Ep 541: Sleuthing Out Your Metabolism with Heather Deba

In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause interviews, Heather Deba, the founder of HD Body Academy.  Heather has helped 22K women regain control of their metabolisms and achieve ideal weight.  She’s helping women learn how to study their body to reset their metabolism and maintain weight loss.  Heather helps her clients find value in working on the nervous system aspect of metabolism alongside sleuthing out your metabolism.

Resources From The Show:

• Mind Metabolic Boost Kit – @heatherdeba on Instagram – DM her “NewYear” and she will send the kit to you. 
• Message Heather on Instagram @heatherdeba

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

0:47  – Intro

4:59 – Heather’s background

10:04 – Heather’s approach to metabolism

15:20 – Reverse dieting

21:17 – Figuring out your metabolic rate

24:57 – Lowest metabolic rate Heather has seen

26:45 – How she works with folks who have a low metabolic rate

41:06 – Working with food sensitivities

45:49 – The brain / gut connection

51:36 – How to get in touch with Heather

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[Preview] You’re weight by the way should fluctuate from day one to day two.

And if you see yourself fluctuating and that’s normal, but the rule of thumb is your fluctuations

should be about two percent within two percent of your current body weight.

You look at your macro, each gram of protein is four calories, each gram of carbs is four

calories, each gram is fat is nine calories. So no matter how clean you eat your calories,

There are still calories. So if you’re not focusing on whether it’s macros or calories,

then you can overeat on those clean things.

[Intro] Welcome to The Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly

fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit, physiques for life.

JANNINE: Hey Health Junkies! On this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, I’m interviewing Heather

Deba. She is the founder of HD Body Academy. She’s helped over 22,000 women regain control

their metabolisms and achieve ideal weight. How does she do it? Gosh, I’d like to know.

Guess what? She’s going to tell us in the podcast. But one of the things that really struck me

about her program is that she’s working through the things that mess us up when it comes to our

her metabolism and she has a different approach. She’s really looking at what is it that you

need to help restore your metabolism because most of us have dieted and over exercised

and stopped eating and fasted and done all these things to our metabolism that need a

little repair. So instead of the quick fix approach, she’s working on the repair approach.

And interestingly enough, you would think it would take a long time.

She’s actually turning things around in a few months.

She talks all about it in the podcast.

So I want you to think about metabolism’s a little bit differently.

In my previous podcasts on my own, I was talking about fatty liver.

And I think this is something that Jack’s most women up because we start to get in that

habit of like quick fix foods.

Like I’ll just have some popcorn for lunch and call it good.

I’ll just have a banana and apple, you know, I’m still eating healthy, but it’s all carbs

kind of thing.

And I think this is what messes with us and messes with our liver.

And then our metabolism gets thrown off.

Yes, microbes can get off, you know, all these other things.

And I think this is what is at the core of Heather’s program.

So open up your eyes a little bit.

Like maybe we’ve been doing things all wrong, all along.

And perhaps there’s some things we can do to fix it.

So let’s introduce you to Heather Deba.

– Heather Deba, welcome to the Health Fix podcast.

HEATHER: Thank you so much for having me.

JANNINE: Well, I appreciate you coming on and helping us ladies try

to figure out our metabolisms because it is one thing

like I mentioned before, I do not do in my office

because I’m over it, I’m over it.

I hit a point in my life part.

HEATHER: It’s a struggle for every single woman.

JANNINE: Yeah, it is nuts.

It is nuts.

And of course we all have our blind spots.

And I’m on my third coach now and I can’t–

it’s still wackadoodle.

So we’re kind of like, well, all right, throw it in,

call it good.

We will regroup and I’ll just keep chugging and figuring things

out.

So it’s a great time for you to come on.

Because guys, as I said before, I literally gained

seven pounds in three days.

And I’m trying to figure out what in the world have I done

at this point, ’cause I don’t need out, barely.

We ate out one day.

I had literally a shrimp and aspargas.

HEATHER: Yeah, and a lot of women struggle the same.

Jannine, I think a lot of women tell me all the time

I’m E-clean, I don’t go out and I don’t eat junk food,

I don’t drink alcohol.

I don’t do anything that is wrong

and why I’m looking at carbs

and I’m literally gaining weight just by looking at it.

So you’re not alone.

Hopefully, you know,

for our conversations are,

Jenny and I think a lot of women tell me all the time

I’m E-clean, I don’t go out and I don’t eat junk food.

I don’t drink alcohol.

I don’t do anything that is wrong

and why I’m looking at carbs

and I’m literally gaining weight just by looking at it.

So you’re not alone.

Hopefully, you know, for our conversations

our listeners can get some insights

and hopefully this will help you as well.

like that’s my passion.

I love doing it and that’s literally what I do every day.

So I’m really excited to talk about it.

JANNINE: I am as well.

So of course, obviously you got into this

because you had your own experience

with trying to figure out your metabolism

and spending lots of money on trying to figure it out.

Give us a little background and like,

what are like, how many things did you try?

What are all the things that you went through

and like, how did you figure it out?

HEATHER: Well, gosh, you know, Jannine,

I don’t think I never really had a one turning moment where I’m like, oh, I went through such

a traumatic experience or something heavy that made me decide to work on my health.

I think I’m like just everyday woman where weight gains start very slow and then, you

know, did something and going back and it’s just a accumulation of moments where, oh,

I don’t like the way I look or,

oh gosh, I’m hiding the stuff I’m eating from my husband.

Or to the next moment where my kids are,

yesterday was my 11 year old’s birthday, right?

And so we were eating her cake and celebrating

and we had just gone out to Texas Roadhouse.

I mean, you know how unhealthy that is

but it’s her favorite restaurant.

So we went and I ate all of their hot rolls

and stuff like that.

I came home, I was super, super, duper full.

And she’s like, “Mom, we used to get cut our cakes.”

And I was like, “Okay, I’ll just have a small slice.”

And ’cause I was just really full.

And then she got teary-eyed.

And it was really interesting.

She lied down.

She goes, “Mom, I wanna hug.”

And I said, “Okay, well, what’s going on?”

And she goes, “Well, why didn’t you share a cake with me?

“Why didn’t you celebrate my birthday and eating cake?”

And I said, “Honey, I want to.

But I ate a slice and it was small slices,

but I was super duper full.

She goes, “Oh, I just thought you’re just watching

“what you’re eating like.

“You tell all of your lady friends and all of that.”

And I said, “Well, honey, that’s like years ago.”

So, but then I realized what happened to me was

the moments that normal women lived through

had a carry on effect on their children,

on their marriages, on their self-confidence.

And I can’t tell you how many women actually work with

and just because they lost weight

and they still struggle with the after effects.

Like, can I be maintaining for the rest of my life?

And I, even though I lost weight,

I still don’t feel great.

I still don’t have the confidence back.

And I thought if I lost 30 pounds, I would get that back.

Right?

And so, and that’s what I do every day.

And I tell my kids, I said, “honey that’s just me years

“a years ago, and just last night,

“it just made me think as well.

“And I’m maintaining, I’m healthy, I’m eating,

“everything I want to.

“I’m helping women to do that.”

So I think it’s, my transformation really comes from years

ago where I’m Chinese, I came to the US when I was 16,

I gained 45 pounds in eight months.

45 on a short Asian woman, that’s a lot.

I’ve done millions, I mean, anything under the sun.

I’ve done weight watchers, I’ve done cool scoping.

I’ve worked out with trainers three, four times,

you know, four years straight, five times a week

with a personal trainer.

I’ve gained a lot of muscles and didn’t lose any body fat.

That’s when I realized, okay,

that’s a totally separate process in your body.

So I’ve gone through a lot.

spend well over $130,000 over the years trying to lose weight and maintaining until I figure

out like none of that matters, none until you actually can control your metabolism. As we age,

as women, we’re hormones shifting, a lot of women going through, you know,

pyrometal positive, that’s what I’m going through right now. So I understand that

hormone shift and I have to actively switching and changing up my nutrition just to meet that need

while I’m still consuming a lot of calories and going out to eat with my kids and family. So

that alone is a long journey. So it’s not, yeah, it is, you know, it’s a long journey,

but you have to learn that this is the entire transformation. It doesn’t end here. And it just

means when you’re stuck, like you mentioned earlier, you’re like, okay, I don’t know what

happened. I’m ready to throw the towel. But this is where you stuck. And this is where you actually

tweak. Your body is constantly changing. So it and now that’s literally what I do every single day

to help women to understand that their body not just coaching teaching them what to do.

Part of it is really understand what your body really does and how is that changed and why that

changing along with that change, how should you change your nutrition as well?

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah, because I mean, obviously, you know, we we’ve talked macros before on the podcast,

you know, there are macros. There’s there’s like my body doesn’t like, you know, as many carbs,

it doesn’t like as many fats, it wants more lean protein, you know, and trying to figure that out.

What is your approach? Is it actually looking at macros or is it looking at types of food? Like,

how do you start figuring out is how do you ramp the metabolism up other than, of course,

building muscle and those kind of things. 

HEATHER: Yeah, so this is really interesting topic and

you know everybody asked me this question, it’s like what’s your secret? How do you get women

over eating 2,000 calories, 2,700 calories and some of my women eating like 3,200 calories

and that’s their maintenance and how is that even possible? So first of all,

let’s separate health and fitness for a second because they don’t necessarily are the same things.

So when you’re eating healthy, you’re eating good, clean food, your organic food and your, you know, your grass fed beef and all of that, what you’re doing is you’re creating cellular health.

You’re talking about having higher quality of organs functions and those kind of things, getting tons and tons of micro nutrients.

Right. That makes difference in quality. However, calories are calories. I don’t care if you can’t calories. I don’t care if you can’t macros.

a lot of people don’t understand that macros are calories, right? So if you look at your

macros, each gram of protein is four calories, each gram of carbs is four calories, each

gram is fat is nine calories. So no matter how clean you eat your calories, there are

still calories. So if you’re not focusing on whether it’s macros or calories, then you

can overeat on those clean things. And I have, you know, I have ladies who’s really

fit and got on my program. She’s like, Hey, Heather, I just want to build muscles. Like

she’s like, I can’t figure out how to build muscles. I go to the gym six days a week,

lift heavy. And because everybody tells me at age of 50, I like lifting heavy is the

key. And I said, okay, hold on. Before we talk about that, like let’s talk about building

muscles are separate process from fat loss as well. So what are you eating? So we looked at her food,

oh, absolutely the most clean diet I’ve seen in a long time. And I said, looking at her calories,

I’m like, why are eating 1700 calories? That is super duper low for her. I mean, for any women.

And so we actually upped her carbs.

We actually upped her fats.

We actually lowered her protein, believe it or not.

And then her body suddenly start responding,

like very quickly.

And so you have to look at building, rebuilding metabolism.

You also have to understand that is to me,

that’s a foundation to no matter what you want to do.

So back to your question.

So should you be clean?

Should you eat like just focus on calories or macros?

That’s just part of it.

You have to understand how this machine works.

You have to have to per se like a manual

to this machine that you have.

Most women don’t understand that.

So that’s number one.

And number two is that when we build, you know,

our fitness nowadays, this industry’s focus so heavily

on the toning on building muscles on a lot of things

and every woman is focusing on like you.

Like you’re like, okay, I’ve gained seven pounds.

Over a few days, I don’t know what happened.

But at the same time, you also have to look at what,

your metabolic rate is so individual to you, right?

So how much of that macro nutrients that needs to come in,

how do you reverse it?

Where you are right now,

You might be eating clean, but your body might have adapted

to what you have been eating for so long.

And now it’s in deficit, actually in the health deficit,

not calorie deficit.

Now your body is storing and plus warmose changing.

And that, all of that happens.

So you have to making sure you’re adapting up as well.

So losing weight is calorie deficit,

repairing metabolism, there should be no deficit.

You should train your body to burn more.

As you burn more calories, the more food you can enjoy,

the faster the weight loss comes,

’cause yeah, you know, metabolic adaptation,

it’s just a whole different topic that we can dive into.

JANNINE: Yeah, I definitely want to because I’ve seen it in myself

and I’ve seen it in other folks as well,

where they do up their calories and the weight goes up.

So for example, earlier this year,

I was working with a coach who he was like,

yeah, you’re eating at 1500 calories.

Let’s put you up to 2300 and let’s see how you do.

I gained like 15 pounds and couldn’t get it back off.

And so then it was, okay, let’s drop it back down.

And then here I am now back at another 1500,

which isn’t uncommon, like I’ve heard this all along.

So, you know, for other people,

I know what my situation is uncommon.

So of course I’m gonna drill you on and be like,

All right, so what happened?

HEATHER: Yeah, so let me explain this to you.

This is mind boggling for a lot of women’s,

like you’re obviously doing a so-called

lot of coaches call reverse dieting.

And this is such a popular word

that is thrown around very loosely.

Like, so reverse dieting.

So if in your case,

you have been eating 1500 calories for a long time, okay?

So I’m going to use this examples many, many times, and I’m going to say it again.

So here’s the thing.

Your metabolic rate works like money.

So if you have been making $10,000 for your household every single month, right,

you know how to budget that, right?

And it’s consistently coming in and you know how to budget that.

Now, if you lose some of that income, your body, you know, your, your household

beginning, you’re like, okay, let me dip into my savings, right?

And let me keep on paying my bills, my mortgage, my car payments, my insurance,

and all of those expenses you have.

But if you don’t bring your income back up, guess what you’re going to do to your

budget.

You’re going to lower that budget because your savings account is draining.

Even though Stu has money in it, you’re thinking, okay, I can’t keep on spending

that. It’s already causing me panic.

And so what happens is you lower your budget.

Now your household expenses suddenly is lower, not sudden,

but it’s adapting to your income.

Now think about your metabolism, your food.

It works the same way.

So you did not eat 1500 calories for your entire life.

You ate more when you’re younger, right?

And so when you got into a diet, that’s what most women do is calorie deficit,

calorie deficit.

And that’s what’s been drilled into our heads.

So we lower that income.

we lower that calorie intake and now our bodies start spending what?

That’s your savings per se.

Eventually, if you don’t bring that back up, then your body goes, okay, well,

I don’t know what to do.

I’m just going to hold on to a 1500 calories because I’m preparing.

I don’t know when I’m going to go through a calorie deficit again.

So that’s kind of your body has memories, has cellular memories.

It remembers that.

Now, what happened when you went to 2,300 calories,

out of a sudden, you’re gaining weight.

Your metabolism has adapted,

your budget has come down to 1,500.

So at 2,300, what do you do?

Probably take that difference as it’s a surplus.

It’s a 800 calorie surplus on a daily basis.

You should never, ever do a reverse dieting,

going up suddenly.

because your body has zero time to ramp up to adapt.

And that’s literally what happened to your body.

So now, but that’s not mean,

that doesn’t mean that this is hopeless, right?

And like you went up there eventually.

If you stay at 23, number one, you don’t know

if 23 is your natural ceiling.

Everybody’s different.

Some people will have higher ceiling,

Some people have lower ceiling.

You don’t know if 23 is over your natural ceiling.

So how do you create?

So a lot of the reverse dieting methods out there

have no basis to that person’s individual body.

So that’s what happened to you.

So now your only option, if you wanna lose that weight,

is to go back to a deficit again.

But then we don’t know where your current metabolic rate

is set in the at is it 1500 is it 17 is it 16 is it, you know, 2000. So you have no wave

gauging. And that’s so that’s really what happened to you. I think that’s happening

to every single woman who after a diet, they may not doing a reverse diet, but they are

doing a reverse diet in a natural way, meaning they go back to eating normal, but they didn’t

realize their metabolism has adapted to a lot lower rate during their dieting process.

And now they’re going back to normal, the deficit now is even bigger. That’s why we

gain weight back so much faster. This is also why a lot of women say, “Hey, what I did before

no longer works.” My weight plateau, and I try to do more, I try to go out and, you know,

go work out even more. And that’s why. And when it comes to work out, and I’m telling people like,

well, if you’re already having a low income and you go to the gym working out even more,

that is in comparison, like the IRS came down on you and say, Hey, you owe us a lot of backup taxes

and you have to pay us now. So you go in like, so you have to take that limited budget and cut

out a way to pay back the RS. Working out when you’re in the deficit for a long period of time

and you’re thinking adding on more

that makes your budget even lower. That actually can cause so many more problems. That’s

what instantly resistance starts showing up. That’s start messing with your thioids

because your thioids is your CFO of your calories. Right? So yeah, there could be a lot of potential

No problems comes with prolonged deficit.

– Yeah, so that is literally what is happening

to everybody’s metabolism.

And nobody ever talks about?

JANNINE: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense

and it’s definitely something crosses my mind.

I guess the next question I have

that I get a lot from a lot of folks is,

okay, well, if I don’t know what my metabolic rate is,

I know there’s some calculations and things

to try to figure it out.

And I know there’s machinery that you could do

to figure that out.

What do you advise people to do to kind of figure out where their,

their resting metabolic rate is currently at?

HEATHER: So you can do a couple of ways. Now you can go and pay a thousand bucks to get

those fancy machines and testing your metabolic rate.

And, but remember that is resting metabolic rate.

And that metabolic rate is only representing where your body is at at this

moment of time. Okay.

That does not mean your body should stay here.

That doesn’t mean your body naturally requires this much.

this only testing for where you are.

Now, where, or you can do it at home and doing it for free,

this is what I do with all of my clients.

So when you start to tracking food,

a lot of people tracking calories,

and they’re like, okay, well, I track calories,

but you don’t understand what the data really actually mean,

right?

So what you should do is tracking your food,

not just calories, but your macros,

because you wanna see your distributions

throughout your, you know, your food.

But then from there, don’t judge yourself.

A lot of women tend to do like, okay, I’m tracking.

Oh my gosh, I’m not eating enough of this.

I’m eating this too much of that.

Number one, you have no idea

whether you’re eating enough or too little.

So you have no base to judge.

And so don’t judge, just track

and weigh yourself every day for like 10 days, 15 days.

The only reason is this gives you a baseline of what your body is responding to.

So if you’re tracking your food for 10 days, let’s say, and during this 10 days, your weight

is actually on a trend to go up.

That means you are actually eating in a surplus, right?

And if your weight, your weight, by the way, should fluctuate from day one to day two.

if you see yourself fluctuating and that’s normal, but the rule of thumb is your fluctuations

should be about 2% within 2% of your current body weight. So if you’re 200 pounds, if your

body fluctuates between 4 pounds up and down, that’s normal. So based on that and see where

your weight does. So if your weight goes down on a downward trend, that means you’re eating

actually in a surf, you’re in a deficit. But that only gives you where you are now. It’s not where

you should be. Those are two separate issues. So that’s how you should do it. And I think this is

time where most women track their macros. I can’t tell you how many times I hear people say,

hey, I track my macros and I don’t know why I’m not losing weight. And that’s because when you

you track those data, you have nothing to compare to to understand what it does.

But if you log your weight in every single day, then you will say, oh, this macros or

this amount of calories makes my body go up.

That means I am actually eating on a surplus.

And a lot of people say, well, I’m eating at 1200 calories and then why am I not losing

weight?

simply telling them, you know, if we’re taking medical considerations out, you’re eating at

your maintenance for right now. That’s why you’re not losing weight. So that’s the one

way, really the cheapest way and most accurate way to get your metabolism figured out for

right now. 

JANNINE: Okay. Okay. Now, I’m curious, what is the lowest caloric burn you’ve ever seen

someone have in terms of figuring out where they wouldn’t gain on things.

HEATHER: Oh gosh, I have this. This is a really interesting question because I have

had so many clients coming off of extreme diets and their companies, they’re having them eating

their replacement products and it’s not actually real food and then allowing them to eat like

maybe one meal with a palm-sized lean protein and a cup of vegetables and they weren’t even

allowed to eat any fruits because it’s considered sugar. But I think that’s insane. But the lowest

I’ve seen are 700 calories. Wow. 700 calories. They’re, you know, about 20 to 25% of my clients

come on coming off of those programs, eating 19, 1800, I mean, 900, 800 calories, which is very,

very, very common for what I see. 

JANNINE: Yeah. It’s so sad because yeah, they’re not even eating

food. It’s like processed bags of, I don’t know what. 

HEATHER: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of stuff going into

those products that we don’t know what’s in there. Yeah. For sure. 

JANNINE: Yeah. Oh, it’s crazy. So,

you know, okay, so we figured out the lower end and you’ve mentioned higher because for a lot of

women, I mean, myself included, when I was told, okay, try 2300, I was like, oh my god,

this is gonna, I mean, already, unfortunately, I already had it in my head, like, this is gonna be a disaster.

Because, sadly, you know, and I think a lot of women are the same.

I mean, we’re programmed at an early age.

I mean, I was programmed by my mom at an early age in high school.

I would eat a box of cereal a day because I knew that was 1200 calories.

I mean, oh, gosh, you know, it’s disgusting.

But you go back to him, go like, okay, so you hear the 23 and you’re like, oh, my God, how is that even going to work?

I’m curious like once you figure out okay, someone’s got a 700 calorie like that’s their that’s their metabolic rate

What how do you get to work with us to move things up?

What kind of things do you guys do like what kind of challenges do you have for them?

And what kind of challenges do you have as a as a guide here? 

HEATHER: Yeah, so

There are two different side of challenges number one from a client’s perspective. So let’s go from there

So from a client’s perspective a lot of times is mental

The biggest challenge is they are so scared of eating food again.

Because typically for those people who actually got to eat 700 calories or 800 calories to start with,

this is not their first time to lose weight.

They probably had tried multiple, multiple diets and different methods and they’re just nothing is working.

So when they found a method that actually works and they just hang out to the idea is like,

I can’t eat fruits.

And it’s really interesting.

I had a client that she was a surgeon.

She came up on, she has been doing a lot of programs,

eating 1,200 calories, so she’s like, I can’t.

I don’t know how I can actually enjoy bananas.

I love bananas.

I’m like, why not bananas?

Right?

So, and she goes, because it’s sugar.

It’s a lot of sugar.

I’m like, well, you are supposed to eat so much of carbs.

And so we worked on that mentality alone just,

and sometimes I’ll do an even a heavy dose.

I said, look, when we work on your body,

when we actually feed your body what it needs,

your body can handle a lot more than just healthy stuff.

So at some point, I actually just for the mental purpose

of it, I actually even feed my clients sugar.

And I say, “Hey, go eat the things you haven’t touched for years.

I’m not asking you to eat for like a whole week

and I’m not asking you to change your lifestyle.

I don’t condone that.

I’m just wanting to prove a point to you

that your body can handle this.”

So like for every day, I would have them to eat

a little bit of, you know, M&Ms

or the chocolate that they prefer.

And they actually see as long as it actually within

their caloric, their metabolic rate, they did that.

And actually their weight is very, very stable.

And this is where you shift your mentalities like, okay, 80/20 rule, if I’m eating 80% of

healthy stuff, my bodies literally can be processing those bad stuff.

And quite frankly, we live in a culture or in an environment where we don’t have control over 100%

of our food, the quality of our food. It’s impossible to get farm grown unless you have

a farm in your backyard and you know, raise your own cow and stuff like that. You can’t control.

So you’re going to have to let that go. So raising metabolism, to me, that is probably the easiest

side of things. And for the clients as well. And struggle is that they hold on to this stress and

in this mentality for so long.

And I have to literally rebuild

and completely shatter their entire belief system.

And to them, it’s really hard, really, really hard.

And then from a coach’s perspective,

the hardest thing as a coach is where clients,

number one, they don’t wanna put in the work.

Like it’s to them, it’s like, okay, this is too much work.

And, but at the same time, I’m thinking saying like, look, if you don’t put this much work

in to truly understand, to track, to, to see what you’re eating, to see what your body does,

then how do you expect to not need help anymore? The reason why I know what I know about my body is

because I’ve done it for myself. I’ve done it for thousands of other women. So I, when I look at

somebody’s eating charred, like when they come in, I know immediately what their body

change is going to be, how long it’s going to take them to lose 15, 20 pounds, and what

their metabolic rate is roughly going to be at, and how long they’re going to be in a plateau

for, or will they be in a plateau? I can see that from the get-go. And so that’s really the

freedom that I have right now for myself and for my family and for my clients. But as a regular,

like a day to day woman, like you don’t need to know anything else, you just need to study your body,

right? So that’s the hardest part is where women have a lot of expectations, especially

they’ve gone through programs, and they are not willing to go through from the beginning and reset

and not willing to shatter all of that. That’s number one. The number two struggle is that

a stress like like neuroplasticity in this world right now is a huge huge factor.

A huge factor. A lot of women come to me is like, Hey, I want to lose 20 pounds. But

I said, Well, here’s your stress. Here’s this. And like, you don’t feel loved in your marriage and

you don’t feel supported by your family and all of that. And how do you expect to lose all of this

so in maintaining at the same time. Because who you are, your new identity doesn’t align with the end

results that you actually want to maintain. There’s a massive misalignment. And that’s really hard

to build with a client, especially for people who have done this million times, and they don’t

even realize that’s a problem. You look at millionaires who are millionaires not because

they made a million bucks first and they say, “Hey, let me make a million bucks first and then let me work on the

the trace, the characters, the skill set a millionaire needs to have,” right? And it’s always the opposite.

The person who became millionaires always worked on themselves first. They start learning. They start building those habits and skill sets that

required them to become a millionaire. So a fitness transformation,

I think in this day and age is hand in hand. You have to reinvent yourself. You have to learn

how to live in this busy, noisy, crazy, distracting world and still able to take care of yourself and

fun, self-love and balance, all of that together. Because without one or another,

you’re never going to be able to maintain. You may achieve the results you want for a short term,

but not for the rest of your life.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah, it’s true.

You definitely have to be in for the game of figuring yourself out and trying to figure out like what

what is going on.

And mindset, I do believe is a big thing.

And for a lot of women with this and definitely most of all, we talked all about mindset and kind of how to figure figure that side of things out.

But I think for a lot of women, it’s really kind of you’re saying shattering your beliefs.

And I mean, yes, I don’t believe anybody ever gained weight or became diabetic because they ate bananas.

It makes no sense. Same with carrots, same with tomatoes, like all of that makes no sense.

It’s more trying to undo all of the fat and all of the things we’ve been brainwashed with

for so many years. And so how long do people typically work with you to kind of undo these

things? It seems like it would take a while.

HEATHER: No, actually, not really.

So it really depends on each person’s individual goals.

So if you’re trying to, on average, my clients work with me for about six months, that’s

kind of my average.

I have women work with me for four months.

I have women work with me for over a year.

So here it really depends on what you do.

Like if you’re thinking, okay, Heather, how long is that process going to take for me

need to go from like 900 calories to eating 2,200 calories and while maintaining or possibly

even losing weight.

So just on a metabolic repair process depends on how low you’re eating right now.

So, uh, Janine, for you, like if you’re eating 1500 calories, if your metabolism is at 1500

calories, but getting over, let’s say your goal is to eat, let’s say your natural ceiling

is 2300.

Let’s just say hypothetically, that’s the case.

From 1500 to 2300, we’re looking at about six weeks process.

And during this time, your body metabolic adaptation happens really fast.

And it doesn’t take nearly as long as what you think.

And then for somebody who comes in like eating 700 calories, 800 calories, I know it sounds

insanely crazy.

You have the repair process is a little bit longer.

So the longest I’ve seen to get over to like 22, 2100 calories depends on because we have

to work with more of the metabolic damage in their body.

So sometimes they have to sit at their top metabolic rate for a while for their body

to literally say, I’m getting rid of this trauma, this stress, and I have new memories

of how my body supposed to function versus if I can get somebody to go from 700 to 2000

calories, I could do that in eight weeks. But the reality is once I get to eight weeks,

that just ran up ramp. And now their body has to be in a sustainable, constant caloric

intake while their body gets used to it and having that as a new baseline. So if so that

process is a little bit longer. So it really depends on how low you are at right now, and

how long you have been on a diet, how many diets you have done. But typically, you know,

six months program that goes from like you’re eating above 2000 calories and losing about

15 to 20 pounds, that’s fairly normal range. And that’s an average, what I see, what a waking

accomplishing six months. And beyond that, people work on their own. You know, if you have 100

pounds you want to lose, this 15, 20 pounds is just the beginning.

Right.

And during this time, I teach my clients how to take care of their body,

what their body is doing, literally holding their hands like, okay, so this

is what your body, you know, this is what you eat.

This is how much you eat.

This is what your body does.

This is why your body does what it does.

And here’s what I’m doing for you.

And this is why I’m sending your goals right here.

And this is how you do it on your own.

So this entire process, my clients, I understand finally.

what those numbers really mean with their bodies really doing what is good for them.

What is not one person, it doesn’t fit the other.

JANNINE: Right.

Right.

Like some people do better with a little more carbs, some people do better with a little

more fat, some people do better with more protein, kind of a thing versus the blanket

statement of everybody needs a copious amount of protein or low carb.

Got it.

HEATHER: Yeah.

JANNINE: Got it.

HEATHER: So and it’s really crazy is a couple of days ago, I was posting one of my clients

process and you know, she was super proud of herself. And

this out of nowhere, I got a DM from a past client of mine,

who was on my program like three years ago. And what she

missed just like, Oh my gosh, Heather, you have no idea how

much you changed my life. Like I’ve been able to maintain for

years. And this client who had, you know, is pre diabetic.

Her a once he was higher, her cholesterol was really high. And

you know, as we were chatting in the DMs and she was like, I say, well, how is your AO and C,

how is your cholesterol? She’s like, they’re all in normal range. They’re all in normal range,

because all of those things, the diseases we have, you know, thyroid functions and your

cholesterol, your cardiovascular and your insulin, a lot of people think about insulin resistance

diabetes, it’s a metabolic disease. Right? And so it can be reversed. If you know what your body

actually requires. So yes, and it’s very possible and it’s, it’s really amazing to see women have

taking what they’ve learned from me and really applies. And it’s just how easy for them to do and

be able to take their health to the next level. It’s what I live for.

JANNINE: Yeah, it’s awesome to be able to, you know, know what, what you need to do, what you need to eat,

how much, etc. And really, it sounds like it’s just the study of the body, really, at the end of the

day you’re just experimenting over and over again. 

HEATHER: Yeah. And so a lot of women, you know, we’re talking

about how bad sometimes we feel, you know, when we’re not seeing that success, is there, you know,

we’re in a what I call the Valley of Despair is 10, you know, tends to be like, we don’t know what

to do. We’ve done so many things. And this is where you can say, hey, I’m getting up. And I know

that mentality, which I’ve done many, many times in the past, but you know, but every

journey you go through there is purpose. You learn something. I always ask my clients this,

I say, look, any of the programs you’ve done, how many of them are actually truly regret doing them,

like 100% probably not so many, even if you fail, you learn something about yourself,

you know, this is what I don’t like to eat. You mentioned earlier, like, oh, some people learn,

Hey, I can’t, I can only eat this much carbs.

I can only eat this much protein.

You learn something about yourself.

So just don’t give up and there’s help out there.

So I think it’s, you know, understandable.

And I’ve spent well over 10 years,

just lose this 45 pounds and over and over again,

until I figured out really nothing else matters.

Until I know how to really manipulate my metabolism.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah.

And it’s absolutely fascinating.

It’s funny, like, you know, a lot of us docs, we all have the education on the metabolism

and how to do it and work with it.

But at the same time, there’s blind spots in every single person.

It is better to have a coach.

Now, the other thing that I was very curious about is how, how do food sensitivities and

those kinds of things play into looking at metabolism?

Because for me, the, the backstory I didn’t give you is that I have sensitivities to so

many different foods.

bizarre. And I’ve figured it out by eat something and then the weight shoots up and I don’t feel

great. Or my gut goes haywire. So I’m curious for other folks. Like how does this play into things

and how do you work with that? 

HEATHER: Okay, so that’s a great question because a lot of women experience

like intolerance to gluten and some allergies, some sensitivities. So here’s the thing.

food sensitivities and some of our digestive issues are highly connected to our neural plasticity,

our nervous system. And what happens is that what we don’t realize is all of those conditions,

yes, when you’re eating food that you’re already sensitive to, it’s going to cause inflammation,

it’s going to cause your body to hold on to certain things. It’s not going to progress as well.

But if you have that condition, most people go to like Whole30, like they’re trying to eliminate

or go through a detox with some kind of, you know, nutritionist and going through all of those.

But the problem is it doesn’t take care of the root problem, right? All the elimination diets,

typically, well, you’ll figure out what triggers you, for sure. But reintroducing them, that does

does not mean you’re not gonna react to them again.

For the most part, elimination diets really just help you

to find out what you’re triggered or two.

And then typically the approach is to,

hey, let’s eliminate this for the rest of your life

or taking a very limited amount.

So you’re really not getting the help you really want.

You’re kind of like in a way almost more miserable

in my opinion, because there’s so many things you can’t.

But to actually to do that and quite frankly,

when you have sensitivities is it’s stress,

certain kinds of stress we have,

when we talk about stress, we talk about

what’s like mental stress, our job, our marriages,

our kids and all finance and those kinds of things.

But there is a different, like another type of stress

that our body doesn’t, you know,

you don’t pay a lot of attention to is that

Our physical body has stresses too.

When you’re sick, that’s the stress your body takes on.

When you’re injured, now lots of other physical stress,

guess what?

If you tore ligament, now you need more protein

and more collagen for that repair,

and that repair is going to take 200 days, right?

To fully recover, to build all those collagen back.

And now that your body takes whatever your calories that

or protein you take, that is already limited.

and distributing some of that for this purpose.

So that’s a different stress that your body has.

And, or if you’re taking medication,

if you’re going and having surgeries, injuries,

those kind of things, even traveling.

So all of those stress happens inside your body

causes certain chemical biochemistry that it’s changing.

So basically is that you’re,

if you’re, especially if you’re doing a diet,

you already don’t have that income to sustain

all of those growth, your body naturally,

when you have a stress trigger physically,

your body is supposed to take what you eat

and distribute that to that repair purpose.

And if you’re in a diet,

you don’t have that budget for it.

You really don’t.

So your body never really fully heals

on a cellular level.

And so therefore it causes more inflammation.

So it’s just chain reaction.

However, nutrition is big part of it.

Lowering your, increasing your neuroplasticity

because once you have that is under control,

you actually have your rest and digest stage more often.

Your body actually start lowering

that inflammation stress lower.

I’ve seen a lot of clients actually working

on the neuroplasticity side of things

and they start seeing their food sensitive

start going away. And that’s one part I don’t think many programs out there are actually focusing on.

So yes, eating certain foods will help you in the short term if you have sensitivities, but if you

want to get rid of it, or if you really want to reverse that, you really have to spend a lot of

time doing neuroplasticity, rewiring or repairing for sure. 

JANNINE: And when you say neuroplasticity,

rewiring or repairing, are you talking about like more or less deconditioning yourself to being

sensitive to those foods? Or are you talking about probably the stressor that maybe was the

precursor to the gut going off the rails and causing the sensitivities in the first place?

HEATHER: Yeah, so any type of stress is actually really to do your gut. It directly impacts how your gut’s

digest nutrients and absorbing them and actually utilizing them. So there are really great books

out there talking about the brain and gut connection. Right? So, you know, if you do any kind of

research, you probably like just Google it, you probably find tons of books that are out there

talking about the brain gut connection. The brain connection is really, okay, if we put it into a

simple term is what we think on a daily basis is what triggers our nervous system.

So our brain in a way does not distinguish what’s reality and what is not.

So let me give you an example.

So if you’re watching a scary movie, like a horror movie right now, what happens when

you’re so nervous and you’re like, okay, my gosh, what is going to happen next?

And you got scared and your heart rate rises, your blood pressure goes up, right?

stomach is in a knot and you’re literally for momentarily you’re at a flight or fight response.

But you’re not physically going through that experience. This is a movie. It’s fabricated.

It’s not real. But what your brain perceives is a threat.

So when you think about this now, if right now that’s this why like meditations work and I love

meditation practices, but a lot of, you know, where you actually think if you’re

imagining yourself laying on a beach right now, your toes are in the sand, like wiggling, you can

feel like that cool sand deep down, like wiggling between your toes. And if you can feel the breeze

at the beach and feel the sunlight on your skin, that warmth, and you can, if you can hear your

kids giggling and laughing, maybe even strangers, maybe seagulls, like the sound of, and the waves,

if you just did that and you’re just laying there immediately, your belly expand, your heart rate

comes down. Right? So what you think, what you picture with your brain literally controls your

biochemistry response. So when I see neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity really means

your body should, you are going to deal with stresses on a daily basis, your work, your kids,

and all of those things. It’s there, you can’t get rid of them, right? But when you are actually

controlling the factors you can control, your body is supposed to go, “Okay, I’m super stressed,

But my nervous system can pull my nervous system down to a rest and digest state.

Your body should have that ability to do that. But if your hypertension is hyper focused on

the negative and the stress all the time, then you’re stretching that elastic band. It’s constantly

states there doesn’t bounce back. So neuroplasticity is your ability, your neural, like your neural

ability to bounce from stress level, how quickly can calm down.

Just imagine like a lot of people with familiar with your heart health, right?

Heart of your heart is like, okay, if I stress my heart out and going on a jog

and how quickly can my heart recover going from 160 beats a minute

to 80 to 90?

How quickly can you calm down?

The quicker you can calm down, the healthier your heart really is.

Your nervous system is the same.

So when you’re actually in the rest and digestive more frequently and longer, the better it is for your digestive system.

So the goal is to, and you can start with just quickly coming back and do a quick, quick mental meditation like the beach.

So just quickly imagine it. You can immediately feel the difference.

And so that’s what you train.

And when you’re training your brain,

you’re literally training your digestive system,

you’re training your gut.

You’re training your body to not be so responsive

to the food that triggers you.

I’ve seen clients, you know,

working on their reverse their sensitivity quite a bit.

I used to have this huge patches of rashes grow

on my body every time I’m stressed

and eating apples, I couldn’t eat apples like at all

’cause apples trigger me and I get like really bad allergy reactions.

And now I’m not able to eat apples.

I don’t have those patches anymore and has nothing to do with my food.

Nothing to do with my food.

It is all about mental capacity.

JANNINE: It’s fascinating stuff.

I definitely do believe that you can change those and with my amount of

sensitivities like I go on right now, I’m like, okay, clearly, we’ve got some issues.

And I know I’m not alone, so I like to share what’s going on with me so

that folks can kind of hear a little bit of the history there and maybe resonate.

So for folks who are really kind of struggling with their weight and they’re like, is your

body academy something, is the HD body academy something for me?

How would I know what, how can folks get in touch with you?

Give us more in terms of how folks who maybe do a call with you, how does it work?

HEATHER: Yeah.

So that’s a great question.

So I have, you know, I can sympathize with your story and so many women’s story.

I’ve gone through it myself.

So I really, really want to help everyone out there.

So I’m going to give you a gift.

Now you listen to this episode towards, you know, to the end, I want to give all of your

listeners a my metabolic boost kit.

So what this is, this is usually for my paid clients and I don’t give them out because

there are a lot of my secrets, right?

So here’s the thing.

This is really for the women, like you said, like where do I start?

How do I reverse my metabolism?

How do I even know where I’m at?

And I really wanna get out of this,

you know, this stuck where I’m in the, you know,

the Valley of Despair.

So if you just go to my Instagram,

search for me and my handle is Heather Deba,

just at Heather Deba,

how you normally spell Heather, H-E-A-T-H-E-R

and Deba, that’s D-E-B-A.

Again, that’s D-E-B-A, Deba.

So if you find me, send me a DM.

we’re about to go into a new year, just text, you know,

mention the word, sorry, keyword new year.

And I will send this kit personally to you

and I’ll teach you how to use it.

In that kit, now I explain how metabolism work.

I teach step by step how to reverse your metabolism.

I also have classes, you know, on neuroplasticity.

I will give you some brain exercise you can use

when you’re actually stressed and you just,

I want a quick fix.

and also some things you can do in the long run

to kind of bring you back that neuroplasticity

back in the long run.

So it’s a really, really valuable tool

that you can actually use and it’s easy to use.

So, yeah.

JANNINE: Sounds like it’s got all the right things

that folks are looking for.

I am gonna check it out myself for sure.

And so that’s on Instagram, Heather, Deba,

and then your website,

how would folks find you there just to check that out?

HEATHER: Yeah, so if you want to,

you can just message me

because that’s where I’m most active and message me.

And we can set you up on consultations.

If you wanna do a consultation with me

and if you wanna talk to my teams and coaches

and things like that, we can definitely do that.

So that’s where usually is the best place to get hold

’cause there are so many sources and platforms

and I can, you know, my mental capacity,

I’m trying to balance.

So that’s really the best place to get hold of me.

If you want anything, consultations, advice, you know,

you’re just getting those kids and asking me any questions.

And, you know, if you need to, we can set all of that up

and you can connect with me personally.

JANNINE: Sounds good, sounds good.

Yeah, here’s to keeping it simple.

I highly recommend that knowing, you know, how it goes.

Well, thank you so much Heather for coming on

and giving us some really great answers

and helping me to understand what might be going on

with me as well.

HEATHER: Yes, yes.

I’m hopefully this is very helpful to your audience

to you as well and looking forward to hear everybody’s feedback and let me know how you’re doing and

ask me any questions you may have. 

JANNINE: Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

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