you're drinking more water, you're trying to exercise, but the scale just isn't budging.
It's not moving.
And there could be some surprising reasons for this.
And here to shed some light on the scale is one of my core team experts, Chris Powell.
Yeah!
The scale is so frustrating for so many folks.
Why is that?
You said it all right here.
You said you're doing everything right.
You're eating right.
You're exercising.
You're drinking your water.
And sure enough, it somehow always seems to come to a stop.
Or sometimes it even goes up a little bit.
And people are freaking out.
But the whole topic of this discussion is don't freak out.
There's a lot of reasons why.
And we're about to discuss this.
I've been in this program, you all have as well, and some of our dieters are reporting that the scale has stopped moving.
Francesca's one of them.
She's been on a day off diet for a couple weeks.
How are you?
I'm great.
How are you?
So give us a little background.
How's it been?
How much weight have you lost?
And what's going on with the scale?
Well, I love you.
I love the diet.
And I've lost 13 pounds.
Have you really?
Yeah.
Congratulations!
Yeah, it's totally awesome.
It totally fits into my life.
I'm doing everything right, but it's not budging.
I plateaued.
What do I do?
The plateau question.
So we went through some surprising reasons.
Sounds familiar.
Sounds very familiar.
Can you help me?
I can help you.
Sure.
What you're saying is so common that it demands an explanation.
Chris is a world expert at this.
So the first thing Chris says is, we're probably weighing ourselves too often.
Why is this so?
Well, you probably find yourself stepping on the scale every day, aren't you?
Especially, you're excited, you're losing weight, and all of a sudden, instead of weighing every week, you're like, okay, it's Monday, how am I doing?
It's Monday afternoon, how am I doing?
It's Wednesday, how am I doing, right?
It's happening all the time.
If you're doing that, keep in mind though, weight loss happens very slowly.
I mean, if you're keeping a good calorie deficit, you're still losing fat.
One thing that doesn't gain and lose very slowly, in fact, you can gain and lose this very fast, is water weight.
So you might as well, after a high sodium food, you start sipping on water, you step on the scale right here.
Go ahead and do this.
We're not going to film the number.
No, we're not going to film the number.
But just pretend like you had some beef jerky yesterday.
You might as well step on the scale and hang on to a gallon of water with you, which weighs eight pounds, right?
All the work I've done.
But you look at the scale and you go, oh my gosh, I'm up eight pounds.
You're not up eight pounds.
You're simply holding on to a little bit of water.
And it's okay.
It's totally fine.
But you're going to see these fluctuations happen on a regular basis.
Chris has also got the four S's.
And these four S's are important to understand issues about the scale and how you use it the right way.
They are, Chris.
So when you step on the scale, make sure it's at the same time of day.
It's the same day of the week.
You're wearing the same clothes and it's the same scale.
Very important that you hit those four S's because there's a lot of different variables involved and we're looking for consistency.
Notice I also said the same day of the week.
Once a week, when you're losing weight.
Once a week, that's it.
Well, here's the deal.
You can step on the scale every day, but we're having this discussion because we want to give you realistic expectations.
Yes.
You're gonna see the scale go up and down, but if you give your official weigh-in just once a week, now you're gonna see a wonderful decline in that number, and you're gonna see a really good trend.
That's what we're looking for.
So in the day-off diet, you got the one day where you're allowed to Enjoy yourself a little bit more.
That's the morning Chris says we should weigh ourselves.
I was surprised.
Why did you pick that morning of all of them?
Well, the best thing with the day off diet is that you've got that reward day where you can reward yourself.
You can reset your body and your mind.
But before that reward, you've got six days of wonderful consistency with good clean eating, maybe a little movement here and there.
And so you're going to have what we would actually call your raw number, a wonderful clean number of what your true body weight is closest to.
Now keep in mind also, when you reset, when you've got that reward day, you're probably going to eat a little bit more sugar, a little bit more sodium.
And what are those?
Those are magnets for water in the body.
So you start sipping on water.
If you step on the scale the day after that reward day, after that free day, the cheat day, you're going to see that number go up.
Why?
You might as well just, once again, grab that gallon of water and step on the scale.
Don't freak out.
It's just water.
Jessica, I'm very proud of you.
Thank you.
And for the many, many folks who have been on the program, I'm very proud for you.
It's an awesome program.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, come on over, Chris.
The next surprising reason that the scale isn't budging has to do with the foods that you're eating, and then, unfortunately, that you're not eating them in the right order.
So it's not just what you're eating, but the order you're putting them in.
So how does this affect the scale?
Well, you know, when we're actually looking at the order of the foods that we're eating, and we've talked about this a lot in our previous segments, is that when it comes to our macronutrients, we want to eat the macros that are actually going to slow down digestion, that's going to make us feel fuller longer, so we're not going to be overeating the foods that we shouldn't be eating, right?
Right?
So that's why we always say, first, proteins and fats.
Those act like breaks on our food.
They slow down that digestion.
Then, after those, that's when we want to eat our carbohydrates, because we're a lot less likely to overeat those carbs.
And once again, if you overeat the carbs, we're going to see that scale start creeping back up.
But if you're going to eat them at all, the time you eat them is after you've had the protein and fats.
Which brings me to the next reason that the scale's not budging, one that's not talked about very often.
We don't poop every day.
Let me break this down for you if you don't mind.
The number one secret that folks won't talk about has to do with the fact that extra poop in your body has a weight, right?
And it's a big cause for weight gain or perceived weight gain in a lot of folks.
So let's just go through this if we can so everyone's on the same page.
Your intestines are really big and they're really long.
They may be scrunched up inside your body to fit inside your belly, but they're roughly the length of four Shaquille O'Neal's.
He's seven feet tall.
So that means 28 feet worth of bowel in us.
Look at this.
Keep going, Chris.
Get on over there.
There we go.
Well, keep going.
Keep going.
That's a lot.
That's a lot of poop inside there, tigers.
So this much weight ain't going to go away unless you work on it a little bit.
So Chris, you can drop the bowel.
Nice job, by the way.
So what do you think we should do?
I'm tripping on the poop.
What should we do if we want to really clear our intestines out?
It's something we could take, not just at the beginning of the program, but I think throughout our lives might be beneficial to us.
Well, you know, I've been taking fiber for years, and I really think it is absolutely phenomenal for getting, well, like, and I love it because we can only talk about this here on your show, for getting the poop out.
Because, you know, the average American can have between 2 and 15 pounds of fecal matter in their system built up at any given time.
And so the best thing about sealing fiber— We really are.
But the best thing about psyllium fiber is that it acts as nature's scrub brush.
And unfortunately, because of the typical American diet, we're not getting enough fiber in our system.
So it's really important that we supplement with it.
Now keep in mind, men need about 35 grams of fiber every day.
Women need about 25. And unfortunately, most of us aren't getting it.
So I take psyllium fiber first thing in the morning and I also take it at night.
And sure enough, I mean, I swear by it.
I mean...
That stuff's amazing.
You look good.
I gotta tell you, the day after Thanksgiving, I weighed myself on the scale.
I'm just gonna throw this out here, but a little TMI here, but I weighed myself on the scale before my morning dump and after.
I lost three pounds in five minutes.
No joke.
That's a lot.
True story.
What was the shape?
Fluffy.
And hearty, as a matter of fact.
When we come back, Chris and his wife Heidi answer your burning diet questions.
Coming up next, are you getting conflicting information about diets and weight loss?
Not sure who to listen to?
Your most commonly asked questions get answered.
When you do lose the weight, how do you ensure that you keep it off?
off.
Advice from Chris and Heidi to keep you motivated.
Next.
The Talk's Cheryl Underwood.
Why did you decide to talk about this publicly?
The condition that left her devastated.
Plus, why Montel says these children need marijuana to survive.
This is saving lives.
All new eyes.
That's coming up tomorrow.
The news is saturated with conflicting information about diet and weight loss, and that's when questions start flooding my social media.
And today I'm going to answer your burning diet questions, drip straight from the headlines.
Chris and Heidi Power are here, experts to answer the first question, which is all about fruit.
Usually in the news is the word fruit.
You see the word fruit and next to it the word fat a lot.
I don't know if you've all noticed this.
Debbie sent me this question, very specifically on Twitter.
She said, can eating too much fruit make me fat?
What do you guys think?
Well, here's the deal.
Fruit's wonderful.
It's loaded with vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and all this other good stuff.
But at the same time, fruit still has a calorie impact.
And if something's got that much energy to it, well, if you overeat it, yeah, it can't make you fat.
Like, believe it or not.
Because...
Our body doesn't know what to do with all those excess calories, so yes, it's going to store them as body fat.
So, the key here with fruit is eat it in moderation.
It's delicious.
Eat the different colors of fruit.
Eat the rainbow flavors of fruit, so you can get all those different vitamins and minerals and antioxidants, but also focus on fruits that are really high in fiber and lower in sugar, like melons, like berries, like grapefruit, like peaches.
And those are the selections of fruits that you want because they're going to have minimal impact on your blood sugar.
Therefore, minimal insulin response, and your body's less likely to store it as body fat.
All right, I got something from the audience.
I think Liz is up here.
There we are.
Go ahead, Liz.
Heidi, I have a question for you.
I thought you said it was for Chris.
Oh, for Chris?
No, this is a Heidi question.
Oh, it is?
Yeah.
You don't want Chris to weigh in on it?
Sure.
Chris and Heidi, I have a question for you.
I'll take this one.
Right around my period, I still eat really clean.
Do you have any suggestions?
Because I get that bloat and uncomfortableness.
Like, any suggestions because I gain some weight around the period?
No, I see why you don't want Chris involved.
Well, let me tell you that, Michael.
Once a month when he starts his period.
Yes, as women we do unfortunately gain a little bit of weight before our period every single month.
I'm victim to it as well.
And it can often be as much as 10 pounds depending on our bodies and depending on who we are and how we kind of process the foods that we eat as well.
This is actually totally normal for women.
The best thing you can do is just wait it out.
Keep on plan.
Don't let it get to your mind.
Give it about five to seven days.
The wait will be right back down where you started.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
You are safe, Chris.
Go ahead, Caroline.
All right, Chris, my question's a little easier for you.
So when you do lose the weight, how do you ensure that you keep it off?
This is a problem I'm sure that everybody in this room has, and I have it too, so what do you suggest?
Absolutely.
Yes, you are not alone.
You know, one of the biggest misconceptions that we run into working with all the folks that we help through the weight loss journey is that they think that, okay, now that I've lost the weight, I can go back to normal.
Well, don't forget where normal got you in the first place.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
There's actually three things we recommend that you do.
Number one, set a new goal.
You don't have that goal to hit the number on the scale anymore, so set a goal outside of the scale.
Maybe it's something like running a half marathon or doing a triathlon, something fitness-related to keep you going.
Number two, have a plan.
Number three, make sure your goal is something that's satisfying to you and you're not going to feel deprived.
Remember that the journey is never over.
Lots more of these fundamental questions are going to be on DrRoz.com.
The full day off diet plan is all there.
Do check it out.
You can find lots more on weight loss motivation in Chris and Heidi's new book, which is fabulous.
It's called Extreme Transformation.
Everyone in the audience, by the way, is going home with a copy.
So congratulations.
We'll be right back.
Ready to get started on the day off diet?
Check out this month's issue of The Good Life magazine for exclusive bonus recipes, tips, and motivational tools to help you reach your weight loss goals.
What are you waiting for?
Well, good morning.
Why don't we go run?
You told me about a dream that you had once when you were 28. In the dream, I saw myself across the room.
I had a sign around my neck.
It said AIDS. It's going to be the most difficult thing that I've ever tried to tackle.
How scared are you?
This disease chose the wrong person.
Do men and women really think differently?
I'd ask you, but I think I know the answer.
There's a brand new study, however, that sets the record straight and may change the battle of the sexes for good.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University examined men and women's brain structures.
And you know what?
They found no difference.
Nada.
They compared the results to an American study using MRIs, brain scans, when people were asked about things that typically are thought of as being male or female, like gambling or housework or golf or cosmetics.
That's about as stereotypical as it gets when it comes to gender differences.
So here's what they found, all right?
So again, you have the female brain, you got the male brain.
So the first thing they asked them was, what do you guys think about gambling?
I had to do some gambling exercises.
I mean, everyone knows this is a male issue, right?
And guess what?
They didn't find it.
No distinction at all.
The second question, we're all about housework.
We've got scans of the brain and no difference.
Men and female brains work the same.
The third topic was golf.
Now this one, there are a lot of women who play golf.
Still, No distinction.
And they finally, finally realized, ultimately, the question that truly tells the story would be about cosmetics, right?
Because there's going to be a difference here, obviously, because how much do men think about cosmetics?
And when they did the study, they found, oh, they couldn't find any consistent pattern with gender stereotypes at all.
So what do you take away from this?
You look at our brains, that's what they look like.
They're actually a little bit, little bit of male and female in every one of us, making it impossible to differentiate the male from female brain.
So you may think men and women are from Mars.
Actually, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
But actually, we're all from the same darn planet, wherever it happens to be.
We're unique in our own ways.
Our brains don't work that differently after all.
So keep that in mind when you search for happiness and health at home, because that's where you'll find it.
See you next time.
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