353: Erica Ballard: Dispelling Common Myths About Health

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How can you get healthy despite a busy schedule?

Erica Ballard

Erica Ballard is the founder of Erica Ballard Health – a wellness company that helps people get healthy despite their busy schedule. She started this company after watching really smart, hardworking people struggle to get healthy because she was one of those people …until she learned that health looked way different than what she thought, bought into, and even sold for decades.

Now an evangelist of health, Erica helps entrepreneurs and self-identified busy people look and feel better so they can finally look and feel as good as they want to. Erica has her MS from Tufts University School of Medicine and got her CHC through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Erica is regular on the NBC affiliate WTHR 13, where she provides weekly health advice to viewers every Sunday and she has been featured by Women’s Health, Lululemon, and YPO.

What We Discuss With Erica Ballard In This Episode

What does it mean to be healthy?
Is losing weight a calories game?
Food is medicine
How to incorporate health into your busy routine
Why people gain weight when they’re stress and others lose weight
Why stress causes belly fat
Meal frequency
Is caffeine good or bad?
The brain-gut connection

Transcript Highlights

Is Losing Weight Just A Calories Game?

Your body is not a math problem. And you can’t just move more and eat less because many of us do that and we don’t drop weight. Instead, you need to be eating an appropriate amount of calories in your system. Until you get to a place where you can burn fat appropriately, your calories don’t matter.

Understand How Your Body Operates

When we eat, what you’re putting in your body is literally telling your brain and your body what’s going on in the world. And if you’re eating things that are sugary and curvy and all this, you’re telling your body we need quick fuel because things are stressed out. That’s the stuff your body will crave during stressful periods.

Look to not only dropping weight but optimizing your health. Focus on real food – vegetables, protein, and quality fat. If you were to just eat those things 85% of the time and still eat cake 15% of the time, the result would be ridiculous because weight loss is 80% food and 20% movement. That explains why people say food is medicine, not movement is medicine.

Look At Your Stress

When you are stressed out, your body goes into survival mode. And when you’re in survival mode, you cannot burn fat. You cannot thrive. Your brain is not working. Your digestion is off. Literally, blood is moving away from the executive functioning in your brain. So you need to find ways to reduce stress.

What Kinds of Food to Eat

Vegetables

Anything grown above the ground is going to be incredible for everybody. Vegetables grown under the ground are also great but only in moderation.

Protein

If funds allow, look to sustainable meat and wild-caught fish, because you are what you eat. And if your cow is eating something that’s not optimal, then it doesn’t allow you to be optimal. But if you’re vegetarian, you can opt for tofu or tempeh.

High-Quality Fats

When using oil, look at coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, or grass-fed butter. And from a food perspective, go for dark chocolate 70% and above. Other sources are nuts and salmon.

Why Stress Causes Belly Fat

We have four times as many cortisol receptors in our stomach, anywhere else in our body, that’s why also are stressed tend to be belly fat. Because when you’re when you get really stressed out, your body literally gets primed to take energy and move it to your stomach.

The Brain-Gut Connection

Your brain and gut are connected. And because of that what you eat directly affects how you think. And if you’re not mindful of the food you put in your body, you never really will be at your best.

A lot of people say that they still manage to get so much done, even though they don’t eat that well. In that case, you’re only in second gear. Imagine what fifth gear looks like. Imagine it, and then turn it into reality by actually taking care of the vehicle that will get you there.

Episode Resources

The Four-Step Method Busy People Use To Drop Weight, Defuse Their Overwhelm, and Ditch The Cycle of Self-Sabotage

Connect With Erica Ballard

Website: https://www.ericaballardhealth.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaballardhealth
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaballard

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How can you get healthy despite a busy schedule?