Module 1 – Welcome
Hello, greetings and welcome!!
How exciting is this? By taking this step and trusting this guide, and it’s contents herein ( and me of course ), you are literally taking responsibility for your current and future health, and that will hopefully ripple out through your loved ones health too! I have put some of my best health, fat loss, fitness info, biohacks, secrets and love into this guide. I want to teach you once and have you use it forever. I love the guide and everything it stands for. Follow it to a ‘T’ as they say and reap the rewards. I promise you will get results!
Side note;
REMEMBER I can’t MAKE you do anything, you have to put in the work yourself. My goal is not to have you lose 30 lbs in 30 days – its to have you lose the weight at a nice sustainable pace and keep it off FOR GOOD! (FYI, we like to see 0.5 -1.5 a week approximately.)
Each module has been designed to teach you the most important up to date information on different modalities of health including – nutrition, weight management, hormones, healing, performance, movement, and much more. There are several sections to each module, including videos and links. **I will continue to upgrade this guide, as I did with the original HETA guide, as I see fit and new research comes out – you will always be notified of this. Now grab a cup of high grade black coffee or organic green tea and take 5-10 minutes to yourself to go through this module ( I can’t stress this enough, follow the guide and you will get results!) – I encourage you to read over each module as much as possible and refer to specific sections as needed.
Learn to learn, and learn to succeed xo
READY?
This is the START of your future of long term fat loss and health. I will be with you ALL the way, as will all the members who you can reach out to anytime in the forum.
So stick with me, follow the guide and you will have no problem reaching and surpassing your goals. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy but I am saying YOU CAN MOST DEFINITELY DO THIS! Some days will suck, some days will be easy, such is life! I find that the days I am busiest – controlling my food intake is easy. Use the forum to ask questions, it is a private non judgmental place – no question is dumb or out of bounds. It is your support tool.
Also The HETA guide masters Facebook group or “forum” as we call it, is a resource for videos, tips, recipes and questions. If I am unavailable with teaching or family life, then post your question in the forum and someone will reply. As for messenger, text and email — if you would like to speak with me on a more personal level, then reach out to me via these. I will answer as soon as I can. I will also try to privately message you and check in as much as I can but as you can understand, I get busy and can get easily distracted…Squirrel 😉 .
My email again is here.
Let’s begin – In order for us to get you to your goals and sustain your new way of eating and living, the guide will focus on education and teaching you, in plain terms, what foods are best for your body, what they do and what are the best hacks for fat loss ( alas fat loss and health go hand in hand once done the right way). It is important to understand that you are not just you and your body… You are made up of millions of cells and bacteria. You are actually made up of more bacteria than human cells, and this is important to remember when we look at calorie harvesting, offsetting and breaking fasts. So, that means that the nutrition you take in is feeding each of your cells and we want these cells to have everything they need to function well, so that they can optimize how our body functions overall including our immune, hormones and metabolism. PS optimal fat loss comes from having a good hormonal balance. In order to get this we must remember to take in foods that ‘have a job to do’ and support hormonal function .
What is nutrition? Nutrition is the process of providing or obtaining the food and fluids necessary for survival, good health and growth.
You have several lists and other helpful PDF’s in the files section in the forum on Facebook to help you create your weekly grocery list– you should print these off or save to your phone and refer to them when you are writing your own grocery list or as needed. Keep things simple in the beginning. It is wise to only purchase enough food for 4-5 days in the beginning and keep your meals simple. You can repeat meals and foods for week 2 to help prevent food wastage, overwhelm and keep costs down, if you need to.
There will also be a more specific lists and mentions of different foods as we move forward. I want you to try one to two new foods from the grocery list each time you hit the grocery store. There are LOTS of recipes in the forum in the files section and on the Pinterest boards! There are great “meals” eaten hot or cold. There are no excuses really — but don’t stress, you will narrow meals down to the foods and recipes you like over the next few weeks. You are NOT expected to be the next Gordon Ramsey either.
PDFS HERE
Which food falls in which catagory PDF – best to consider all cheese a “fat”.
Yogurt recipes 2024– start with the basic recipes and increase the portion size as you need.
First
There will be a different eating modality each week — this allows you to try new eating templates and discover what does and doesn’t work for you. Some you may have heard of before, maybe if you participated in the original HETA guide, and some you may not. You will cycle these and learn which one works best for your body, lifestyle and yields the best results. You will each respond differently because you are you and no one else!
This week – WEEK 1 – we will introduce TRE or time restricted eating, along with the “BASIC EATING STYLE”. The basic eating style is my signature eating template, that I put forth to many of my clients because it works. (Some of you have already been practicing this and that’s great but this week I want you to tighten up your fasting window and stick to it vigilantly if you have not been ).
Also TRF (time restricted feeding) is a “type” of fasting that will be practiced. You will consume all your calories in an 8 or 10 hour window i.e. if you have your first piece of food at 10am then you will stop eating by 6 or 8pm. Preferably always stop eating before sunset. I have done several posts and a podcast in my biohacking Facebook group on why we aim to stop eating 3-4 hours before bed. This is not a cop out that if you fast then you can eat whatever you want when you feed again either – that doesn’t work!
The idea is that we give you structure in your days, create routine, work with your bodys daily rhythms, and give your body time to repair itself, clear out your digestive system, rebalance hormones and get your metabolism back on line —–> You will see huge improvements in your mood, cravings, sleep, skin, hair, energy, anxiety, physique and more. Listen to your body.
Why TRE? TRE or intermittent fasting as some refer to it as, is not a diet, it is a pattern of eating. It contradicts and runs counter to what we have been thought and the way we tend to live today, but it really isn’t drastic at all. And combined with the basic eating style, it helps us work with our bodys and its rhythms, instead of against. TRE has so many health benefits including fat loss but you MUST ensure that when you feed, you get enough protein and dense nutrition in each meal. *TRE or Fasting protocols may vary from person to person.
Here are some of the benefits;
Reduces inflammation
Reduces fluid retention and swelling
Helps balance hormones when does correctly
Improves your bodies ability to assimilate nutrients
Gives your digestive tract time to ‘turn over’ new cells or heal
Heightens brain function and reduces brain fog
Reduces blood pressure – I can already hear some of you saying ‘omg that’s me!’
May inhibit Cancer growth by improving metabolic health
Improves mood by reducing Serotonin and inflammation
Increases the effectiveness of insulin or re-sensitizes your cells to insulin
Increases your sensitivity to leptin – the satiety hormone
Reduces triglycerides – a type of fat in the blood which are generally a reflection of nutrition and stress
May extend lifespan – that healing and repairing that happens when you fast improves resiliency
It improves autophagy – the cleaning out of damaged cells which helps prevent cancer growth and occurrence of disease
*I will change your fasting protocol if I feel it needs to be changed or if I notice any negatives with you
TRE or intermittent fasting has also been shown to repair and rebuild brain cells, improve strength, increase metabolism, focus and mental clarity…and so much more. All in context of course.
When you fast — During the first four to eight hours you are absorbing and digesting nutrients. Only after those hours do you get into a fasted state…the most effective fat burning hours are between the 12th & 14th hour ( the last 2 or more hours before you break your fast ). Some say, this is when you should do some sort of exercise to optimize fat burning – walk to work, walk the dog, do 10 minutes of core work, practice some yoga, dance while you make your bed and so on. BUT based on my work and case studies, I believe it is more effective to walk in the evening after dinner. Of course if you can walk in the morning and evening, do that. Walk whenever you can, just walk. Do what fits your lifestyle because some walking is better than no walking! Make sure you stay hydrated with either plain water with some sea salt, electrolytes, infused water, sparkling water, homemade ice teas, organic teas or HIGH GRADE organic coffee.
Also if you feel you absolutely need something to eat you can consume up to 50 calories during your “fast” or non feeding wondow — this is called a ‘Dirty fast’ — this can be a teaspoon of unsalted organic or grass fed butter, coconut cream or coconut oil in your coffee, a cup of bone broth, 3-4 brazil or macadamia nuts (these also are a fasting mimicking food) or 10-15g of 80-100% organic dark chocolate. These do not neccescarily affect your fast but do activate the digestive process. For best results try aim for a ‘Clean fast’ — this is where you stick to zero calories and plain beverages like black coffees, teas and waters.
*sugar or anything sweet tasting will break your fast! This includes natural sweeteners like stevia!
TRE (time restricted feeding) is the fastest way to rebalance hormones, specifically those that cause us to store fat. It helps us utilize energy more effectivly, gives our lipase (enzymes that break down fat) a chance to work on our body fat, improves hunger and satiety signals to the brain, and allows us to start tilting bacteria in our favor. *More on bacteria to come.
The basic eating style is very effective and works in line with the bodies natural hormonal rhytms. We push insulin responses into a position that is favorable to fat burning and health, by limiting our carbs to only lunch. This keeps insulin low and fat burning high in the morning, and insulin low in the evenings which puts us in an optimal state for cellular repair, autophagy, and fat burning. Carbs at lunch also support dopamine production, a boost in energy, and keep other hormones trotting along. *Specific carbs at lunch boost our fat burning microbiota/bacteria too, more on this to come.
KEY POINT; When insulin is ‘present’, it means sugar has been introduced into the body. The body can only burn one fuel source at a time and there is a higher archy when it comes to what will be burnt for fuel/energy; alcohol is first, then the other macros follow. Check out the information in the resources below.
To make things worse, when insulin is present it blocks satiety signalling to the brain, so you struggle to feel satisfied. And it stops our “lipase” enzymes from breaking down our bodies own fat stores for fuel, because if the body is burning sugar for fuel it basically says “sorry lipase your not needed today,we are not breaking down fat today, take the day off!”. This is why we don’t want insulin present at night when we sleep because that is when we do most of our fat burning and healing.
Basic Eating Style;
Breakfast – fat and protein. We always have some 80-100% organic dark chocolate with breakfast.
Lunch – protein, green veg, good carbs and 100mls of kombucha. We always have an organic Granny Smith apple or approved fruit with lunch.
Dinner – protein, green veg and fat. Keep fat to 1-2 tbsp at dinner and prioritize protein.
Lets avoid snacking as much as possible.
RESOURCES;
I understand there is a lot of information here so far but I promise these videos and podcasts below will help everything make sense. Please make time to watch them. It will be a little time consuming but so worth it, and you will enjoy them!