Weightloss is about hormones & bacteria, Science-backed foods for weightloss | WIEIAD

Summary

Alexandra Abia shares insights from her personal weight loss journey, shedding 125 lbs without counting calories. She emphasizes the role of hormones and gut health over mere caloric deficit. Her approach involves consuming whole foods, boycotting ultra-processed foods, and integrating probiotics like fermented foods for digestive health. Abia stresses understanding food science for sustainable weight loss, focusing on natural foods, and exploring diverse culinary cultures. This philosophy encourages a balanced diet, reducing cravings, and improving overall well-being.

Highlights

• Alexandra Abia lost 125 lbs without counting calories by focusing on hormones and gut health! 😮
• Avoiding ultra-processed foods stabilized her metabolism and reduced cravings. 🛑
• She emphasizes whole and fermented foods for their gut health benefits. 🥦
• Abia’s new diet made her cravings disappear and improved her overall health! 💪
• Exploring various global cuisines helped her find nourishing foods she loved. 🌎

Key Takeaways

• Weight loss is more about hormones and gut health than just calories. 😲
• Ultra-processed foods can disrupt metabolism and hormones, making weight loss difficult. 🚫
• Whole foods, natural probiotics, and fiber are pillars for a healthy diet. 🌿
• Fermented foods promote gut health and contribute to weight loss. 🍶
• Exploring diverse foods and cultures can be fun and beneficial to health. 🌍

Overview

Alexandra Abia's YouTube video dives into her personal experience with weight loss, where she highlights a journey beyond calorie counting. Her transformation, shedding 125 lbs, was more about balancing hormones and fostering gut health than enforcing a strict caloric deficit. Abia argues that ultra-processed foods disrupt your body's ability to lose weight naturally and sustainably.

In her revamped dietary journey, Abia focuses heavily on whole foods, which include an array of fermented products. These were crucial in enhancing her gut health, leading to both weight loss and a newfound energy level. Through this method, she explains how understanding food science, especially about prebiotics and probiotics, plays a critical role in one's overall well-being.

Her story also serves as encouragement to explore and indulge in diverse cultural foods, which broadens culinary experiences while contributing to health benefits. Abia's approach is not just about losing weight, but about finding a sustainable lifestyle that nurtures overall health without the obsession over calorie counts.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:00: Introduction & Calorie Misconceptions The chapter discusses the concept of calorie misconceptions, emphasizing the importance of what you eat rather than the quantity. The speaker shares a personal experience about significant waist reduction and counters the notion that not losing weight always indicates not being in a calorie deficit. They highlight that feeling full can be influenced by the speed at which food passes through the gut, which triggers the release of gp1 that signals fullness.
• 02:00 - 05:00: Personal Weight Loss Journey The chapter presents Alexandre's personal journey of losing 125 pounds by focusing on what he eats daily. He emphasizes that he achieved this weight loss without counting calories, challenging the common belief in maintaining a calorific deficit. Alexandre shares insights from an obesity conference and his personal research, critiquing the idea that any diet can lead to weight loss as long as it stays within a caloric deficit, especially when it includes ultra-processed foods.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Importance of Food Quality over Caloric Deficit This chapter discusses the misconception that maintaining a caloric deficit is solely about reducing calorie intake. It emphasizes the negative effects of consuming ultra-processed foods even when in a caloric deficit. The chapter explains that such foods can disrupt hormonal balance, leading to metabolic slowdown or intense cravings, ultimately making it difficult to sustain a caloric deficit. This highlights the importance of focusing on food quality rather than just calorie quantity for effective weight management.
• 08:00 - 10:30: Role of Probiotics and Prebiotics The chapter discusses the body's ability to adjust metabolism in response to caloric deficits, particularly when the diet consists predominantly of ultra-processed foods. Despite maintaining a caloric deficit initially, the body may lower its metabolism, turning the deficit into a surplus. The speaker emphasizes the importance of prioritizing whole, natural foods in their diet to counteract this metabolic adjustment.
• 10:30 - 13:30: Benefits of Fiber The chapter discusses the author's personal experience with weight loss and the importance of food quality over merely counting calories. They describe a shift from consuming processed foods to whole foods, emphasizing the benefit of focusing on nutritional quality rather than simply cutting calories. Through eliminating ultra-processed foods and focusing on whole foods, the author experienced significant changes in their weight loss journey. They highlight how this approach helped manage cravings and hunger more effectively than previous methods of calorie restriction.
• 13:30 - 15:00: Understanding Carbohydrates The chapter discusses the impact of ultraprocessed foods on hormones. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about drastically reducing food intake, mentioning a period where dinner consisted of minimal quantities, such as a single chicken wing with some sweet corn. The chapter emphasizes the sometimes unnoticed consequences of consuming ultraprocessed foods.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Insights on Protein The chapter begins with a discussion on the author's struggle with weight loss despite consuming a minimal amount of food. They highlight how their metabolism had slowed down significantly due to the consumption of ultra-processed foods. The author mentions their determination not to eat more despite feeling constant hunger, detailing the frustration of not losing weight despite a low-calorie intake. They introduce the context of starting a new journey towards weight management after experiencing weight gain, setting the stage for exploring insights on protein.
• 18:00 - 20:00: Exploring Natural Foods from Different Cultures The chapter explores the challenges faced by individuals in understanding weight loss and nutrition, particularly when standard advice about calorie deficit and eating habits doesn't seem to apply. It delves into the frustration of not losing weight despite significantly reducing food intake and confronts misconceptions held by others who criticize or doubt those struggling with these issues. There is a focus on examining different cultural perspectives on natural foods and how these can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of nutrition.
• 20:00 - 21:00: Conclusion The conclusion emphasizes the vital role hormones play in managing weight, highlighting that it's not about the quantity of food consumed, but the quality. The speaker shares a personal revelation about how understanding the impact of nutrition on hormones was transformative, leading to a shift in focus from food quantity to quality, which improved their well-being.

Weightloss is about hormones & bacteria, Science-backed foods for weightloss | WIEIAD Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 when I tell you guys my waist has basically disappeared like and then you'll have people tell you that oh you just must not be in a calorie deficit so before when I was like hungry all the time I basically didn't trust myself when food is passing through your gut slowly that's when gp1 is released it makes you feel more fulled when I say that my gut is whistling it had nothing to do with how much I was eating and had everything to do with what I was eating
• 00:30 - 01:00 guys welcome back to my channel Alexandre here in today's video I am very excited to share with you guys what I eat in a day that has helped me lose 125 lb without counting calories because you guys already know how I feel about that because of what I know now about Ultra processed foods because of the Obesity conference I attended and my subsequent research um I don't believe in eating in a calorific deficit because the premise of eating an a calorific deficit means you can eat whatever you want and you should still lose weight
• 01:00 - 01:30 because obviously you in a caloric deficit but fundamentally that is false because Ultra processed foods when you eat Ultra processed foods in a calorific deficit because of the disruption to your hormones you can't actually sustain the calorific deficit because your body will either lower your metabolism or your body will make you have a lot of Cravings so that you just keep eating so you're either eating too much because of the ultr processed food so you can't maintain the caloric deficit or if
• 01:30 - 02:00 you're like me and you've got very strong willpower and you do maintain the calorific deficit your body will drop your metabolism so that what was once a calorific deficit becomes a calorific surplus so for example you're eating 1,600 calories and they're mostly coming from Ultra processed foods your body will drop your metabolism so that the 1600 is now a surplus because your body's now only burning, 1400 all of that being said I have a diet where I prioritize heavily Whole Foods natural
• 02:00 - 02:30 foods and I have essentially eliminated Ultra processed foods I experienced this myself because I have had multiple weight loss Journeys where I've lost the large amount of weight through calorie restriction without paying attention to what those calories contained in terms of the quality of the food because I understood I just have to cut my food down so although I was having cravings and extreme hunger I just thought this is my calories I have to eat that's it my body doesn't really work properly so
• 02:30 - 03:00 this is the best I can do but I wasn't realizing that Ultra processed foods impact your hormones I have a video on my channel where literally I'm complaining about the fact that it got to the point that I was eating so little I was having basically like a chicken wing for dinner with a bit of sweet corn or something I'll actually cut to it now maybe a chicken wing guys not even like a thigh and a leg or anything like a wing a wing of a chicken
• 03:00 - 03:30 so that just goes to show that I could argue that I was hardly eating anything but still my weight wouldn't shift my weight wouldn't shift because my metabolism was so low at that point because of the ultra processed foods but I was able to sustain such a low calorie intake because of the my willpower I was just like I am not eating more this is all I'm eating but the entire time I was starving so they got to the point where although I was eating so little I still wasn't losing any weight so when I started this Journey again when I gained
• 03:30 - 04:00 weight I knew that I wasn't going to go through that again I said absolutely not I need to figure out what is going on because how can I be to the point of starvation where I'm hardly eating anything and I'm still not losing weight and then you'll have people tell you that oh you just must not be in a calorie deficit oh you must be secretly binging and all of this excuses and reasons that they're giving because they really don't actually understand how your body works and people who speak like this are entirely missing the
• 04:00 - 04:30 significance of our hormones and that actually it's our hormones that govern our weight so when I took a deep dive into all of this and I understood about the nutrition and the quality of your food will then impact how they behave so once I realized all of this guys I was just like thank you Lord it took so long for me to realize that it had nothing to do with how much I was eating and had everything to do with what I was eating and once I figured out what I had to eat it was was a breath of fresh air into my
• 04:30 - 05:00 weight loss Journey so I'm very excited to share with you guys what I'm eating now and how it's helped me lose all of this weight on my previous weight loss Journeys it was all about how little I should eat in order to lose weight with what I Now understand I've had a complete 180 and it's all about satisfying myself whenever I eat and making sure that I don't feel hungry so now when I look at my plate of food my aim is to compose it of fiber protein carbohydrate probiotics and prebiotics that come from Whole Food and natural
• 05:00 - 05:30 sources and my aim is to make my plate look very colorful very diverse and then as little Ultra processed foods as possible so starting with fermented food fermented food is food that contains live microorganisms so basically um the good bacteria fermented food is also a probiotic examples of fermented food that I eat include kimchi sourdough bread um kombucha and mature cheddar cheese so these foods have many benefits and ENT
• 05:30 - 06:00 they basically promote incredible gut health they also break down other foods that you eat so that you can basically access as much nutrients from that food as possible my personal favorite thing about fermented food and kimchi in particular is when I tell you guys my waist has basically disappeared like it's insane your my my gut is basically singing like shout out to kimchi because it's changed my life like what waste literally and of course I can't talk about probiotics without mentioning prebiotics so pre prebiotics are the
• 06:00 - 06:30 food for the microorganisms they basically feed the bacteria and this includes many types of foods and the foods that I eat in particular which are prebiotics include different fruits strawberries raspberries blueberries seeds that I love to have nuts cashew nuts in particular for me a s bread again because s bread can be both a probiotic and a Prebiotic depending on how it's prepared and olives I love some olives so not only do prebiotics feed your gut microbiome they're also a good source of energy vitamins polyphenols I
• 06:30 - 07:00 can't tell polyphenols AKA antioxidants promote good immunity and guys I cannot tell I don't actually remember the last time I was ill I genuinely don't remember the last time I was ill and when I have been ill since I've been on this journey of Shifting my diet into Whole Foods I I recover much quicker when I'm Ill like I'll be sick for like a day day and a half and I'm like already on the road to recovery so I'm definitely already noticing the benefits of all of this like good nutrient dens diet that I now have then we have fiber
• 07:00 - 07:30 example of fiber that I have in my diet includes chia seeds Lin seeds sunflower seeds seeds in general granola and the oats in particular in Granola different vegetables I personally have a lot of broccoli a lot of carrots a lot of corn and fruits of course pineapples vegetables all of these are different sources of fiber and fiber in a weight loss journey in particular is very important because it slows down gastric emptying slowing down gastric emptying is is very important because when food
• 07:30 - 08:00 is passing through your gut slowly that's when gp1 is released when gp1 is released it makes you feel more full that that is the role of gp1 a lot of us know gp1 these days because it's the synthetic version is the weight loss drug that's very popular semaglutide um we GOI mangaro OIC all of those are synthetic forms of glp1 when you have a diet rich in fiber and you will naturally produce it which um Ultra processed foods because of like their
• 08:00 - 08:30 synthetic nature they inhibit glp1 being produced properly because the food passes through your gut so quickly so fiber is very important because it makes you feel satiated because of the grp1 release fiber also feeds our gut microbiome so obviously good gut health so you can understand why I I'm hardly getting ill because my gut is in such good shape so my immunity is in good shape which just promotes my general good health fiber also acts as a brush in your gut so it keeps the lining of your gut very clean essentially and the
• 08:30 - 09:00 combination of all those things that that fiber gives to our health means that you know TMI but guys I am very regular like when I say that my gut is whistling like it's empty in there guys like I am my constipation wear like it doesn't exist in my life also another thing I noticed about eating fibrous food especially like with vegetables I know I'm pretty sure the glucose got has mentioned this but I've seen it like
• 09:00 - 09:30 online quite a bit that the order in which you eat your food will control the insulin spiking in your diet and it's important to keep insulin low because it stops you having insane cravings and then on top of that it promotes weight loss when you keep your insulin low I talked more about the science of that in my previous video so check that out another thing I realized that was just quite a revelation is there's a food that I love to eat it's called shito it's a condiment from Ghana it's like a peppery spicy condiment and guys when I have shito yet shito can be
• 09:30 - 10:00 quite your gut doesn't love shito cuz it's quite peppery so I used to get like kind of bad cramps no not very responsible but the way I was loving sh I would just eat it anyway then I because sometimes the cramps were so bad I was just like AB you know fix your life so what's so funny is when I tried this food layering thing to um help with you know glucose control insulin control I ate all this vegetables in as the first part of my meal and then I had some of the [ __ ] off and guys I want to
• 10:00 - 10:30 say 2 3 days in a row pain was gone so it's so cool because obviously what must have been happening is the vegetables the this layer that they create in your stomach lining before you then eat anything else was also acting as like a protective layer from the peppery food so I'm able to eat this like spicy food and almost like with no repercussions because of the lining like the protective barrier that the vegetables had made so yeah when you learn these things about food I don't I get so excited but when you learn these things
• 10:30 - 11:00 about food it really feels like it's so reductive to only see food as calories in calories out because it's just like look at the magic of natural food and it's I don't know it to me it's very exciting I mean I love it I love it here like and then we have protein examples of protein that I have in my diet include salmon sardines chicken bacon sausages Maeda obviously the nuts and the seeds I have are also high in protein like fibrous food protein also slows down gastric emptying so you're
• 11:00 - 11:30 not going to have the crazy sugar spikes and you're also going to feel more full also protein takes more energy for your body to digest you can describe it as a thermogenic food because it's going to use more energy to be burnt just to break it down which obviously going to help you with your weight loss and in general it's very good for your health anyway because the base of all the cells in our body including our immune cells our skin cells our hair cells every cell in your body is the base of it is protein so you can imagine how much your body needs protein for all the repair it
• 11:30 - 12:00 needs to make around your body and then we have carbohydrates when I do have simple carbohydrates like white rice I definitely reduce the amount of it that I have then I fill up my plate with other types of food I'm trying to shift more into complex carbohydrates recently I've started eating brown rice and other types of complex carbohydrates that I have in my diet also include like you know the strawberries the blueberries the corn the carrots and the souro bread again complex carbohydrates I think people usually only think of like the wheat the potatoes and the rice but
• 12:00 - 12:30 fruits and vegetables are also examples of complex carbohydrates and I probably get more of my complex carbohydrates from there and the benefits of complex carbohydrates is they still have all their fiber they haven't been Stripped Away they have their nutrients in there still and because of this they also slow down gastric empty I then have my snacks when I feel like I want something a bit sweeter I'll have my strawberries I'll have my blueberries and then when I feel like something a bit more Savory I'll have popcorn some cashew nuts which personally I love cashew nuts roasted
• 12:30 - 13:00 unsalted cashew nuts it will change your life my meals satisfy me so much I don't really snack so much because you know my food cravings are basically gone and my food noise is gone and then in terms of drinks I will eat all my meals with peppermint tea or some kind of warm drink but like 90% of the times it's peppamint tea because warm drinks help with your digestion I literally almost feel this straight away sometimes tea am I guys but I will start burping I start
• 13:00 - 13:30 hear my stomach gurgling like the other thing I drink every single day is apple cider vinegar first thing in the morning when I wake up and that helps with making you feel satiated it also helps with glucose spikes um I have it once a day in the morning but I have read quite a bit that it's also very effective to have it just before your meal but for the last year I've just been having it um first thing in the morning but yeah apple cider vinegar is very much like a staple in my diet so with all of that being said the final thing is portion size now that my diet is Natural Foods
• 13:30 - 14:00 Whole Foods fermented food Etc my hormons have essentially repaired my Hunger cues so before when I was like hungry all the time I basically didn't trust myself as to whether I was genuinely hungry or not because I always had had enough to eat but because it was ultr processed foods I never felt satisfied but now with the way I eat now I can trust myself so sometimes I will have two plates of food because I just feel hungry so I'll eat it other times I
• 14:00 - 14:30 I can't even manine half a plate of food like my appetite is all the way suppressed and I've noticed that around my time of the month my Hunger seems to go along with my cycle where so like 10 days leading up to my time of the month I will be ravenous and then during it will I'll still be hungry but it go down a bit and then afterwards sometimes I'll lose my appetite entirely I can barely manage uh a plate of food type of thing so initially it was quite jarring because
• 14:30 - 15:00 it's was just like oh my God I I I just don't feel hungry at all right now and then other times we'll be like I am starving where is all the food but now I'm very comfortable in knowing that when my body is hungry my body is hungry it's okay to listen and when I don't feel hungry there is no pressure for me to make myself eat and I and I finally feel like I can trust my body and I can trust myself because because my weight loss has been so steady for the last 9 10 months now and I have been able to eat when I'm hung hungry I'll be able to not eat when I'm not feeling hungry it's
• 15:00 - 15:30 made me trust my Hunger cues again and it's it's quite liberating having a new relationship with food in that way so I would say that my diet is now kind of 80% Whole Foods natural foods and 20% Ultra processed foods sometimes even less than that because of course I still see my friends I still go out and you know guys the food environment is basically like the Wild Wild West out there it it's like you have to duck and dive just to avoid Ultra processed foods because so much of it is so realistically I know that it it be very
• 15:30 - 16:00 difficult to entirely eliminate it so of course when I go out with my friends I allow myself to have it because it's either that or I don't eat at all and I'm not I'm not too hypocritical of myself because I mean it would be kind of pointless to be so essentially the diet that I have now means I don't have food cravings I don't have food noise um it's composed of foods that keep me satiated it feeds my gut microbiome it stops my insulin from going all over the place dep which controls my body weight
• 16:00 - 16:30 is being read by my brain so that my body weight is regulated my metabolism has increased so you know I'm burning more fat so the hormones that are the master Regulators of all of our weight mine has finally been able to be regulated because of the composition of my diet when I started this another thing that I did is I got very excited about food I was experimenting I was exploring and seeing what different cultures had for example fermented food you can get different types of fermented food GH there's Ki that's fermented
• 16:30 - 17:00 obviously we know about um kimchi from South Korea sauerkraut from China although it's you know a major food dish in um Germany now which is why we call it sourkraut and then you have and then you have sourdough bread from Egypt although I know that's very popular in like Mediterranean dishes now so basically different cultures mean different foods so you don't have to eat in fact I would strongly encourage you not to eat like me I would say oh I like this thing that I had let me try that but I also want to go and explore what
• 17:00 - 17:30 different cultures have and what I want to eat and what's going to work for my body because there's the most important thing that I think that we should all be doing is exploring what food works for us and that's the journey I took myself on and I think that we should all take ourselves on that Journey so that we can explore food we can enjoy food and we can do what works for us and I and I think everyone should explore that so that they can find foods that they enjoy and that their body responds to in any kind of Journey for their health so guys yeah that's it enjoy exploring whole and Natural Foods don't bother counting
• 17:30 - 18:00 calories and it will change your life bye