Ep 573: Spice Up Your Metabolism with Nagina Abdullah

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause sits down with Nagina Abdullah, weight-loss coach for midlife women and founder of the top-rated website MasalaBody.com. Nagina shares her personal journey of losing 40 pounds after years of struggling with diets that didn’t work.

She opens up about the power of understanding blood sugar balance, how spices like cinnamon can help reduce cravings and improve metabolism, and why focusing on adding nutritious foods works better than restriction.

Nagina also introduces her slim down programs and a free metabolism-boosting workshop designed specifically for women in midlife who feel stuck and frustrated with traditional diets.

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👩‍💻 About Nagina Abdullah

Nagina Abdullah is a weight-loss coach for women in midlife and the founder of the top-rated website MasalaBody.com. With a degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley and an MBA from NYU, Nagina has helped more than 1,500 midlife women successfully lose weight permanently and create lifestyle changes that last.

Her proven approach teaches women to boost their metabolism naturally with strategic food combinations and metabolism-boosting spices. Nagina specializes in helping women reduce belly fat, improve energy, and finally feel confident in their own skin—even if nothing has worked before.

Resources From The Show

Nagina is hosting a 5-Day Metabolism Boost for Midlife Women to teach you the secrets she uncovered to keep her own and 1,600 of her midlife clients’ metabolism high and create a sustainable, healthy lifestyle that fits into your life easily.

You’ll discover a simple 5-step plan to naturally boost your metabolism through delicious food.

https://masalabody.com/boost

Nagina shares her “Sweet Spice Cheat Sheet” with the spice that is in your kitchen cabinet! It helps to lower blood sugar and curb sugar cravings. The cheat sheet includes:

• 3 health benefits of using this spice
• 5 ways to use it in your day
• A simple fat-burning fire tea recipe to fire away belly fat

You can grab the Sweet Spice Cheat sheet for free here: https://masalabody.com/SweetSpicePDF/

Schedule a Free Midlife Metabolism Discovery Call with Nagina Abdullah: https://www.masalabody.com/apply

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Weight Management Challenges
03:03 Nagina’s Personal Weight Loss Journey
05:55 The Role of Food in Weight Management
08:55 The Power of Spices: Cinnamon’s Benefits
11:58 Breakfast Strategies for Weight Loss
17:52 Overcoming Diet Culture Myths
25:34 The Flaws of Diet Culture
28:29 Balancing Blood Sugar and Food Choices
32:41 Understanding Meal Composition
46:23 Programs for Sustainable Weight Loss

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Jannine Krause (00:01.55)
Nagina Abdullah, welcome to the Health Fix Podcast. Hey, I’m happy to chat with you because just watching some of your other podcasts with folks and listening into some of your testimonials with folks, I was like, wow, this girl’s got some really great advice that may, you know, maybe a different twist on what we’ve been hearing here and there with some of our folks that are kind of awake and like, hey,

Nagina (00:04.622)
Thank you so much, Janine. I’m excited to be here.

Jannine Krause (00:27.012)
Let’s help our 40 plus, 35 plus folks understand what in the world is going on with our bodies and why this dang weight is coming on. So of course you have your own personal story here as well and you took off quite a bit of weight and you can see it in your pictures there too. Tell us a little bit about what was going on at that time and how you morphed into helping folks with this as well. And of course the slim down programs too.

Nagina (00:56.472)
Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. mean, I have really, I had struggled my entire life with my weight and with my sugar cravings and no matter what I did, I would try to eat healthy. I would follow all the diet out diets out there. I followed everything out there from Weight Watchers to, to, to Atkins to eat South beach to eating less, exercising more, and nothing was able to help me lose the weight and keep it off. And nothing was even able to get my body to where I really wanted it to be.

Jannine Krause (00:56.677)
Good night.

Nagina (01:25.208)
because every time I would lose something like eight to 10 pounds, I would start eating all the foods that I had been restricting myself with to get there. And so then I would balloon up and add more on. I would gain 12 or 15 pounds because it would just like balloon up. so what happened for me is that as I was getting older, I was realizing, my gosh, I don’t want to fight this battle daily for the rest of my life because all I could do every day was think about what am I going to eat?

get feel guilty about not eating the things I was gonna eat, feel guilty about not working out as much as I thought I was going to. And then the weight, the yo-yo cycle kept going and going and going. And so after I had two children, now I have a degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley as well, and a degree from NYU Stern, which is my MBA. And so after I got those degrees, I had my two children, I was working at a very demanding job, I was at my heaviest weight.

Because I just had my two children. I was working so much and I did not feel like myself. I didn’t feel good I didn’t like looking in the mirror and seeing my reflection I didn’t like seeing that I wasn’t looking like all the work that I was doing like I felt like I was doing so much and I Nobody was saying anything to me and I didn’t like how I looked and so at that point I decided these yo-yo dieting ways. I just didn’t have time for them anymore with that lifestyle

And so I started researching all the scientific research I had access to from my degree. And so I started seeing that instead of restricting foods, there were other techniques for releasing fat, which included increasing your metabolism by adding foods that helped rev up your metabolism.

And so I started to do this. What I did was I started combining my foods in certain ways, which I later found out helped me keep my blood sugar even. I started adding other foods, which helped me increase my metabolism from adding those foods. And then I also started sprinkling on metabolism boosting spices onto my food, which first of all made it taste delicious instead of boring and healthy. It actually made it taste like I was going to a restaurant.

Nagina (03:29.612)
And then I also found out that those had metabolism boosting and fat burning effects as well. So after doing all these things that was very easy, and it was so tasty and I was feeling full and satisfied, within nine months I lost 40 pounds. And this 40 pounds to put in perspective for me, I got 20 pounds lower than I had pre-pregnancy. So I was at my most fit weight that I’d ever been. And this was without dieting.

I wasn’t even exercising that much. It was mainly from food. And so I kept this weight off for over 12 years, but then something happened to me in midlife where I started getting a lot of bloating in my belly and just overall weight gain. I just gained 20 pounds from doing nothing differently, nothing differently at all. And I started feeling, you know, pretty mad. Like what was going on? I would go to my doctors. They wouldn’t have any answers. They would just tell me this is aging.

That’s all that’s all their answers would be. I’m like, well, what is aging? What has changed? And so I did a lot more research again using all the access I had. And I found out that now in my forties and for women that are in perimenopause and postmenopause,

There’s a lot more inflammation and bloating due to lack of hormones. There’s a lot of other complications that are happening in our body just that we actually have a name to it versus just aging. And so I made changes. I lost all of that 20 pounds and also gained more muscle. Now I’m at the most fit I’ve ever been in my life after feeling hopeless again for the second time. And so I want to let other women know it’s possible when you actually find a new approach for this phase of life.

You know, after I lost that initial 40 pounds, a lot of women started asking me how I lost it, what did I do to look better after children than before children. And that’s where I started my blog, MasalaBody.com, where I started writing out advice, writing out information, giving talks that told people what I did, including a lot of my recipes and a lot of my cheats and hacks that I did. And so since then, I’ve now coached over

Nagina (05:38.062)
1600 women to lose the weight that they want anywhere from 10 to over 90 pounds depending on their goals. And all of my clients now are all in midlife. So they’re either in perimenopause but most are post menopause. And this technique works for them when nothing else was working.

Jannine Krause (05:58.623)
And that’s the thing that you mentioned, you you were eating healthy, you were doing all the things, and you’re going to the doc, and that’s where I see people a lot, they’re coming to me and they’re going like, what am I doing wrong? Do I just need a GLP-1? Like, is that gonna be, you know, what am I doing? And you know, before we hit record, I kind of said I sometimes find that there are some habits and behaviors that are blind spots that we don’t realize. Then we’ve all kind of been bamboozled, all of us who grew up in the 80s.

in 90s in terms of the low fat culture and the work harder, sweat it out, stop eating altogether. And then now in the most recent culture, we’re looking at do I have a parasite? Do I have gut bugs? Do I have other things? Like is it my thyroid? Is it my adrenals? it whatnot? And really it seems like you’re saying we’re going back to the food again. We’re going back to the food. And the thing that…

Intrigued me about you so much was the spice the sweet spice cheat sheet and guys by the way We’re gonna be putting that in the podcast notes at dr. J Krauss nd.com as a little freebie from Nagina, but let’s talk about the sweet spice Cheat sheet because a lot of folks aren’t gonna think about Spices blood sugar balancing and you’re kind of talking about the different foods. Perhaps folks have heard that but not spices. So let’s talk about spices

Nagina (07:20.13)
Yes, well, absolutely. now spices are not only spicy, and this is the first myth to bust here.

Because a lot of people feel like if they don’t like spicy food, then it’s hard to use spices. But there’s only a couple spices, include things like cayenne pepper. Basically, they have a compound called capsaicin, which is in jalapenos, cayenne pepper, paprika, red chili powder. But that’s just one type of spice. Most spices are neutral, but the favorite neutral in taste, like cumin, coriander. But the favorite spice of mine, as well as so many women that I share this with, is the spice.

the sweet spice, which actually is a great replacement for sugar and that spice is so commonly found in our kitchen cabinets, most of you watching and listening likely already have it and that is cinnamon. And what cinnamon does is by sprinkling it into your coffee, sprinkling it into your tea, into your smoothie, on top of your fruit, what it does is it helps you bring down your blood sugar. And this is something that no other sweetener can do, especially sugar which actually increases your blood sugar.

Other things like monk fruit and stevia are healthier. They keep your blood sugar even. But cinnamon actually brings your blood sugar down. And the reason that is really important is because when you have elevated blood sugar, which is a big part of what’s happening in midlife for us to be putting on fat, is that our blood sugar is rising more quickly than it did before because it’s natural to become more insulin resistant as we are getting a little bit older. But just as long as you recognize this, then you can make steps. You can take steps to

to kind of go against it or work around it. And so what insulin resistance means is that if you eat something that breaks down to sugar or something that breaks down to that is sugar, what’s gonna happen is that your blood sugar is gonna rise and then insulin is released to bring your blood sugar levels down and that sugar is brought out of your blood and stored in your cells as fat. And so ideally we wanna keep our blood sugar even throughout the day. And once I started getting my blood sugar even,

Nagina (09:27.798)
the secret that helped me lose 40 pounds was that I just started keeping my blood sugar even by adding and eating foods that were keeping my blood sugar low and combining foods in a way where if I was eating something that was a little bit higher in sugar or higher in carbs, I was eating it with something that was was balancing it out and keeping my blood sugar even and my weight just dropped so quickly. And so the way that I actually got started with that 40 pound weight loss was the first step that I took was to add cinnamon into my coffee and I really

I having high sugar, kind of like, I didn’t use sugar, I used Splenda at the time, but I used a creamer that was French vanilla that was definitely sweet in my coffee, and I just couldn’t imagine not having a sweet coffee because it was my, it was like the best part of my morning. And so I couldn’t imagine having like a black coffee or just having it with nothing else in it really, or just having milk or cream and no sweetener. And so when I found out about Cinnamon, I started trying it out.

started adding some cinnamon, I would add a little bit of sweetener, but then as the days went on, I was able to reduce my sweetener and then just add the cinnamon. And this was the first step where I felt like I started having less sugar cravings. Because once you start reducing the amount of sweets and sugar you have, you actually don’t have as many sugar cravings because sugar makes your body want more sugar. It’s a drug. And so I started adding cinnamon and my coffee tasted so amazing.

started adding cinnamon on top of my fruit. literally now have…

It’s called a spice missile that you can get on Amazon and I put my cinnamon in there and put it in my purse so that when I’m going to other places that don’t always have cinnamon I always have it with me because it really keeps my blood sugar low keeps me on track and it’s so delicious and so so the sweet spice cheat sheet is something where I share and that’s something we’re gonna we’re gonna be Sharing is it as a gift is where I share three ways to three health benefits of using cinnamon I’m also gonna talk about

Nagina (11:31.22)
five ways to use it in your day most of which are no cook and then the best part of the cheat sheet is that I have what’s called a fire tea which is a fat burning tea that fires away belly fat because of using cinnamon and a cinnamon stick as well. A cinnamon stick helps fire away belly fat and you use it in in this tea that’s really great at nighttime and so it’s very soothing at night. It also helps you decrease other sugar temptations that you have at night and so I’m

excited about that because I kind of pack everything into that cheat sheet where you can just get started with it.

Jannine Krause (12:05.67)
Okay, okay, so cinnamon. A lot of us have heard about cinnamon, right, in terms of capsules and things of that nature, adding regular cinnamon. Is there a particular kind of cinnamon that you recommend, whether it’s Ceylon or the different types?

Nagina (12:22.168)
So I really recommend just starting with any cinnamon, and that’s a little bit different maybe than people that are really, really studying a lot of benefits of cinnamon. But I do want to share, I mean, there are two different kinds of cinnamon. There’s a Ceylon cinnamon, and then there’s a Cassia cinnamon. Ceylon is healthier for you in larger quantities, because it’s made from a different bark of a different tree. It’s made from a certain bark of a different tree. So Ceylon, a lot of times, if you’re reading really,

in-depth like health types of things about Ceylon versus Cassia, you’ll hear that Ceylon is recommended. So after doing a lot of research around it, I mean, I’ve seen that Ceylon is better if you’re having over two and a half tablespoons a day of cinnamon. But if you’re having less than that, you can have the Cassia cinnamon, which is the normal cinnamon that you’ll usually find in a spice aisle. So unless it says Ceylon, it’s usually Cassia. But the main thing is that you are adding more cinnamon.

and that’s helping you to get started, like jumpstart your reduction in blood sugar. And then the next step is gonna be for you to actually pair and combine your foods in a way that’s increasing your metabolism and keeping your blood sugar low as well.

Jannine Krause (13:37.254)
Gotcha. Gotcha. So what’s the most interesting thing you’ve put cinnamon on? Out of curiosity.

Nagina (13:43.342)
Well, I I just I really like just having it on normal things because I just like to eat foods that I want to eat and so I mean having it in my coffee having it on my fruit I love putting it into my smoothies so I have a mint and strawberry I have a mint and strawberry metabolism boosting smoothie recipe that I love to have every day or as much as I can Because it really gets your metabolism going right away. And so in that smoothie I can share the recipe. It’s you either add

any kind of non-dairy milk like almond milk, oat milk.

because the sugar is less in those. And then you add a scoop of protein powder, which is really important to help balance blood sugar. Adding more protein is one of the key areas to focus on more. And that helped me lose 40 pounds is prioritizing protein of 30 grams starting at breakfast. So 30 grams of protein with my protein powder. If you don’t have protein powder, you can use Greek yogurt. There’s a lot of Greek yogurts that are 20 or 25 grams of protein. And then adding a cup of

spinach, a cup of strawberries, and you can also add two tablespoons of flaxseed or chia seed, which I call a secret ingredient. And that actually helps you because it has more fiber. It’s going to help you stay full for longer. And also in midlife, adding more fiber is really helping you your gut health and helping you excrete certain foods that are causing inflammation. And then finally, you can add three to four sprigs of mint that you muddle. Put that in there and mint has the

additional benefit of helping you decrease overeating and decrease sugar cravings and then sprinkling in about a fourth teaspoon of cinnamon is gonna keep your blood sugar low. So that’s just a perfect concoction for a low sugar high metabolism breakfast. You just blend that together. It takes literally one minute to make and it takes like three to four minutes to drink and then you have everything you need and you’re gonna feel like your sugar cravings are maintained with that mint and that cinnamon as well as the protein.

Nagina (15:48.364)
the flax seeds and it’s gonna get you all the way through to lunch and you’re not gonna feel hungry or feel cravings. And so that’s kind of one of the interesting things that I like doing is putting it in my smoothies and it just feels like a really great treat, but it’s also helping me.

Jannine Krause (16:02.118)
Nice, nice. And so I’m wondering, know, if going back to your personal story with the really sweet, you know, coffee, was that the only thing you were doing for breakfast? So you were skipping, were you skipping breakfast or were you eating something else on top of that? Then you were finding like 10 30 a.m. You were like, what’s next? And then, you know, noon and then it’s 2 30. What’s next? Did that seem to be how things were playing out?

Nagina (16:29.07)
would just have coffee for breakfast because I was kind of you know I grew up in the place where eating less equaled more weight loss and so it kind of felt easy for me to just kind of delay breakfast and skip it. Though I would also have breakfast like at that time I would have coffee I mean it would be sometimes I’d have breakfast sometimes I wouldn’t but I would have breakfast of I would always do like a skinny bagel with like peanut butter on it with fruit or I would have like two eggs sometimes two eggs with

with the coffee and a piece of like healthy toast, like whole wheat toast, I would do something like that. So I would have those and those sound like they’re healthy breakfasts, but what I found later on is that I was missing out on certain things and I was adding a little bit too much of certain things and mainly I wasn’t eating enough of other foods. so, especially the metabolism boosting foods. And so I was eating, but I wasn’t eating the right formula of the foods that were increasing my metabolism.

helping me release fat. And once I started doing that, it just started literally melting away.

Jannine Krause (17:34.567)
It makes sense. so, you know, one of the big things I see, of course, like you had mentioned, is eating the protein, right? And a lot of folks are like, okay, a smoothie every day, I can’t do it, I do like eggs, you know, how do I mix this up? Because yes, a lot of times people will do like a piece of toast and peanut butter. And of course, peanut butter has some protein, but it also has a lot of fat. So…

What other examples of breakfast do you have? Because think that’s one of the biggest things that people will really stumble upon is like, what the heck do I do for breakfast? How do I get enough protein? Because two eggs anyway aren’t gonna give you enough protein either. So how do you coach people on getting that protein amount up?

Nagina (18:19.562)
Thank you. What a great question because

Two eggs sounds like it is good protein and if someone has two eggs, you know I used to feel good about having two eggs But it turns out that each egg is only six grams of protein So if you have two eggs, you’re eating 12 grams of protein, that’s good But you’re still going to feel hungry and your body does absolutely especially in midlife does not have what it needs to start burning fat and so a really there’s a couple great things that you can add on to those two eggs and and I really like to Help people keep it easy. So you can either do

two eggs like you can make, can cook it, or you can buy hard-boiled eggs that are already peeled and you can eat those. In fact, this morning I just had those because I didn’t have as much time and I also ran out of eggs and so I had just the hard-boiled eggs there that I just already had ready to go and it was so fast and easy, but other days I make my eggs and so it just depends on your schedule for that morning. But having two eggs is great, but then you can add on, and this is really easy, you add on a half cup to one cup of egg whites that you can purchase in

the liquid form. And so when you combine that, if you’re making your eggs, you’re making them anyway, and you just add in a half cup to one cup of egg whites. And a half cup of egg whites is 10 grams of protein. A full cup is 20 grams of protein. So you’re adding that to the 12 grams in your eggs, and you’re getting 30 or more than 30, which actually more than 30 is even better, actually. And so that’s really easy to do. You can mix in any veggies that you want. And then what I recommend is on the side of that breakfast, the egg and egg white scramble, is having

a cup of berries because berries are low sugar fruit but they have they’re high in fiber and fiber is one of the other critical pieces that we need in midlife. First of all to keep us full so we’re not tempted by sugar and tempted by other foods but second of all to push food out from our gut so that we’re not keeping it and we’re not where it helps reduce inflammation to really have a high fiber diet. So and then of course like I mentioned before adding some cinnamon on top of those berries that would be amazing and if you don’t

Nagina (20:21.146)
have berries or want other options you could have something like two tangerines or a small apple or a small pear or half an apple or half a pear because a full apple or pear is pretty high in sugar is gonna elevate your blood sugar more than is going to help you lose fat so the two eggs plus the egg whites but the other thing you can do is if you just don’t want to do those egg whites or you want something different you can do two eggs plus Greek yogurt Greek yogurt’s 20 grams the brands that I love are

There’s another brand that you can find in lot of places that has 25 grams and it’s something like Rhone or

brand or something like that. And then you can also have cottage cheese. So you could have two eggs and cottage cheese. Or you could do two eggs with smoked salmon or two eggs with chicken or two eggs with tofu. You could do any of those combinations of high protein and then some low sugar, high fiber fruit on the side. So those are some really great go to breakfast. And if you don’t want to have eggs, you could do Greek yogurt. You can add in berries into your Greek yogurt, add some cinnamon

it and then you can also sprinkle in some nuts or chia seeds for that extra fiber and then also that the healthy fats that you get with nuts and so and then or you could do the smoothie recipe and so a lot of times really going between the smoothie or the eggs or then also the quick grab and go with which is the Greek yogurt those are really a lot of great options and the main thing is I would I would just really really recommend that you prioritize having your

your breakfast even if you’re not hungry because if you skip breakfast your metabolism is actually slowing down and there’s a certain amount of calories and protein that our body needs every day and if you’re feeling like you’re at eating more towards the end of the day and possibly have cravings later at night the reason actually tracks back to your morning in your afternoon and the fact that you didn’t give your body enough during those times and it’s coming to catch up with you in an uncontrollable sugar

Nagina (22:25.968)
language because your body’s needing fast energy at that point, which is by sugar. And so if you give your body these foods along the course of the day, it’s not going to react where it’s going to be craving unhealthy foods because you’re going to be taking care of yourself. And this really comes to self-care and taking care of ourselves by feeding ourselves with healthy foods before we get unhealthy with restriction and then ending up eating foods that are actually harming us and not really supporting us.

So it’s like getting ahead of it is really important and it really makes a difference. Eating breakfast with 30 grams of protein is the number one way that my client said that their weight loss started activating. Like they started activating it went from stalled and stucked to activated and revved up was adding this 30 grams of protein in the morning.

Jannine Krause (23:15.238)
That sense. That makes sense. mean, most of us don’t realize how the evening goes in terms of eating more. Like it’s sometimes for a lot of people a blind spot or it’s a spot where you’re like, well, I am more hungry then. And then, you know, that’s not the time of day that we’re going to be as most active. And then of course in American culture, that’s where we eat the biggest meals, at least because we’ve been, you know, trained more or less to do that. So.

Makes perfect sense. Now one of the things you had mentioned is not skipping, you know, avoiding certain foods or making sure that you’re still eating the things you like because a lot of different folks, if we’re looking at diet culture, it’s avoid dairy, avoid gluten, avoid, you know, all of the different things and of course avoid all snacks and processed foods at all cost.

And obviously, and this is one of the things that I kind of talked about in a previous podcast, the one before this is just admitting to yourself what you can and can’t do. And what isn’t realistic, and even getting food, like meal service programs just to help you out. So give us a little background on like when people think about, like is it during the weight loss phase that you cannot have, I wanna hear your opinion. I’m kind of just throwing out things that we hear. Like during the weight loss phase you cannot have any sugar.

You cannot have any of the processed stuff. You cannot have any of those things. What’s your take on that?

Nagina (24:40.066)
Yes, so I mean, I think that’s really, that is the way that people stay on Yo-Yo diets is focusing on what they can’t have. And that’s the way I really had a negative relationship with food. creates a very constrained relationship with food where you’re scared of eating foods. And then as a result, you just end up binging on things because your body still needs food and you don’t have time to think about it. So you just go for whatever’s in front of you. And…

And so that’s why I, you know, so far and I always really focus on what to add.

And as a natural result of what to add, for example, we talked about adding 30 grams of protein. We talked about prioritizing protein, adding cinnamon. When you start adding those foods and you start focusing on other foods as well, your body naturally doesn’t want unhealthy foods. So instead of just taking foods out, you always have to replace it with something. So if you’re going to take out dairy, what are you going to eat instead of dairy? Or if you take out sugar, what are you going to take out? What are you going to eat instead of it? And the mistake that

these diet and weight loss companies make is they keep telling us what not to do and they’re not telling us what to do except for sometimes eat their supplements or bars or eat very small portions of processed foods which does not work and especially in midlife that processed food is actually affecting our gut health really really negatively. So I also think everything is in balance. I mean I will eat processed foods in certain situations though I definitely don’t eat it every day but if I’m traveling or if I’m at someone’s house

you know, it’s not like I failed if I ate it. And so the diet culture teaches us that we either win if we’re perfect or we fail if we do even one thing wrong. And instead of that, I like

Nagina (26:24.41)
at it as a lifestyle and a sustainable lifestyle. And in creating a lifestyle, you want to move forward step by step. And it doesn’t matter if you do something a little bit off of that lifestyle once in a while, because it’s not like you failed. It’s just a way of living that you enjoy. And you’re not being forced to do this at all. But in terms of those specific foods, like dairy, I have found that it’s really personalized. Some people are lactose-free.

intolerant, some people can tolerate it more, a lot of people that are lactose intolerant can still eat things like Greek yogurt and cottage cheese because they are pasteurized in a way where there’s less sugar, there’s more protein, it’s a cleaner protein, it’s a cleaner form of dairy and you know I found for me when I took out dairy that really helped me release a lot of my weight and I didn’t know that I was lactose intolerant, I didn’t have any…

any symptoms towards it, but once I took it out, really helped me. And for gluten, gluten is really, that’s something where if it’s your, if you have an autoimmune condition, or if you have an allergy towards gluten, then you should take it out. But otherwise, you don’t have to take it out, because guess what? There’s a lot of gluten-free foods that are pretty bad for you as well. They have a lot of chemicals in them, and they have a lot of unhealthy carbs.

Just because you’re eating something gluten-free doesn’t mean that it’s going to be good for you. So it’s really about understanding, you know, I really like to bring it back to eating real foods. Eating real foods as much as you can that are being cooked or being prepared naturally with natural spices that are increasing your metabolism and making the food taste good. And really avoiding, as much as you can, the processed foods because they have chemicals in them that are affecting our gut health and midlife that’s actually creating more inflammation than it did before.

could get away with it before. It’s just not that easy anymore. But when you change things up, it starts to feel easy, because you start eating different foods and loving it. So I like to focus on adding and not subtracting and replacing, not just taking things out.

Jannine Krause (28:37.958)
That makes sense, that makes sense. I mean, my gosh, being a naturopathic doctor, we’re kind of known for different diets and things of that nature. I think it’s, I know I’ve messed with some people’s mental health on certain things. And one of the biggest things is the food noise. And this is where GLP-1s, a lot of folks will tell me taking the peptides reduces their food noise. And I’m like, well, wouldn’t we have less food noise if we balanced our blood sugar in the first place? And that’s where…

I tend to kind of tell folks, so if that’s the only thing it’s helping you with, we aren’t doing our job on protein balance, or protein balance, it has to do with protein, on blood sugar balance, and that’s what I’m hearing you say here as well.

Nagina (29:21.07)
Yes, yes, absolutely. So I I’ve worked with many women who they have been able to lose weight simply. mean, it is actually simple once you start doing it by adding the right combinations of foods, keeping their blood sugar low by adding protein, always combining their foods in ways where, for example, if you’re having a carb, you’re always pairing it with a fat or a protein. You’re never eating a carb alone. You’re never eating a fruit alone.

you’re eating it with something else. And so we really work on these principles in the form of actual meals. And so once people start doing it, many women are actually under eating. And that is the reason that they’re not losing weight, because under eating used to work, but now under eating just keeps you stuck because your body doesn’t have the nutrients that it needs to process all of the food and excrete it, reduce inflammation, and actually get your metabolism up. And so once you start eating enough, a lot of things start happening.

And when you start eating enough, you don’t have that food noise. You’re very satiated. You feel very good. given that, there are a few people that I have worked with that they did start taking GLP-1s and they had been seeing results, but then it really, there was something with their body that kept them going, that it helped them accelerate or help them keep up their results. And there’s some people that they did as much as they could

and then the GLP-1 helped them get over another hump. But I can say that’s for about 3 % of the women that I’ve worked with. So 97 % of the women are able to lose weight and able to curb their appetite and curb their food noise simply by understanding and being more educated about what they’re eating, which includes balancing their blood sugar, increasing their metabolism.

and eating the right amounts for their body. Those three things. And that’s what we specialize in. That’s what we know for every woman depending on their weight. It’s different. It’s very personalized. Once that happens, it’s amazing. It’s amazing what can happen afterwards because you’re giving your body the nutrients that it needs. You’re getting your metabolism high and the fat starts releasing. But GLP-1 does have a place for some people that I’ve seen.

Jannine Krause (31:36.849)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I’m not gonna hate on them. I think it’s one of those things that we need to be really cognizant of. Is it teaching us new behaviors? Because once we come off of them, then we have to make sure that we are on point with how we’re eating. Because unfortunately, I’m sure you’ve seen as well as I have, is people come off of them and the weight comes right back on because they didn’t.

work on balancing blood sugar, working on the behaviors, because GLP ones are balancing your blood sugar for you. That’s why you don’t have the food noise. so, nevertheless, it’s one of those things that, I think it’s very clear to think about it. Now, one of the things I wanted to ask about too, because you gave us some good examples with breakfast, I think for a lot of people, when we say balancing meals, I still think we’re a little bit not sure as to what,

the protein to carb to fat ratio looks like. And I believe it’s different for everyone, not everyone, but what do you start with? How do you start? Say someone’s listening to this right now and they’re like, well, I don’t really know how to balance my plate. I don’t really know what should be on there. How do you coach folks up on this?

Nagina (32:49.464)
Yes, that and this really this understanding this formula can change your complete body I mean just understand this from like because a lot of times you might especially for those people that are already healthy You’re eating healthy foods But it’s the proportions that you’re eating it in that are that are different and that are that are not not optimal and that’s exactly what I see when I when I Start looking at what people are eating who tell me that they’re already healthy They are healthy, but they’re not eating in the right portions and then we’d make a few switches and they’re

starts just literally coming off so fast. So I like to, I have a framework called the fat burning food framework. And the framework shows that on your plate, 50 % of your plate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is protein. So you have protein taking up 50%. The other about, so the other about 50%, 40, 50 % is vegetables. And at breakfast it can be fruit, low sugar fruit. So if you just envision that in your head, you’re just looking at your plate, you’re like, okay, about 50 % is protein.

So that means, you know, we talked about options at breakfast, but at lunch it could be things like chicken, tofu, it could still be eggs, it could be beef, you know, fish, it could be anything like that. It can also be Greek yogurt, and it can also be beans or lentils with hemp seeds. If you add hemp seeds that leans out beans and lentils, so it’s more helpful to be, to lose weight, especially for vegetarians or vegans. So you have 50 % protein, and then you have like 40 to 50 % veg-

So you just envision your plate like that, but then at two of those meals you want to have a serving of fat So a serving of fat are things like

If you’re having two eggs, you’re getting a serving of fat serving a fat as 14 about 14 grams of fat So that you have that about in the two eggs. It’s also a tablespoon of olive oil olive oil is really amazing to reduce your bloat So if you it has a lot of properties that have been scientifically proven that help you reduce bloating help you with anti swelling and so if you were to add a tablespoon of olive oil over your food On one of your meals make sure you’re adding it over so that it’s not getting cooked in the pan. It’s not getting released anywhere It’s just your

Nagina (34:59.6)
you’re literally consuming it. That’s gonna really be helpful and that’s 14 grams of fat. But also a lot of proteins have fat in them. like salmon is a protein and a fat. So if you have like a dinner of salmon and vegetables, that’s a perfectly balanced meal right there. That’s amazing. About four or five ounces of salmon would be great, which is about the size from your palm to the bottom of your palm to the top of your middle finger. That’s about four to five ounces and like a half inch.

inch to 3 fourths inch, so less than an inch thick.

And then if you have a food scale, it’ll help you, because it does help. It does help to show, because the fat, I’ll talk about why it’s important in a moment to understand the amounts you’re eating. But you could do beef that also has that, and also some, there’s other meats also that have, that also have fat in it. Or you could do half an avocado, or you could do two tablespoons of some kind of nut butter. So you have that in, for example, your breakfast and your dinner. That’s what I recommend.

then in your lunch, you have healthy carbs. you have about a half cup to one cup of healthy carbs. And healthy carbs are carbs that are very, very high in fiber. And the reason this is, and I’ll give some examples, but the reason this is important is because if you have more fiber in your carbs, usually carbs are getting broken down very quickly, and that’s what’s elevating your blood sugar. But when you add fiber into your carbs or when you’re eating foods with fiber, it slows the

digestion of that food. And then you’re also having this carb along with vegetables, which I mentioned before was in the fat burning food framework. Vegetables also have fiber and then protein, which both protein and fiber digest very slowly. So you’re eating your carb with these other foods and so that’s how you’re able to eat your carb, but you’re not elevating your blood sugar because you’re combining your foods in this way. And so some examples of healthy carbs, the best ones are beans or lentils, which you can either make or

Nagina (37:02.8)
you can purchase. If you have something like a Southwest salad for lunch, you have a salad with chicken on top, salsa, veggies, and then you also add some black beans. And your dressing could be salsa, actually. That could be amazing. You can use chickpeas, kidney beans, anything like that, or lentils. But you can also use Ezekiel bread, which is a healthier kind of bread. Sourdough bread and rye bread also work well. And then you can also use what I call slimming grains. So these are grains that don’t elevate

your blood sugar like rice does and these are things like millet, couscous, farro, buckwheat, those are great. And then you can also have potatoes that you cook but then you cool it and you can always warm it up again but when you cool them they create a resistant starch that doesn’t elevate your blood sugar as much. so potatoes are really important for women in midlife because they really help fuel our thyroid and help decrease hypothyroidism which a lot of women do face in midlife.

So if you imagine your plate at lunch, it could be something like chicken or fish with green beans or broccoli or a salad, and then also a cup of millet or one to two slices of Ezekiel bread with a little butter on it. And that’s a full meal. And you’re actually going to feel full and satisfied, but you learned how to eat more protein, eat healthy carbs, make sure you’re having more vegetables also, which is really important.

off with the protein and the veggies and then you layer on either a fat or a healthy carb for each meal and this is just absolutely so simple yet so life-changing. It helped me lose 40 pounds and then by prioritizing adding in that olive oil and adding more anti-inflammatory foods I was able to lose that other 20 pounds that I gained through midlife bloating.

Jannine Krause (38:54.382)
Gotcha. Yeah, the bloating is a big deal. And interesting with olive oil, do you have a particular type of olive oil that you love, like a brand or where it’s imported from or whatnot?

Nagina (39:05.74)
Yes, I do. have this brand from Whole Foods that I love that has the thing about olive oil is that it has a lot of polyphenols. And what polyphenols do is they help you bring your bloating down. And so the name of it, I just don’t know at the moment, but I’ll try to find it before we are done.

Jannine Krause (39:33.489)
No worries. I always like to ask because one of the biggest things that kills me is that the more cost-effective olive oils are often blends and sometimes we’ll end up with a little bit of canola and olive oil. so finding a good quality source is really important. Now, the other thing that some women have, and this is one of the things that happened to me when I started to go into perimenopause, I started to become part squirrel. And I joke about this a lot on the podcast because I just like wanted to eat nuts all the time.

And part of it I think was just ease because I could stick my hand in a bag and have that as a meal and I was being lazy and not making food. And to this day, I still have this issue with the nuts, right? So I have to watch it and in terms of fat, I learned that it really did matter, it does matter how much fat, like you were saying, one has and how much fiber. And so what have you seen with clients who crave fat?

Have you found it, like the protein and fiber really to be the secret for them? Or have you found that there were different like needs, like maybe olive oil, different types of fats, and so you wouldn’t gravitate towards the raw nuts or seeds or things like that.

Nagina (40:46.222)
Yeah, oh my god, this is such a good question and actually something very, very common that people don’t even realize because nuts sound so healthy. And so you just feel like, OK, I’m being healthy, you know? And so wait, before we do that, I did find that olive oil. It’s called Costarina, K-O-S-T-E-R-I-N-A. It’s an amazing olive oil. It’s from Whole Foods. it’s very clean. It has a really great amount of polyphenols, which is the reason that olive oil is so beneficial. And that’s the reason berries are also so beneficial because they have polyphenols in them, which

really make a difference in bloating and especially in midlife.

And so the thing about fat is that fat is very calorically dense. So if you have two tablespoons of peanut butter, that’s almost 200 calories. And it can be really easy to eat double that or triple that. you don’t mean two tablespoons goes in a moment if you don’t realize what you’re eating. And the same with nuts is it’s almost like it’s something like two tablespoons is 14 grams of fat and 200 calories, 180 calories. And so two tablespoons seems like so little. So if you’re kind of going

in the bag and adding it, you could likely be eating 600 calories of that, which is a significant amount of your daily calories and it doesn’t have any protein in it. It could be 30 % of your daily calories maybe or more.

So so really what you want to do is make sure that you are This is the one food that I say that you really want to look at the portion sizes for I mean I always advocate eating more vegetables You know eating more protein, but for fat I advocate really making sure you’re eating the right amount Which is one serving size or 14 grams at two different meals and then you can have one snack So my saying is for 14 fat three times a day and each each serving of fat is

Nagina (42:37.008)
14 grams. This is really really important because this is this the number one reason I mentioned that women are not losing weight in midlife is because they’re under eating. The number two reason I’ve seen that women are not losing weight in midlife is because they’re mistakenly eating too much fat and it’s because they think it’s healthy and so you know if you’re craving fat sometimes you just don’t realize how

you don’t realize alternatives to fat. You don’t realize how much, how many calories are in fat. So once you start being conscious of it, you can start adding other things. but, but what I, what I, what

Is that if you start eating enough protein you’ll start to feel more full and satiated But you also want to have the right amount of fat if you under eat fat You’re gonna be craving it as well So you really want to eat that right amount but be full from other foods like protein vegetables the fiber from vegetables, etc

So so that’s why you know fat is not bad because if you under eat fat It’s not helpful and and in midlife we actually there’s there fat is helping us reduce Swelling and inflammation that is caused because our hormones are declining. They were they were giving us a protective effect For inflammation and now that they’re declining or are gone We don’t have that protection anymore and that’s a huge reason that there’s so much more inflammation and bloating and what fat does

is it it’s anti-inflammatory and it’s anti-swelling and so the most effective fats for this for these benefits are olive oil like I mentioned flaxseed oil, flaxseed and then avocados and the reason for this is because we the swelling in our body a lot of it is a lot of the imbalance of inflammation it’s it’s caused because we don’t have that protection from from our hormones but we’re

Nagina (44:32.356)
We also have it’s very common to have an imbalance of what’s called omega-6 fats and omega-3 fats and so usually the fats that we’re eating in most foods including nuts including processed foods Including lots of things they have more omega-6s and when you have when you have more omega-6s than omega-3s that causes swelling So to get the balance to get that balance, right? You want to add more foods with omega-3s. Those are flax seed is one

the best. Flaxseed oil is amazing and then also salmon is amazing and then you’re having the olive oil and the

Those are great fats for those polyphenols for other anti swelling effects But if you if you reduce the fat your swelling is going to increase So you really like you want to have the right amount of fat and what I found that to be within the context of the fat burning food Framework is fat three times a day one serving each which is about 14 grams each. So This is really game-changing because we do look at the amounts of fats that women eat and the moment we bring it to the right place

And then they’re also their protein is right. They just it’s just it’s just all released But a lot of times if their protein is right, but their fat is too high by mistake They won’t lose weight So it’s important to know how much you’re eating but not under eat fat not overeat fat Make sure you starting by adding more protein and then moderating your fat

Jannine Krause (46:01.958)
Makes sense, makes sense. Thanks for bringing that down. Because I think that’s a big issue that we don’t talk about as much because blood sugar, blood sugar, blood sugar, you know, is kind of a hot topic. But it is something that I found with myself. I was overeating on the fat and the protein was up, but it just wasn’t the right amount. So I like folks to hear that too. All right, so we’ve talked a ton about food. We dove into all kinds of different things. Let’s talk about your slim down programs because you have three of them.

and I’d love for folks to kind of hear the different ways that they can work with you.

Nagina (46:33.582)
Yes, absolutely.

Well, the first thing I want to let people know is that I am having a free metabolism boosting workshop specifically for midlife women. And during this workshop, what I’m going be doing is it’s a five day metabolism boost workshop for midlife women. Every day I’m going to be teaching for an hour and I’m going to be teaching on very specific things for women in midlife. For example, metabolism boosting, a metabolism boosting breakfast routine. I’m going to be talking about how to balance your blood sugar without feeling tired or

restricted in how to actually get off of sugar. And I’m gonna be going in detail in the fat burning food framework, including sharing templates and a very in depth workbook that helps you frame out what you’re gonna eat and the right amounts. And I’m gonna walk you through all of that.

And so this is so the five day metabolism boost it’s really you’re gonna get a simple five step plan to naturally boost your metabolism through delicious food and so you can get your get your spot here. It’s starting really soon and it’s miss all about e.com forward slash boost and we’ll have the link below as well. And so so that is that is something you know really helpful and then during that I’ll talk

programs as well. do have three programs. have, well I have my 12 month slim down transformation program, a six month slim down transformation program, and then an eight week slim down jump start. And that is where I help women.

Nagina (48:02.382)
You have your own personalized coach. We meet you where you are, and we personalize your journey so that you learn exactly what to eat, what to do in different situations, and we co-create a lifestyle with you by giving you very personalized feedback and also a lot of accountability. And so these programs are really effective, and the length of time really depends on what you’re looking for for yourself.

because my longer programs, the six month and the 12 month, include what’s called a bloat bust, where we go deep into releasing inflammation around your belly once we get the fat off. There’s still inflammation and there are two different animals. And so we address the bloating by using those higher fat, healthy omega-3 type foods and really showing you how to add that in. But the first stage is the fat burning food framework where we really burn fat for you. So those are a little bit about my upcoming

five-day metabolism boost, which I would love for you to attend, learn all of this. I’ll share more even about how to work together, but it’s a really great value there in that five-day metabolism boost that’s totally free too.

Jannine Krause (49:13.336)
Awesome, awesome, I’m excited to hear about it. I will definitely check it out and then we’ll have it in the podcast notes guys at drjcrowsend.com. my gosh, Nagina, thank you so much for coming on. So much great info. I learned, I mean, the olive oil with bloat, I was not aware of that. So this is fascinating. And then cinnamon, of course, being able to put on so many different things. think this is a good thing for folks to be able to start with and heck, know, easy things we can do.

I appreciate you coming on and sharing so much information with us.

Nagina (49:44.6)
Yes, absolutely, and also I just want to mention my sweet spice cheat sheet that I’ll also have linked, which is, we talked about it with an easy fat burning fire tea recipe. Five ways to use it in your day, we’ll also link that below. And you can just click on that. And so I look forward to having you check that out as well.

Jannine Krause (50:03.984)
Thank you so much for coming on, I appreciate it.

Nagina (50:06.53)
Thank you, Janine. Thank you so much.