Alicia Galvin On The 5 Things You Need To Do To Achieve a Healthy Body Weight, And Keep It Permanently
Get enough sleep: sleep is key to helping your body rebuild and is when your liver is most actively detoxifying your system. Not getting enough sleep can lead to weight gain, irritability, decreased immune function and increased stress. Just plan to go to bed 30min earlier than you are now and it will add up over time.
So many of us have tried dieting. All too often though, many of us lose 10–20 pounds, but we end up gaining it back. Not only is yo-yo dieting unhealthy, it is also demoralizing and makes us feel like giving up. What exactly do we have to do to achieve a healthy body weight and to stick with it forever?
In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Do To Achieve A Healthy Body Weight And Keep It Permanently” we are interviewing health and wellness professionals who can share lessons from their research and experience about how to do this.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alicia Galvin.
Alicia Galvin, MEd, RD, LD, IFNCP, has been a practicing registered and licensed dietitian in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since 2010. Alicia’s key areas of focus include GI health, therapeutic diets, wellness, and autoimmunity. She is the co-founder of SIBO Academy, a training platform to teach other RDs how to manage clients with gut issues, and also serves as the resident dietician for Sovereign Laboratories. Our guts are often referred to as our second brain and Alicia has always had a fascination with the way food and nutrition influence our health and wellness. Alicia believes in an integrative and functional approach to help patients develop customized solutions that empower them to take control of their health challenges.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory? What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
I knew I wanted to be a dietitian when I was about 13 years old. I have always been fascinated by the human body and by nutrition. I think our bodies are the most amazing machines on the planet, and so intelligent, always trying to do what it thinks is the best for us. I have always been an avid athlete from grade school, high school and into college. I am a runner and have run several marathons, Ragnar races, and half marathons. From a young age, I realized the importance of nutrition and wellness in physical performance.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?
There are so many people I need to thank for helping me get here. I have had many amazing mentors, role models, and dietitians who have served a vital role in shaping me into who I am today. But the first person who comes to mind is my mom. When I first decided to start my own practice, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty about stepping out as a business owner, leaving a salaried job, and having to build a career from scratch. But she assured me and reassured me every step of the way that this was something I was made for and could succeed. Had it not been for her encouragement, I probably would have not been as confident as I was to push through the tough parts and get my practice going.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
I cannot think of one.
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?
“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” — Roy T Bennet. I feel like this sums up my journey as an entrepreneur because when you have your own practice, there is so much out of your control, and yet those are the things that can sometimes consume your mind with worry- will clients see me, will people like me, will I earn enough to make a living, etc. All of that is out of our control, but we can control what we create our businesses to be. We can create and build content, services, good, etc. to try to fulfill those needs, so I have tried to focus on what I CAN control and do the best I can at that.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
Currently, I am building an online training platform for dietitians with a colleague of mine. We are focused on gut health and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which is an area that many dietitians are not trained adequately in, so we have a robust platform that provides science-based trainings to help fill that gap. So far it has been very successful and well received.
For the benefit of our readers, can you briefly let us know why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field?
I have been a registered dietitian for 10 years. To become an RD, you must first go through 4 years of a Nutritional Sciences degree which includes all the nutrition courses plus anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, and genetics. Then you must do a 1–2-year postgraduate internship which rotates you through all the different settings of nutrition. Then you must sit for a national registration exam, and then become licensed if your state has RD licensure. I have completed that training as well as additional training in functional nutrition with the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy and Next Level Functional Nutrition, which not every dietitian does. A functionally nutrition trained dietitian always has additional training to look at clients with a different perspective.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about achieving a healthy body weight. Let’s begin with a basic definition of terms so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define a “Healthy Body Weight”?
Weight should honestly be out of the equation because truly the number on the scale often has no reflection on how healthy a person actually is. You can have someone slightly overweight and very healthy or someone at a “healthy weight” defined by BMI but very unhealthy. Genetics also can play a large role in weight as well. But focusing on the number on the scale is often very stressful and can lead to obsessions in my experience with clients.
How can an individual learn what is a healthy body weight for them? How can we discern what is “too overweight” or what is “too underweight”?
Generally, it is best to determine a healthy weight by the body fat percentage since someone could be very muscular and technically “overweight”. BMI is often used but this does not account for muscle mass and bone structure. For an average adult, it is healthy to have a range of 25–30% body fat for women and about 18–24% for men. There are different body fat percentage ranges for those who fall into a fitness or athletic lifestyle category and require a different amount of essential fat to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Individuals looking to understand what a healthy body weight or body fat percentage is for them should work with a professional who can help them determine a personalized, healthy range based on their goals, body type, overall health, and lifestyle.
This might be intuitive to you, but it will be instructive to expressly articulate this. Can you please share a few reasons why being over your healthy body weight, or under your healthy body weight, can be harmful to your health?
If you have a higher percentage body fat, over 32% for women and over 25% for men, then this will lead to increases in certain conditions like cardiovascular disease, stroke, decreased cognitive function, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and overall higher inflammation.
In contrast, can you help articulate a few examples of how a person who achieves and maintains a healthy body weight will feel better and perform better in many areas of life?
Healthy body fat and body weight can lead to a longer lifespan, less likelihood of developing cognitive decline, better mobility into more advanced age, and less likelihood of developing chronic diseases like diabetes.
Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our discussion. Can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Do To Achieve a Healthy Body Weight And Keep It Permanently?”. If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
- Move every day. Even if it is 5–10 min of high-intensity exercise, that will go further for your health than 1 hour, 2–3 days a week. Physical movement moves your blood, which carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and helps decrease inflammation and will help with weight control.
- Reduce the amount of sugar you consume in the form of sodas, juices, sweets, candy, sugary cereals, and sugar sweetened coffee. Removing as much added sugar as possible will help reduce inflammation, body fat, and can improve blood sugar balance which will help with sleep. It also will remove excess, empty calories that can contribute to weight gain.
- Get enough sleep: sleep is key to helping your body rebuild and is when your liver is most actively detoxifying your system. Not getting enough sleep can lead to weight gain, irritability, decreased immune function and increased stress. Just plan to go to bed 30min earlier than you are now and it will add up over time.
- Include liposomal bovine colostrum daily. The key to sustained and permanent weight loss is attaining an increase in lean body mass by increasing one’s resting metabolic rate and balancing blood glucose (sugar) levels throughout the day. Colostrum supplementation can promote the utilization of stored fat for fuel (anabolism) and balance blood glucose levels between meals so that food cravings are decreased. Even without dieting, blood glucose levels drop about two hours after a meal, and the body enters a catabolic state whereby it begins using the protein in muscle tissue for fuel. A diet high in protein and colostrum helps keep the body in an anabolic state, thereby preserving existing muscle tissue and promoting growth of new muscle tissue. Liposomal bovine colostrum contains large quantities of leptin, the hormone that regulates appetite, food intake, and ultimately, body weight.
- Focus on eating healthy fat at each meal. Healthy fat at each meal will help keep blood sugar and insulin steady, making you less hungry throughout the day. Also, studies show that avoiding high carb and/or highly refined meals and instead aiming for meals higher in healthy fats like avocados, fatty fish, nuts, seeds, olives, olive oil and eggs, can help shift body composition. Of course, keeping overall calories within appropriate limits.
The emphasis of this series is how to maintain an ideal weight for the long term, and how to avoid yo-yo dieting. Specifically, how does a person who loses weight maintain that permanently and sustainably?
Make slow changes and establish healthy eating and movement patterns over time rather than quick weight loss strategies. The quick strategies do not work in the short term (extreme dieting and calorie restriction, juice fasts, cleanses, etc.). But if you make changes over time, they become your routine and more sustainable.
What are a few of the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they try to lose weight? What errors cause people to just snap back to their old unhealthy selves? What can they do to avoid those mistakes?
Most often I see people try to do the “quick fix” and want results immediately, which sometimes works, but often they end up back where they started. Also, people do not factor in other elements like stress levels, sleep, and over exercising. I find that people are more successful when they approach achieving a healthy weight from a holistic standpoint and take into account other lifestyle habits. Diet will only take you so far if you are stressed, working out too hard without enough recovery or not sleeping.
How do we take all this information and integrate it into our actual lives? The truth is that we all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?
I think time is the biggest challenge for people. We all have only 24hrs in a day, and it is up to us to decide how we choose to use those hours. Different people have different priorities and responsibilities that dictate what hours are used in a day. But the first step is to choose to do something for yourself and make a commitment to yourself to find that time in your day to make one change.
On the flip side, how can we prevent these ideas from just being trapped in a rarified, theoretical ideal that never gets put into practice? What specific habits can we develop to take these intellectual ideas and integrate them into our normal routine?
Start in one area and focus on that area for several weeks until it becomes a habit. Maybe start with just including one more veggie at lunch and dinner or start with adding two more glasses of water a day. For sleep, try going to bed 30 minutes to 1 hour earlier than you normally do, or try incorporating 5 minutes of deep breathing daily to help with stress. It is not about the grandiosity of the change, but the consistency, so start small and increase or add in changes as you feel comfortable
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I cannot think of one.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)
I cannot think of one.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.
