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Put Your Thoughts to Sleep

April 27, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

When I ask “how long does it take you to fall asleep,” I often get “OMG! If I could just shut my brain off I’d be fine!” If you’re one of those people who solve the problems of the world as your trying to fall asleep, or at 3 am, then this is for you.

Dedicated worry time is a strategy that I’ve used since I started Naturopathic Medical School back in 2000. While it may seem counterintuitive to worry on purpose, it can actually be an incredibly useful tool. I liken it to training the dog. As the adult in the relationship, I get to decide what the rules are. Same goes for my brain. I get to decide what and when we’ll think about certain things.

Now, if you’ve had a dog without training you can appreciate that it doesn’t always feel like you get to decide. “They just don’t listen!!”. Your brain may feel the same way – like it’s in charge instead of you. Over time, both the dog and your brain can be trained to follow your schedule. At first it will take constant reminders and it will feel exhausting. But persistence and patience pays off.

Here’s how you train your to brain to worry at 7pm instead of 3 am:

Choose a worry time. Preferably this will be at least two hours before bed. We want to make sure that any stress response that gets triggered has time to settle down and cortisol has a half life of about an hour. Since cortisol interferes with melatonin production, we don’t want to cause a spike right before bed.
Set a timer for 10 minutes.
Worry. I mean it. Worry about everything that you can’t get out of your head when trying to fall/fall back to sleep. The kids, work, politics, that thing you said to that friend in grade 5…all of it – write it all down. Or if you just cannot journal, do it verbally – dictation or voice notes on your phone work great for this.
When the timer goes off, stop. Take a deep breath and then move your body – dance, walk, stretch – what ever suits you.
Every time your brain tries to address these worries out side of your worry time, you say – Nope, we do that after supper not at bedtime.

Over time it’s like the dog jumping on the bed. You kick them off. They come back. Rinse and repeat. As long as you don’t let them stay, they do eventually learn to stay off of the bed. Your brain will try to keep worrying outside of this time. But if you keep redirecting it, it will eventually get easier and less intrusive.

The next extension of this is to decide exactly what you’ll think about instead, but I’ll save that for another post.

Catherine Darley is an ND in Seattle with sleep focused practice. She’s the one that named this strategy “Putting Your Thoughts To Bed”. I love it. Such a cool visual. Tuck them into your notebook and then carry on with your evening.

Not sure how to tuck your thoughts in for the night? Let’s chat.

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What Working on Your Health Can Look Like Without a Diet to Lose Weight

April 8, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

Spring is here. That means that weight loss season is here again.

They know that dieting isn’t trendy anymore so they won’t be dieting or weight loss ads. No, they’ll be called health challenges or fitness challenges, maybe a Post Pandemic Reboot.

A diet by any other name is still a diet. What makes something a diet? Intentional weight loss. Restriction (even if that’s called moderation or sensible portions or just eating clean). It is intentional weight loss that has the dismal stats.

And I get it. You want to DO SOMETHING towards improving your health (that’s if health is something you value. It may not be and that doesn’t de-value your worth in any way). Lucky for you I have compiled a list of ways that you can work on your health without falling victim to yet another gain-lose-gain weight cycle.

10 ways to work in your health without intentional weight loss:

Sleep: improve glucose regulation and mood regulation
Mindfulness: improve mental health and reduce cortisol levels
Movement: reduce your cardiovascular risk
Debt counselling: reduce stress and improve relationships
Counseling: develop emotional intelligence
Self-compassion: increase motivation, self-worth and resilience
Join a group of like minded people: develop a sense of belonging
Social Media cleanse/Unfollow challenge: reduce your intake of not-enoughness
Values work: spiritual health
Laugh: improve sleep, improved stress response

Bottom line: If you’re feeling ‘meh’ there are so many things that you can be DOING to support your health that don’t involve restricting foods that you enjoy or trying to shrink your body.

Learn more about Living Life As A Rebel here. It’s how you can hold onto your anti-diet values AND work towards some specific health goals.

Join the Rebellion

Spring Detox Marketing: Don’t Get Duped!

March 30, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

A patient sent me the website to a cleanse that was recommended to her. The longer I was on the site the more frustrated I got.

Like most cleanses or detoxes, there’s a specially formulated concoction that you drink in lieu of eating food. This is the only thing to be consumed for a few days to a week (although some ‘allow’ you a ‘sensible’ meal once a day in addition to these pouches).

The claims are remarkable. Promises of weight loss (no shit, you’re starving yourself), promises of healthy (the quick changes in your labs are not permanent – they’re temporary just like the cleanse and accompanying weight loss).

What really got my goat this time was when they said “Kick start healthy eating habits, gain control over portion sizes and improve energy”.

Let’s review the cycle of restriction:

Starving your body will make you HYPERfocus on food. This is natural – it’s like if you weren’t able to breathe properly, it becomes difficult to focus on anything else. Or if you’re deprived of enough water your thirst will overcome you.
Under-eating sets you up for OVER-eating. Just like when you can finally breath again you will take DEEP breaths and breathe more heavily until your body believes that you have free access to air; when you eat again, you will be DRIVEN to eat HUGE amounts until your body feels safe that food is longer restricted.
That energy that they’re promising? It comes from your body having to produce cortisol to keep you going (cause you know, there’s no FOOD to do that). Our stress response will make us more alert because it’s getting us ready to escape danger. This is TEMPORARY access to the emergency fund. The trouble is, most of us are chronically OVER-stressed and need help reducing chronically high circulating cortisol. So yes, you may have some extra nervous energy but that’s not the same as being able to focus and be engaged positively in your life.

Look, I get the desire to shake off the winter blues and get back into something. In fact, I encourage it. But can we please find ways to re-engage with life and health promoting behaviours WITHOUT causing harm in the process?

The next Living Life As A Rebel group starts at the end of April. If you’re itching to ‘do’ something without getting caught in another diet cycle, then this may be just what you’re looking for. Register before April 12th to get Early Adopter bonuses!

Join the Rebellion

Health At Every Size™ approach to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

March 24, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

“Just lose weight”

“Just stop eating carbs”

These are the first words of advice that most newly diagnosed PCOS sufferers hear. And most of them will try it. And most of them won’t be able to sustain it for long. And most of them will blame themselves.

This reason alone may explain why those with a PCOS diagnosis are also more likely to have unrecognized disordered eating behaviours or worse, a full blown eating disorder, than those without a PCOS diagnosis.

Birth control is another common first line therapy for PCOS. I don’t have any objection to birth control, especially if you’re trying to prevent pregnancy. But what if you do want to become pregnant? Or the contraceptives give you life interfering side effects?

I don’t mean to bum you out here. In fact, I hope to have the opposite effect. It’s just that most women who come to me with PCOS feel so defeated because they’ve done the low-carb/no-carb diet cycle so many times that they just can’t face it again but they also just can’t tolerate their symptoms anymore.

Or it’s a mother coming in saying that they think their daughter has PCOS and they’re terrified that they’ll end up on the same cycle but they have no idea what to do.

That hope that I was mentioning? PCOS can be treated without giving up carbs or going on another diet.

Step 1: History and Testing

Firstly, we need to see all of what’s going on. PCOS is a condition that comes with all kinds of potential challenges. We need to know what’s happening for YOU. We need to screen you for other conditions that tend to show up alongside PCOS like Binge Eating, Anxiety, Depression, Insulin Resistance, Vitamin D insufficiency and Inflammation.

Only once we have YOUR PCOS picture can we customize the PCOS Process to YOU.

Step 2: Nutritional Therapy

You didn’t think that nutrition would be left out just because I said no dieting did you? There are many ways to experiment with different ways of eating to help address your PCOS. We only do this if it’s safe to do so. In my experience those fresh out of diet culture can turn any nutritional recommendations into a new diet. We’ll take a look at your current relationship with food first and then proceed with caution. Intuitive Eating support may be just the nutritional therapy that you need.

Step 3: Supplement Therapy

Supplements are used to adjust the biochemistry of your PCOS and lessen symptoms over the long term. Which supplements and in what does will depend on what we discovered in Step 1. Don’t worry – you won’t have to swallow buckets of pills each day. I’ve never practiced like that. Typically it takes a 3-6 months to see any significant changes on your labs so we’ll keep working on other therapies in the meantime.

Step 4: Movement Therapy

We know that exercise is good for us right? But most people who’ve been living in diet land for years only know exercise to be punishing – either earning their treat or burning it off. Not to mention, some of the biochemistry of PCOS makes exercise painful and exhausting. So, we’re going to talk about movement. In the same way that we’re working on healing your relationship with food, so too will we be healing your relationship with your body and movement.

Step 5: Stress Reduction Therapy

This step is one that we all like to skip over isn’t it? I can hear you “Kerri, we all have stress, I just deal with it”. Yes AND we need to assess your sleep (HUGE influence on hormones, appetite and cravings), rest (your body is sick and needs to be cared for), and mindset (having PCOS puts more stress on you than you’re even aware of). Don’t worry, I’m all about small changes made over the long-term. I promise that I won’t turn your life upside it’s head.

If you’re ready to try a anti-diet approach to PCOS, or if you think that you may have PCOS and don’t want to start down the diet cycle, then I invite you to book a Connection Call. We can chat, free of charge. If we discover that I’m not the right fit for you, that’s cool. I’m sure that I can point you in the direction that is a good fit for you.

Until next time,
Dr Kerri

I blew it …

March 14, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

I went for a walk on a beautiful sunny day and had the pleasure of seeing these deer. About two or three minutes later, I slipped on the ice and landed on my butt. I was not happy to say the least. I quickly got to my feet brushed myself off and carried on with my walk. From the outside it likely looked like no big deal. But what was going on inside my head was another story.

That slip could have ruined the walk – it could have ruined my day. Haven’t I said that eating a cookie ruined my day before? I mean, how many times have I eaten one cookie and then declared that it had ruined whatever day, week or month and particular plan I was following? How many times have I missed a work out and declared that I blew the training program?

The all or nothing mindset is some thing I have been actively challenging through my recovery from disordered eating and body image challenges. I heard an analogy once that went something like this: If someone stole $10 from you would you go to the bank and pull out $1430 and hand it over to them? Not likely. You see, there are 1440 minutes in every single day. When 10 minutes of day goes sideways and then we let it drag out into the rest of the day, it’s like we’re giving over the rest of our money. Or possibly seven times that much if we let that one moment ruin the week. How easily we give away our time because somebody said something unkind; because something went wrong; because I slipped on the ice; because I ate a cookie; because I skipped a work out…you get the point.

There’s a technique that I teach in my Living Life as a Rebel program called A.I.R. The A for a stands for Awareness, the I stands for Identification and the R stands for Reflection.

When I slipped on the ice I became Aware of how quickly I wanted to fall into the ‘the walk is ruined’ narrative. The awareness of that conversation in my head allowed me to reconnect with the sense of joy that I had just experienced standing there looking at those deer. I was able to reconnect
to the feeling of incredible gratitude that I had been experiencing enjoying a beautiful walk on a sunny snowy day and seeing deer right here in my neighbourhood.

If I let that go because of falling it would’ve been like handing over that additional thousand dollars because the fall took the 10 to begin with.

Now there’s a very good biological reason for this. We have something called negativity bias in our minds.

It’s a great survival strategy. It helps us remember the scary stuff to ensure that we don’t do those things again.

Knowing that that we have this natural tendency allows us to have another level of compassion and awareness for ourselves. The fall triggered my ‘reactive primitive’ brain. My awareness of that allowed my ‘thinking’ brain to take over and give a broader assessment of the situation and realize that walking the dog is not a dangerous act.

This was the Identification part of the A.I.R. I was able to identify what was triggered in me.

I’ve already described some of the Reflection part – the reframing of my thoughts to realize that the fall didn’t wipe out the gratitude. I also reflected on the idea of putting some spikes on my boots.

To extend this idea back into eating and body image work, we can become aware of the “I blew it” moments and transform them into a more compassionate reflection.
We can remember that it was just a cookie; that eating the cookie doesn’t mean anything other than we ate the cookie.
We can use self-compassion to decide that we’re not going to give away the other 1430 minutes to the cookie.
We can just let cookies be cookies.

Is “Fat But Fit” really possible?

January 25, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

I sat and read the New York Post article, Being Fat but Fit isn’t Really Possible, over the weekend and am compelled to share my thoughts about it today. I’m so disappointed by this headline and by the conclusion of the study itself.

It’s important to note that the study DID find that increased physical activity decreased the risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes across all BMI categories. It would be easy to forget this important finding with the provocative headline used by the New York Post. To reiterate: fitness, in terms of activity, DOES in fact provide cardiovascular and health protection at ANY weight. Moving on.

The article concluded that this protection isn’t as great as it would be if those active participants were in a smaller body. That physical activity didn’t COMPETELY negate the negative consequences of being in a larger body. I have to ask though, when did healthy come to mean ZERO risk?

Over and above that, I’m bothered by the topics that they didn’t talk about at all that have an impact. Some of what they didn’t discuss in their paper is:

The history of weight cycling
The impacts of weight stigma and size discrimination

And finally, and possibly the most important piece that they glossed over, is that we do not currently have an intervention that can reduce someone’s weight to a ‘normal’ BMI and keep them there. That’s right. No matter how intentional or functional your weight loss is, there is no 100% certain, guaranteed method that will prevent you from ever gaining the weight back. Not to mention that intentional weight loss is associated with many negative health consequences.

Behaviour Based Approach

The Health At Every Size™ approach is behaviours based as opposed to an outcome based approach. That means that we focus on actions that are within a person’s control instead of outcomes that are not. When we spend our time and energy focused on things that we can actually control, we have the opportunity to be empowered and engaged. We are given the opportunity to measure something that will build our confidence and that will lead to a positive experience which means that we are far more likely to keep it up. For example, one patient of mine was wanting to do a certain hike on her holiday. She started training to increase her strength and endurance. Even though her weight didn’t change, she was able to not only participate in that hike, but she also started to see how her new fitness levels were showing up in her day-to-day life. This is the longest that she has ever stuck to a fitness plan and a big part of that is because she stopped measuring her success (or failure) on the scale.

Sustained long-term weight loss has dismal, defeating and disappointing statistics. Most people who embark on a weight-loss journey are not going to be successful and those who are deemed a success usually maintain a very small weight loss compared to their initial weight loss. In fact, almost 95% of those who lose weight will have gained back some, all or more weight within 2-5 years. Traci Mann expands on this in her book “Secrets from the eating lab”.

Nobody wants to play a game that they can’t win and the weight loss game has been played for centuries with very little success. Certainly not the kind of success that these authors are talking about. According to them, in order to be labelled as ‘healthy,’ you must reach the lower weight and stay there permanently. And I haven’t even touched upon the shortcomings of the BMI scale yet.

Why am I talking about this today? If you read the article this weekend, and it started to throw you off the track of following a Diet Rebel lifestyle, where you’re pursuing your health and fitness goals without the pursuit of weight loss, I wanted to take this opportunity to assure you that you are still on the right track.

How much you weigh IS NOT UP TO YOU and we have to consider your history:

At what age did you start having a dysfunctional relationship with food and your body?
How many times has your weight gone up and down and down and up?
How dissociated are you from your body’s natural hunger and fulness signals, likes and dislikes?
What does your self-esteem and confidence look like?
How able are youto fully participate in life right now?
And what is your Childhood Adverse Experience score?

Twice as likely to have high cholesterol

Let’s do a quick chat about what it actually means if I tell you that you are twice as likely to have high cholesterol. That sounds terrifying doesn’t it? Let me share my risks with you. I won’t share my actual numbers (weight, BMI, cholesterol, etc.) but will share my actual risk assessment numbers.

I used this risk calculator (QRISK 2-2014) and found that currently I have a less than 1% risk of having a cardiovascular event in the next 5 years.

If I double my cholesterol level, it bumps me up to 1.5% chance. If I lose 20kg, but keep the higher cholesterol level, my risk changes to 1.1 %.

Numbers can be used to scare the pants off of us, but they can also be looked at as a way to smooth the edges of urgency and keep us focused on what matters – taking care of ourselves.

Now, I am a healthcare professional and I do care about health. There is no moral obligation, however, for you to care or value your health. I also know, as a healthcare provider, that stress and self-flagellation are not health promoting.

When we continually tell people in larger sized bodies that they cannot access the label of healthy, we are not helping them get healthy. Some of these people have been told from the time they were little kids that they were fat. They were bullied. They were told they didn’t belong. They weren’t allowed to enjoy the food like the rest of the family. Studies like this promote the perpetuation of weight stigma. Even if their bigger body didn’t show up until later in life, the mental health effects of weight stigma and not belonging; being told that their efforts aren’t good enough; that THEY are not good enough; have terrible effects on their physical health. Including diabetes risk, inflammation levels and cortisol levels.

Where do we go from here?

We focus on where we have control. We focus on healing our relationship with food and our bodies. We focus on healing our relationship with exercise so that we can reap the benefits (the health benefits that were documented in the study). This way, we can continue to focus on health-promoting behaviours, such as:

Joyful and respectful movement,
Adopting self-compassion,
Practicing Intuitive Eating; and
Developing a mindfulness practice.

And then we let our bodies land where they will.

I’m here to help.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,