Do you feel stuck in a cycle of counting calories, restricting food, and still not seeing the results you want? You're not alone. In this episode, I break down why focusing on calories is keeping you stuck and how you can finally free yourself from diet culture.

I challenge the age-old belief that calories are the key to weight loss and overall health. Drawing on personal experiences and scientific insights, I reveal why calorie counting often fails in the long term and can even hinder your progress.  

Plus, I explain why hormones, blood sugar balance, and nutrient quality are far more important than the number of calories on a food label. You’ll learn how to listen to your body and fuel it without obsessing over numbers or feeling guilty about your calorie intake.

Conclusion:

It’s time to stop chasing numbers and start focusing on nourishing our bodies with the right foods at the right times. By focusing on blood sugar balance and giving your body what it truly needs, you’ll notice improvements in your health, energy, and overall well-being.

In This Episode:

00:00 Introduction to the calorie-counting myth 

02:44 The real secret to weight loss

07:45 Understanding calories and how they impact us

14:50 The importance of blood sugar stabilization

19:06 Rethinking nutrition for kids and adults

24:31 PFC3: the diet that actually works

31:35 Listening to your body versus calorie deficit

35:20 How to preorder Carrie’s book

Join the waiting list for Carrie’s upcoming book, From Corset to Crown!

Sign up here: https://www.carrielupoli.com/  

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Other Related Episodes: 

Looking for additional tips for a sustainable, healthy lifestyle? Check out these episodes: 

• 7 Things That Make Women Overeat
• Why 90% of Women Over 35 Fail at Dieting

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Carrie Lupoli: Hey there, I'm Carrie Lupoli, and if you spent decades dieting, restricting or chasing a smaller version of yourself only to feel stuck, well, you're in the right place. As a nutritionist, behavior specialist, speaker and author, I disrupt everything you've been told about weight loss, confidence, and self-worth.

[00:00:17] Carrie Lupoli: I'll show you how to break free from the guilt and the shame, how to fuel your body with. Food and confidence, and finally, feel at home in your body and in control of your life without restriction or obsession or dieting or counting another single calorie. Not only will I unveil the last nutritional advice you'll ever need, but I'll show you how to live a life of freedom when it comes to food, the relationship with your body, and how to live with energy, clarity, and peace.

[00:00:44] Carrie Lupoli: It's all about showing up fully for the people you love and the purpose you were made for. So if you are ready to ditch and trade that emotional corset from the diet industry, the one that you've been forced to wear for a crown because of the queen that [00:01:00] you are, and become the healthiest version of yourself, subscribe and join me because freedom is possible and it starts right here.

[00:01:11] Carrie Lupoli: For decades, we have been told that the secret to weight loss is simple. Just eat less, move more count in calories. Let me ask you this, if calories were really the answer, why are so many of us still struggling? Why do women who eat quote unquote, perfectly, according to their calorie tracker, still feel exhausted, stuck, frustrated with their bodies?

[00:01:30] Carrie Lupoli: Well, here's the truth. Calories don't tell you even close to the whole story. They measure the. Amount of energy in food. That's literally it. But they don't measure what your body actually does with that energy. They don't show you how your hormones respond, how your blood sugar rises and crashes, or how your metabolic.

[00:01:50] Carrie Lupoli: System adapts, and I want you to imagine this. So think about like, I don't know, 200 calories of candy and then 200 calories [00:02:00] of a chicken stir fry with whole unprocessed food, same calories, completely different effect on your body. And yet the calorie myth has convinced us that those two things are equal.

[00:02:10] Carrie Lupoli: In fact, it's what all nutrition certification programs still teach to this day. If we just eat less, we'll finally get the results that we want. But I'm here to tell you that that is the exact lie that's been keeping you stuck physically and emotionally. So in this episode, I'm gonna break down why calories don't actually determine your health, your energy, your long-term weight, and what actually does, I promise you, once you understand this, you'll never look at food or your body the same way again, forget calories, the real secret to weight, energy, and health.

[00:02:44] Carrie Lupoli: Is here. Okay, so what if I told you that the real reason you can't lose weight is not because you're eating too many calories? But because you're focusing on them at all, I'm telling you this is what's so [00:03:00] crazy. Calorie counting is the go-to quote unquote proven scientific method of every single.

[00:03:09] Carrie Lupoli: Influencer, nutritionist, doctor out there, and there's been so many times, I was actually just out hiking in Yellowstone and I was talking to my husband and my friends that we were with, and I'm like, I, I just find it so crazy that I feel like I have to. Like I, I, I'm like the only one talking about this.

[00:03:28] Carrie Lupoli: Now I know I'm not because I, as we talk about today, there's a ton of research and information and data around how calorie counting is so incredibly antiquated. But yet I have multiple certifications in nutrition. The coaches that are on my team, in addition to being certified through me and my certification, came to me or had additional training in other areas of nutrition, and they're all taught about caloric intake.

[00:03:54] Carrie Lupoli: And I, I, I just, I, I cannot get it out of my skull that I [00:04:00] have to like. Just keep talking about this. Keep like just ramming this home to people, that this is absolutely antiquated. It is what fails us. I, my team and I talk to hundreds and hundreds of women every month, and they all say I, I mean, I keep.

[00:04:19] Carrie Lupoli: Like reducing my calories. I keep reducing my calories. I was at the bank yesterday and I had to have a wire transfer, and the woman said to me, what do you do? And I said, I, I own a health and wellness company. And she's like, oh, tell me more about that. And so I started talking to her and she's like, oh my gosh, I need this.

[00:04:34] Carrie Lupoli: And I said, everybody needs this. And she goes, my sister, she is like struggling with menopause and she just keeps eating less and less. She's like not eating at all. And I keep thinking that can't be good. And. This is one of the problems around the concept of calories. We keep telling women that you have to be at a deficit, and so what do we do when it doesn't quote unquote work?

[00:04:55] Carrie Lupoli: Well, we just hear the word deficit. Oh, I must not be at enough of a deficit. I must not be at [00:05:00] enough of a deficit. But yet we also know that starving. Isn't actually healthy either, so we get real confused. But you're not the only ones that are confused because when literally every nutrition certification out there, except basically the one that I, that I've written.

[00:05:18] Carrie Lupoli: And then I certified coaches for talk about calories, calories in versus calories out. And like I, I, I equate it to the Wizard of Oz, like the man behind the curtain that makes all the things happen. That's what like this caloric deficit thing is if truth be told. 10% of our caloric output comes from exercise.

[00:05:42] Carrie Lupoli: So, you know, we talk about we gotta take in less than we burn, and then we have our watches and we have our trackers, and we're looking at how many calories we burned in our exercise. And then we know that we have to eat less than that number of calories. It's so off. The calories that we're burning are not the same as the calories that we're eating.

[00:05:56] Carrie Lupoli: And it's also making up for 10% of our entire [00:06:00] caloric burn. Each day, your gut health, genetics, your metabolism, your set point, your age, your hormonal balance, all the amount of you know, energy that you exert by simply thinking all goes into your caloric output. So where's this magic calculator? Now, I know companies like Precision Nutrition, one of the largest certification programs in the world, of which I have multiple certifications through.

[00:06:28] Carrie Lupoli: They literally. Make you buy their caloric calculator to be able to help clients. And part of the training is basically like you need your clients to believe that they need you so that they keep coming back and paying you. And, and where does this calculator come from? It's literally like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

[00:06:49] Carrie Lupoli: It's just a man, it's not a wizard. And it like, let's be honest, we could chat GPTA caloric deficit all day long too. It doesn't work. [00:07:00] What's your definition of working first? Losing weight? Well, when we're younger we could just take in less than we burn because of all of those other factors I told you about, including age and a, a variety of types of things that allow us to burn calories a little bit faster.

[00:07:18] Carrie Lupoli: Metabolism, all sorts of things. Right? Well, because we. Like restrict our eating. When we're younger, we go on a diet and it quote unquote works because our measure of working is simply losing weight. We tend to think that that is true, that the caloric deficit actually works. But by the end of this episode, you are going to see why the calorie myth has failed all of us and what actually works.

[00:07:46] Carrie Lupoli: So let's talk about what calories are. It's so funny because I once saw, I think it was like on, I don't know, Jimmy Fallon or one of those late night shows where, uh, when people were first starting talking about being gluten-free, they were going [00:08:00] on the street and they're like, are you gluten-free?

[00:08:01] Carrie Lupoli: They're like, yes, this is very much in California at the time. And, uh, they said, what's gluten? And literally nobody could answer the question. And it's just so funny because we get stuck in these terms and these trends and we, if we go one layer deep, like. We can't answer the questions about it. And so when we think about calories, do people really understand what calories are?

[00:08:22] Carrie Lupoli: We look at a label and we see that this food has 250 calories per serving. So we think, okay, well if I have to take 1200 calories a day, then I, you know, this will count towards that. We don't really know what calories mean, and so one of the things that we have to actually recognize is. The history of it and recognize how it might feel logical, but it's so overly simplistic.

[00:08:50] Carrie Lupoli: It's ridiculous. I would say this. Uh, because when I was hiking, uh, last week in Yellowstone, I'm like, it's not that. 'cause one of [00:09:00] the guys I was, uh, I was hiking with was like, okay, well talk to me why so many people talk about calories. And I'm like, well, listen, it's not wrong per se, because if you eat more.

[00:09:11] Carrie Lupoli: Then what your body is able to quote unquote, burn. I use that term very loosely. Then yeah, you're gonna gain weight, but it has more to do with other things going on in your body versus just calories. But yeah, if you eat a lot, you're gonna gain weight. Uh, very likely your blood sugar is spiking, which is why you're holding onto weight and you're not able to metabolize that food very quickly.

[00:09:36] Carrie Lupoli: So it's not to say that like. Calories mean nothing. When you actually give your body what it means, which I'm gonna talk about. Calories just take care of themselves. I literally have no idea how many calories a day I eat. My clients dunno how many calories they eat, but I know that they're getting the right amount of food because of the way their body is responding.

[00:09:58] Carrie Lupoli: And it, it takes care of itself. [00:10:00] It like. It's like a program that goes along in the background. The problem is it's become so front and center that when we try to troubleshoot why we're not getting the progress that we want, why we have cravings, why we're gaining weight, why we have menopausal issues, we tend to think calories should be front and center.

[00:10:19] Carrie Lupoli: It's the thing we adjust when in all reality, that's not the issue. So what are calories? It's literally the energy in food. We figured this out in like the 18 hundreds, that it's the amount of actual energy in food. Everything has energy in it, in our bodies, in like my desk, all of it has a certain amount of energy and it is like.

[00:10:44] Carrie Lupoli: I don't wanna say it's like the weight of food, but it kind of is. It's just like how much of the food, like the thing exists and the idea that all calories are created equal is where some of the, like the problem comes in and I [00:11:00] think on a, on a level, we know this right? So I gave the example of like 200 calories of, I don't know, Skittles is not the same as 200 calories of say, turkey, almonds and an apple.

[00:11:12] Carrie Lupoli: It just isn't because it isn't about you are what you eat. If calories was, if it was just that simple, then you should be able to eat 200 calories of candy. You should be able to eat 200 calories or 300 calories, 400 calories, whatever it is, of a burger, uh, from, you know, I don't know, McDonald's and it not matter, but it does.

[00:11:35] Carrie Lupoli: And we know that it does. We know, quote unquote, healthier food is. Better for us than not healthy food, but we don't really understand exactly why and we still keep going back to calories, calories, calories, calories. I got into like a real like social media debate with somebody that has hundreds of thousands of followers, people like.

[00:11:57] Carrie Lupoli: Absolutely look to him [00:12:00] as the go-to person when it comes to nutrition, which absolutely drives me crazy. 'cause he works with women. He's a man. And I'm not saying men can't work with women, but don't, don't, it drives me crazy when people A, have never been through menopause or a man and they try to talk about menopause.

[00:12:15] Carrie Lupoli: Like it's like a first account experience. But anyway, that's a whole nother episode I could do. And he literally did a whole thing on, um, like you, you're just eating too many calories. If you are not losing weight, you're just eating too many calories. And this is a whole thing. And then in that same thing, the same real he did, he was like, but if you don't eat enough calories, then that's a problem too.

[00:12:38] Carrie Lupoli: And I'm like, see what you're doing here? You're trying to make people confused so that they feel like they have to work with you and then. And I know what he charges. He charges over $1,200 a month to work with him. And his whole goal, because I've been in many masterminds with him, he's like, how can I keep them going longer?

[00:12:52] Carrie Lupoli: How can I make them not know enough to be able to do this themselves? So they continue to pay me. It's absolutely atrocious. And yet [00:13:00] he's. Teaching calories in versus calories out. Calories measure energy, but not the quality of your fuel and how food you aren't, you are what you eat. That's just a fallacy.

[00:13:11] Carrie Lupoli: That's wrong. Mark McDonald, celebrity nutritionist, one of my partners in, um, in crime when it comes to our certification for, uh, teaching professionals. The, the right way to coach their clients. I will say, uh, he always says, you, it's not, you are what you eat, you are what you absorb. That's a big difference with calories.

[00:13:33] Carrie Lupoli: You, you, your body does not know what to do with 200 calories of Skittles. It just doesn't. Now I like Skittles, gummy bears are actually my can candy of choice. Um, all food is is a protein, fat and carb. That is all that it is. So gummy bears, for example, are carbs 'cause it's sugar, right? An apple is a carb because it's It's a carbohydrate.

[00:13:53] Carrie Lupoli: It's a fruit. But yes, it's a carb. Vegetables are carbs. Like there's only three macronutrients. That is it. And when [00:14:00] we A, don't take into account. Pairing. Our macronutrients actually like the synergy of protein, fat and carb is what we need to be thinking about, like Turkey, almonds and an apple. That's super simple, but our body needs those three macronutrients at the same time, and so 250 calories of Oreo cookies is not gonna be the same as 250 calories of say, scrambled eggs and fruit.

[00:14:25] Carrie Lupoli: It just isn't. And so we can't absorb the 250 calories of Oreos to use them as fuel to use them as nutrients, and so therefore our body then rejects it. And it actually stores that it's fat because we've, we spiked our blood sugar and it can't absorb it. So we have to talk about quality of food versus a hundred calories.

[00:14:50] Carrie Lupoli: Blood sugar stability is the real foundation of our health. We know this. I always say this, you could literally Google every kind of diet out there. And [00:15:00] you'll find pros and cons. If you research blood sugar, stabilization blood sugar balance, there's not an ounce of refuting evidence that talks about why that's bad for you.

[00:15:10] Carrie Lupoli: It only talks to about why it is so foundational and important. Calories completely ignore blood sugar, stabilization, hormonal balance, muscle preservation, the role of sleep, the role of stress, the role of mindset. This is why two people could literally eat the same calories and get different results. In fact, uh, I'll go through a couple of studies here when there's some studies around obese teenagers, and they'll get me started around teenagers.

[00:15:35] Carrie Lupoli: Right now, 38% of teenagers are seen to be, are, um, found to be pre-diabetic. That's a whole nother another episode, and why I am working on nutritional literacy for kids as a whole nother project. Uh, PFC PALS will be coming soon for children to be able to learn. We have to, we have to take a hold of our childhood obesity.

[00:15:57] Carrie Lupoli: We have to stop teaching the food pyramid. [00:16:00] We have to stop even. Focusing on all the wrong things and actually focus on what matters, which is PFC, which is protein, fat carb every three hours. But for the most part, it's just about balance. It's about balancing our blood sugar and understanding how to do that.

[00:16:14] Carrie Lupoli: And kids can even do it too very simply. But let's take a look at a study that was done at the University of California and San Francisco around obese teenagers. They literally had the same amount of calories. Now, all nutritional studies are a lot of BS in a lot of ways 'cause you can only do so much to keep the variability low.

[00:16:31] Carrie Lupoli: But let's just talk about this. Two groups of teenagers, they were both obese. They were both given the exact same amount of calories. One had food that our body could absorb and that was more balanced when it came to blood sugar. The other was just allowed to eat whatever. They felt like eating with only focusing on caloric intake and not the quality of food, nor the balance that we know is required to be [00:17:00] able to keep our blood sugar stabilized.

[00:17:02] Carrie Lupoli: And isn't it incredible that even though they had the same exact amount of calories. They went on to see incredible results. In nine days, their health improved, their blood pressure improved their triglycerides to HDL ratio, which is a key marker of heart disease that improved. They started reversing the progression of their fatty liver and their type two diabetes, and it happened in just nine days, and then, you know the whole wait.

[00:17:34] Carrie Lupoli: Piece of this is where I am always around the fact that weight gain is a symptom of our health. When we can actually do the things that help us get healthy, the weight loss comes in a way that is appropriate, that is optimal. And so don't you know that these kids started losing weight? It is so important to, it's been debunked so many times, but the food industry needs us to be able to have [00:18:00] calories as a measure because processed food has labels, and when you look at your labels, you look at calories, and that's what keeps them in business.

[00:18:08] Carrie Lupoli: When I look at two, there was a study done in 2017, so I'm telling you this is like new research. We, we've known this for years and years and years and years. Why people don't actually teach what's right. It's so crazy 'cause I think that people don't really understand what else they can be doing. And I mean, I don't know.

[00:18:30] Carrie Lupoli: It's so simple. It's sustainable. But why do more people not teach it? I don't know. I don't know. Why do I have like the only certification that teaches it? I don't know. I don't know. But a study in nutrition and diabetes actually showed that people, uh, who focused on flattening their glucose curves, which mean focused on blood sugar, actually ate more calories than the, the people who just focused on caloric intake.

[00:18:53] Carrie Lupoli: They could eat more. They reversed. A lot of their metabolic disease and lost weight. [00:19:00] And those are two studies that just remind you that calories and versus calories out do not work. Now let's also talk about the fact that I, when my kids were five and six years old, they started talking about calories and food.

[00:19:12] Carrie Lupoli: Did I teach them about calories and food? No, because, and it's so interesting that I feel like I have to defend that and I, and I have for like the last 14 years that I've told this story. Because my daughters are 19 and 20 now, and when they were five and six, we had family Friday, pizza night, and I didn't eat the pizza because I, I didn't eat the pizza.

[00:19:32] Carrie Lupoli: I get salad, but dressing on the side because I was always on a diet. I was, I was counting my calories. I swear to you, I was an educator. I was very careful with what I said to my kids. I never talked about calories. At least not that I knew of. And my 5-year-old said to my 6-year-old, why does mommy never eat the pizza with us?

[00:19:48] Carrie Lupoli: And my 6-year-old daughter said to her sister, because it has too many calories. And I looked at that. I was like, oh my gosh. Like I felt like she said like a swear word. And I, I [00:20:00] reflected on this story a ton, and everybody that I tell that story to everybody, doctors, fellow nutritionists, those who teach calorie counting, which is like everybody other than who I certify, those who count calories are all appalled by that story.

[00:20:14] Carrie Lupoli: And it just recently I started thinking about like, wait a minute. Why are we so appalled that kids were talking about calories? If calories are what we are supposed to be doing. Then at what age is it appropriate for people to talk about calories? And with our childhood obesity epidemic and the amount of kids that are pre-diabetic, if calorie counting is the thing that we are teaching to women, men, to everybody, it's what all the nutrition certification programs tell.

[00:20:45] Carrie Lupoli: Then why wouldn't we teach calorie counting to kids when they were little? Shouldn't we do that? I mean, if we have to turn around this childhood obesity thing, let's start getting kids. Apps, letting them start tracking their calories. Doesn't that [00:21:00] seem reasonable? No, of course not. We wouldn't want kids to count calories, so why are we teaching it to our women?

[00:21:09] Carrie Lupoli: How is it that my kids at six years old started talking about calories because it was what I did. It was who I was. It was part of my identity. It was my truth. And somehow, even though I thought I was keeping it a secret from them, I clearly was it. So let's think about this and, and the thing that I always say when it comes to any nutritional approaches that you have to be able to answer three questions before you do it.

[00:21:31] Carrie Lupoli: One, is it based in science designed for your body to thrive? Name one thing that thrives in a deficit. Name one. We have done such a disservice in the health and wellness field to keep talking about deficit because deficit means less than, right? Be taking in less than you burn. Uh, I mean, financially, we don't wanna be at a deficit.

[00:21:51] Carrie Lupoli: Nothing. Nothing thrives in a deficit. So just that word is what creates guilt and obsession and disordered eating [00:22:00] from women. Because if there, it's not quote unquote working anymore, it must be our fault. And I just have to keep eating less and less and less because deficit, deficit, deficit, deficit, that's the word we always hear, but what thrives in a deficit?

[00:22:12] Carrie Lupoli: Nothing. So one, is it based in science designed for our body to thrive? Two. Can you do what you're doing for the rest of your life? So many women, right? When they're like motivated and like ready to make a change, you're like, I, I'll enter all my food in an app, I'll count all my calories. But then you go on vacation, you're like, screw, I do not wanna do that anymore.

[00:22:29] Carrie Lupoli: Then life happens. You're like, ah, the last thing I wanna do is enter my food into an app. Like you wanna just like go out and have fun with your friends, but you're like, how many calories am I taking in? How many, that is not sustainable. Living. That is not a lifestyle, that is a trap. That is prison. That is complete and total emotional scarring.

[00:22:47] Carrie Lupoli: No, you cannot count calories for the rest of your life. Three. Would you let your kids do what you're doing? Let's be honest, our, our bodies are all physiologically the same. They rely on blood sugar stabilization. They [00:23:00] rely on sleep and hydration, and managing our stress and movement, like just because we're older doesn't change any of that.

[00:23:08] Carrie Lupoli: We think we can get away with more of it because we're younger, but then it starts to catch up with us when we're older. And why is it that we teach at like literally at like 18? Do we start teaching calorie counting? Is that the age of adulthood? At 21 when they can start drinking, that's when we should start counting calories.

[00:23:26] Carrie Lupoli: But like eight years old is too young, nine years old is too young. Like what's the age range? When calorie counting is appropriate to teach to our, our, the children that we birth. I, I don't know the answer to that. I know six culturally has told me over the last 14 years that was way too young. But at what point I was, no.

[00:23:44] Carrie Lupoli: And that's the point. If we wouldn't teach art to our kids, we shouldn't be doing it either. And blood sugar stabilization is something kids can learn. My 6-year-old nephew eats in the way that I teach, and my 76-year-old father eats in the way that we teach. But the psychological trap of calorie counting is a [00:24:00] major contributor to disordered eating.

[00:24:02] Carrie Lupoli: It ties to our worth being in numbers instead of our wellbeing. It keeps us from actually being able to listen to our body. It leads to restriction, to binging, to self-sabotage. So not only is it not appropriate for our kids, but there's this psychological trap that continues to just evoke such disordered eating.

[00:24:24] Carrie Lupoli: And now we're raising our kids with disordered eating and thinking about food. No wonder my kids started talking about calories. So when we actually think about what actually works, we need to be fueling our, our body is a refuel as you go machine. That is 100% true. And I will say one thing about precision nutrition, even though I threw 'em under the bus before, one of the things that they teach, although when you actually work with a nutritionist, from there, they don't, is recognizing that when you feel ready to eat, satisfied, ready to eat.

[00:24:57] Carrie Lupoli: Satisfied. Now, intuitive eating [00:25:00] talks about that as well, but they don't take into consideration blood sugar stabilization, which is the science of your body. And when you don't take into consideration like that and you just think, I want to eat it intuitively, you think I just want a Big Mac, I just feel like a Big Mac.

[00:25:12] Carrie Lupoli: So intuitively I'm just gonna eat a Big Mac. Like that doesn't work that way. You have to get on the same page as your body. Uh uh, one of my coaches. And my private practice talks about how blood sugar stabilization is being able to speak your body's love language. And I think for so long, our body is saying one thing to us, like cravings, lack of energy, weight gain, uh, metabolic disease like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, uh, even pre-diabetes, diabetes, uh, fatty liver disease, obesity, all of it.

[00:25:45] Carrie Lupoli: All of it is our body talking to us. We have no idea how to respond, so we just keep going. I gotta go on a diet. I gotta go on a diet, I gotta lose weight, I gotta, I gotta lose weight. I gotta lose weight. Instead of actually saying, okay, if the root cause of all of that, we know [00:26:00] scientifically research-based that the root cause of every single metabolic disease, as well as all of those symptoms can be attributed to a dysregulated blood sugar because a dysregulated blood sugar causes cellular dysfunction and our body is just.

[00:26:11] Carrie Lupoli: Simply made up of cells, and when those cells are not functioning correctly because of blood sugar dysregulation, then our body completely starts to. Have to respond and survive instead of thrive. And so when we actually can get to the root of what's going on, which is blood sugar regulation, we know that fueling the body every three hours with PFC three, protein, fat, and carb, those three were meant to be eaten together.

[00:26:40] Carrie Lupoli: See carbs spike our blood sugar, and when we spike our blood sugar, we end up storing fat. We also end up this, this extra glucose in our body that our body needs. Our body needs glucose for energy, but it can't store that much. So when we overeat, yes, when we eat too many calories, but also when we overeat like carbs and things like that.

[00:26:58] Carrie Lupoli: This is why carbs have always gotten a bad [00:27:00] name. It doesn't know what to do with it. When it already puts the amount of glucose it needs into its storage facilities, the liver and your muscles. Once it goes beyond that, it's like, where do I go? It's like living in a small house and buying too many clothes and not have enough place to put your clothes.

[00:27:13] Carrie Lupoli: You end up having to get like roller racks and put 'em in your living room. That's what happens when your body has too much glucose in its system. It actually has to take, get fat cells, which is like your roller, roller, uh, carts to put your clothes on and it like creates fat cells, which end up. Literally trying to protect you, which is so beautiful about our body, but also it's kind of like, okay, that's not cool, and then it will continue to have to deal with this excess and it starts causing, uh, free radicals in your body.

[00:27:45] Carrie Lupoli: Then when you think about free radicals like. When you have this extra glucose, it's like these little lightning bolts that zap all of your cells were made of cells. This is why cellular dysfunction ends up occurring, and when our body starts zapping these cells, we get oxidative stress in our body.

[00:27:59] Carrie Lupoli: Oxidative stress is what ends up causing all of this metabolic disease, but our body starts to talk to us with cravings and fatigue and. Yet the minute we can start fueling our body correctly, thinking about whole clean, unprocessed food as much as possible, pairing a protein, fat, and carb, because yes, a carb will spike our blood sugar, which is what we don't want.

[00:28:18] Carrie Lupoli: But then when that happens, our body has to release insulin to try to mitigate that spike. But if our body has to keep releasing insulin, we become insulin resistant and our body doesn't effectively work like that as much anymore, which is why when we get older, we see more and more struggle. But if we can eat a protein.

[00:28:36] Carrie Lupoli: First, and actually by eating a protein, it actually like says to insulin into the carb, it's like, Hey guys, I'm here. I can take care of the spike. You don't have to like insulin. You can go stay back until we really need you. And so by having a protein, it allows us to mitigate that pro that, that that spike from the carbs.

[00:28:57] Carrie Lupoli: But we need the carbs for energy and fat at the [00:29:00] same time, actually helps us to digest a protein in the carbs more slowly. It fuels our brain and it allows us to actually like cushion our organs and give us what we need. We need fat in order to not store fat. So all of them were actually work to meant to be working together.

[00:29:15] Carrie Lupoli: So you could see how 250 calories of say Turkey almonds and an apple protein, fat and carb are gonna be very different than 250 calories of say, oatmeal. Oatmeal's just a carb and it's going to completely spike your blood sugar, requiring your body to have to adjust on its own. It's systems, not willpower that we can use to be able to actually make this work because when we just focus on calories, we have to restrict, we have to have willpower, and it doesn't quote unquote work because we still feel crappy and we're obsessed and we can't talk to our kids about it.

[00:29:52] Carrie Lupoli: So we have to shift away from it. And again, if we are eating every three hours and we have a protein, fat and carb that's keeping our [00:30:00] blood sugar stabilized, and I've done this for years and years and my clients all work, continue use glucose monitors. I could prove this to you every single day that this absolutely keeps your blood sugar stabilized while giving you the nutrients you need to absorb, as well as the energy and all of the other aspects of what those macronutrients do for us.

[00:30:17] Carrie Lupoli: And you don't have to count anything. Once you really kind of understand your portions, where you eat within an hour of waking up, and then you're ready to eat, satisfied, ready to eat, satisfied, it's about every three to four hours, your body's gonna start to get hungry. It's gonna start to talk to you.

[00:30:32] Carrie Lupoli: You're going to start to understand it and speak. Your body's love language. You are not broken. You are not a checkbook. That's debits and credits when it comes to calories. We have been sold the wrong equation for way too long, and so I encourage you all to think about what we've been taught, why we've been taught it, and if it actually just go one layer deep, does it make [00:31:00] any sense?

[00:31:01] Carrie Lupoli: And if it's what we're supposed to be doing, why can't we teach our kids that? Why would it be seen as like almost child abuse if you made your kids count calories? There's something wrong with that. And I'm not just theorizing, I'm not like conspiracy theorists here. I am actually telling you. But the thousands and thousands of people I have worked with over the last 10 years with the number of health pros, nutritionists, personal trainers, doctors I have worked with and literally reversed.

[00:31:30] Carrie Lupoli: All of the issues that they've had. I can promise you they don't know how. They don't know any other thing about their calories. The other thing that's super interesting that we have to dig into is when I get pushback, I actually just wrote about this in my book, from corset to crown. And it's really all about disrupting everything you've been told about weight loss, self-worth, confidence, all of those things.

[00:31:51] Carrie Lupoli: And I, I got a question when I was writing the book, like when I say nothing, frogs in a deficit and they actually look at how much they're eating through a day. If they're eating PFC three, they're like, [00:32:00] listen, I feel like I'm in a range of like somewhere between 1300, 1800 calories a day. Isn't that putting my body at a deficit?

[00:32:06] Carrie Lupoli: And I'm like, we need to actually just stop. Talking about calories, that's what we need to do because when we're giving our body what it needs, when we're listening to it, when we're ready to eat, satisfied, we eat the right amount of food. We've just been culturally conditioned to believe that there is a magic number.

[00:32:21] Carrie Lupoli: But when we are actually listening to our body, when we're responding based on how our body is feeling, what it's telling us, we're gonna get the right amount of food. And that's the key here. It's not about a deficit, it's about the right amount. I want deficit to be removed from our thinking completely and for us to really focus on what do we need, what a difference it will make.

[00:32:41] Carrie Lupoli: Now, I will always say to you like. You can, you'll still say, I know what to do. I don't, I, I, I just don't do it. We can understand. PFC three. When I first started working with my first 252 clients, they all fell off. I taught them PFC three. It worked incredibly well for them, but because we didn't actually get into our belief systems about what we want and why we want [00:33:00] it, because we weren't actually focused on our behavior science and understanding why we do what we do, our personality and our triggers, sticking with something that was novel.

[00:33:08] Carrie Lupoli: For a long time is almost impossible. So the pieces around behavioral science and belief systems have to be a part of the equation, but I just need people to understand that calories in versus calories out is not what we need to be doing. Focusing on blood sugar stabilization is the BS that the diet industry does not want us to know.

[00:33:26] Carrie Lupoli: Because honestly, if you actually figured out something that worked forever, you don't need them anymore. It's the way that nutrition certification programs are trained. When you talk, talk about what their offer is, it's a monthly fee. They want to keep you going on. And the stats, like I've bet in every single mastermind there is around nutrition coaching and it's like, what's your churn rate?

[00:33:46] Carrie Lupoli: How long do you keep people? And the whole goal is, how can I keep people longer? And my whole goal is. Uh, yes, I want my clients to be working with me for a lifetime, but I don't believe in membership fees because this is a journey of [00:34:00] self-discovery that should never end. This is a place where we should all be able to get support without having to keep paying and paying and paying, and to be a family and to be able to support each other.

[00:34:10] Carrie Lupoli: And I have made my living being able to do that. I know the model works and I know the model's effective, but we're not being taught that because of our thinking around business. Are thinking around, um, keeping people paying and are thinking around keeping people needy, needing you to be able to continue to exasperate this weight loss, uh, industry because calories aren't gonna work forever.

[00:34:37] Carrie Lupoli: Right? And then when that doesn't work, what are you gonna do? Well, you're thinking you've done everything you can, you've done everything that they've told you to do. So what's the next step? Weight loss drugs. Oh yeah. And then you gotta be on those forever. Do you see? We've got to rewrite the narrative and rewrite our thinking.

[00:34:53] Carrie Lupoli: So I am like super, um, obsessed and passionate about this because what [00:35:00] really, quote unquote works has to be about you, understanding you, your body, being able to fly your own plane, be in the pilot, or be the pilot in the cockpit, and not constantly be in the passenger seat waiting for someone to tell you where you're gonna land next.

[00:35:17] Carrie Lupoli: You're not broken. You've just been sold the wrong equation. So if you are ready to actually, like you wanna read my book, it's not out yet, but you can go to carrielupoli.com and get on the list. I will tell you, and I'm gonna be doing some early releases of certain things, you can go there and grab that.

[00:35:33] Carrie Lupoli: Um, and continue to subscribe and listen to this podcast because every single week I come in to truly disrupt everything you've been told about weight loss, about confidence, about your self-worth. So subscribe here. Invite a friend to subscribe too, because this is a movement. This is not about anything else other than you being able to learn how to become the healthiest version of yourself so you can actually [00:36:00] go do the things that you were put on this earth to do.

[00:36:02] Carrie Lupoli: And it wasn't to find the right diet. It was actually uniquely, individually curated just for you. And in order for you to fulfill that purpose, you really truly do have to be the healthiest version of yourself and your mind, and your body, and your lifestyle, and all of it. Till next time.