Nurse’s TID Diet

EAT ONLY 3 MEALS A DAY (TID)…NO SNACKING 
How you exercise is also critical in increasing your fat burning ability while to drift off to sandman land.  Great for nurses!  Why?   Because we need sleep.  Trouble is we have to work on getting more of it.  What’s not so good for us is that most nurses are great snackers (I know I was and proud of it).  We are also overweight and stressed-out.  Many nurses have poor body image.  We take out all of our bad feelings during the day into ourselves.  We don’t feel we deserve to treat ourselves well.  We hate our bodies.  Our fat is unfit.   Minky,  Fitness Nurse can help you to train your brain to burn fat more efficiently, even in your sleep…

you start the process by not only eating; but by starting where you are…now.
This program is about conscious awareness for the self-depricating nurse. 
I want to help you by getting congruent (conscious, subconscious, and your actions) to 
make your (food & exercise) life happier, your fat fitter and your liver more efficient. 
You begin to really listen to you body and it’s NOT all bad! 
Minky, the Fitness Nurse’s motto is: 
“If you burn sugar while you’re awake; then you’ll burn fat while you’re sleep!” 
and “Always expend some energy before you eat”.

This way of eating and thinking may be very challenging in the beginning; yet it’s the best thing you can do for your health while at work…A week-to-week method of  becoming embodied and improving your body image.  One of the first things you do on week ONE is to STOP Snacking!  We are also very busy at our jobs we can’t and shouldn’t eat every 2.5 hours (6 meals a day…YIKES!)  3 meals a day may just work for you & your schedule. 

Snack + Nurses' desk = fat-storing behavior

This way of eating and exercising is based on the Theory of Embodiment
(your conscious mind, subconscious mind and your actions) and science of Leptin (physical). 
Not on the science of below:

There is just SO MUCH information. How about results?!

Results…
First the MENTAL &SPIRITUAL:

Embodiment is about healing body image.  Getting connected with your body as it is now.   Do you think, “I can only feel good once I look good?”   This is actually the complete opposite of what has to happen for long term weight loss/maintenance.  You need to feel good first; then you’ll look good…you’ll look great!  You will feel good when you begin to enjoy your body now and start experiencing loving, nourishing acts that can heal a hateful body image.  Some examples of those acts are:

• Start where you are
• Start to become consciously aware
• Healing occurs in a relaxation response, calm your mind daily
• Breathe into your lungs
• Be thankful, be grateful for the body God gave you; Pray
• Condition your mind – healing self-talk daily
• Change your verbiage.  Stop talking nonsense like, “If I don’t get something to eat, I’m going to die!” or “I’m starving to death.” or “I shouldn’t eat this, it’ll make me fat.”   Your brain IS listening.
• Keep you mouth shut.  Don’t tell others what you’re doing (especially early on)
• Find a supportive bunch of women who can relate. 
  You can join a virtual group coaching session
  for nurses on the TID diet.  
  E-mail minky@theminkyway.com with “Nurses TID Diet” in the subject line if you are interested.

It’s easy than you want to believe, to get that elusive body that you can’t seem to attain,
all you have to do is increase your sensitivity to leptin:

How fit is your fat?

Leptin is a hormone made from your fat cells.  It tells your primal brain the amount of fat (energy) your body has for survival needs.

But when your fat is unfit, it is physically clogged by pressure (too large fat cells, and now making more adipose tissue) which block leptin receptors and signals.  You lose no weight.  When your fat is unfit you may suffer from:

1. Increasing big belly
2. No weight loss; no matter how hard you try
3. Elevated cholesterol – Medications to lower cholesterol do not always solve the source of the problem
4. High blood presssure
5. Fluid retention

Your primal brain only cares only about survival.  It needs to be told how much fat is available to obtain food (physical work), to deal with life stressors, to the maintain the species.  This is what your leptin level tells your primal brain.  It is also what people call their ’set point’ of weight.  If you eat a lot (even gain weight), when food is plentiful, your leptin level will go up and your primal brain says, “OK, I can stop eating, not be  hungry any more and you can lose weight easily to get back to your ’set point’.  This is what happens in a ‘healthy’ person.  (I secretly believe that there are ‘no healthy’ people)

If you are overweight or obese, you probably are getting a faulty reading from your leptin.  It’s like your gas gauge on your car’s dashboard is saying that your tank is empty; but in reality your gas tank is full.  Your leptin reading can be high; but your primal brain is not getting the signal.  It’s getting the signal that your tank is empty…so you keep eating and you get fatter and fatter.  Will power doesn’t stand a chance against your primal brain.  This phenomenom is called Leptin Resistance.

The causes of leptin resistance are primarily diet, early childhood programming and toxins. 

The laboratory results of leptin resistance are insulin resistance, high cortisol levels, high triglycerides, increased inflammatory markers.

So what can you do?  Pharmaceutical companies have been trying since the discovery of leptin in 1994 to put this in a pill.  But it doesn’t work in most people…but they are still trying.  There are over 10,000 studies on leptin.  You can eat, move and live in a way that supports leptin sensitivity…BUT NURSES BEWARE>>> On The Fitness Nurse’s TID Diet, WHEN you eat, is crucially important and the advice I give you goes against what most Fitness Trainers, Dietitians, even Doctors tell you>>>First of all…

During coaching sessions you’ll be encouraged to practice very similar core behaviors as with The Minky Way coaching:

• Only eat 3 times a day (TID).  NOT 6 times a day. When you snack (even a ‘healthy’ snack) and eat constantly you make insulin which leads to insulin insensitivity.  You are living in an insulin-state, fat-storing mode. To live in a fat-burning mode to have to utilize your body’s natural snack (glycogen from your liver).  In order to do this, your pancreas has to make glucagon, (feeling hungry) the opposite of insulin.  This is fat-burning mode.  Besides as a nurse you can’t have 5-6 mini-meals a day…that’s ridiculous.  This 3 (or even 2) meals a day (Fitness Nurses’ TID) plan works great for those of us who can’t and shouldn’t eat 6 meals a day.  We (nurses) have busy jobs that don’t rotate around food every 2.5 hours.
• You don’t have to have breakfast, per se.  As long as you eat 3 meals, and 5-6 hours between meals you can eat, TID=6a,12n,6p or 8a, 1:30p, 7:30p, or 10a, 3p, 8:30pm, etc. I can help you space your meals and give you meals plans that keep up your energy between meals and you’ll soon realize those feelings of fat-burning and you’ll be thrilled.  The first few  days are the hardest.
• Decrease your triglycerides.  Triglycerides can block your leptin signal.  Reduce your carbohydrate intake.  You’ve heard this one before.  Especially the simple carbos. No more sugary instant oatmeal, bagels and doughnuts especially for breakfast and never for snacks.  Try some cottage cheese, full fat yogurt or hard boiled eggs and high protein bread toast w/butter and coffee for breakfast instead.  Add more protein and fiber to your diet.  Marvelous easy shake recipes check out Nurse Minky & Nurse Tracy’s blog entries.
• Eat full macro-nutrient meals (filled with micro-nutrients).  But this does not mean OVER EAT!  Also don’t STARVE yourself. Do not eat low-fat, fake sugar foods.  They don’t sustain you and you will snack and stay in fat-storing mode.
• Reduce your stress level.  As nurses our jobs can be very stressful, but you may not be able to avoid your stressors.  I can teach you how to build your resistance to stress.  This will help lower your cortisol levels and triglycerides.  Walking is great  for stress relief.  Walking also helps you burn fat; but not in the way that you may think.  It’s all good as the end results become apparent.
• Exercise a minimum of 2 times a week.  You should exercise short and hard for 2X a week and do a mind body exercise like yoga at least 1-2X a week.  I have at-home exercises that are only 20-30 minutes.  WHILE EXERCISING>>> You have to burn sugar to get lean; not fat!  I know this is a shocker.  How about this one – You actually burn a larger percentage fat calories while sleeping than you would if you were exercising ‘in your zone’? ** 
• Power nap or at least deep breathe 15 minutes a day.  Get away to your car if you have to.  Rest your eyeballs for a few minutes.  Set your cell phone alarm to wake you.  Listen you calm music.  Learn about deep breathing.  I can show you this also.
• No eating after dinner and stop eating at least 3 hours before bed.  Pretty self-explanatory.  If you eat a late dinner like 9pm, don’t lie down until midnight or later.  Once in a while we go out eat, drink and pass out without trying.  That’s o.k.  when your leptin is in check.  While trying to do this new way of eating, if you do what you want to and snack and drink all night long and then crash in the bed immediately after…you WILL be heavier in the am.  And it will be that much harder to lose.
• Start visualizing how you want to see yourself…really.

That’s just the basic ways to increase your leptin sensitivity.   We give you what and where to buy foods.  Most foods and supplies that are suggested are purchased at Target, Walmart & ALDI.  Some special foods are purchased at other stores. 

The Fitness Nurse’s TID Diet is for 8 weeks.  I’ll try to start each week begins with a Nursing Diagnosis and a plan.  But I hate nursing dx and nursing care plans so much; it’ll be hard.  Don’t be surprised if I stop after week 2.  Check the blog in the upcoming weeks for my posts.   The plan is to do this with another nurse.  But let’s see if she can keep it up.  Tracy and I will start (hint, hint) the plan together beginning September 28th 2009.  We will report entries on this blog under Nurses’ TID Diet posts  (P.S.  Tracy kept up with the plan; but not with her blog entries)

If you want better results, quicker results call Minky for some food psychology coaching and if you are interested in The Fitness Nurse’s TID Diet , visit www.TheMinkyWay.com/sq 

Remember to Keep It Real…Food,

Lori 'Minky' Radcliffe, RN, BS, CFPC, Fitness Nurse

Visit Minky’s blog entries (posts) on how we are doing on The Nurse’s TID Diet.
Call Minky at (732) 620-2193 on mobile phone and (732) 361-6779 at home office.
Minky@TheMinkyWay.com

Reference: www.WellnessResources.com 
**Adapted from:  McArdle, W.  Sports & Exercise Nutrition.  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.  NY, NY.
There are other articles but I’m too lazy to write down.   Once this takes off; I’ll include them