DR CABOT: Hello. My name is Dr Sandra Cabot and I’m here today with our wonderful naturopath, Victoria Taylor. Hi Victoria.

VICTORIA: Hello Dr Cabot. Thank you everybody for listening to us.

DR CABOT: Yes, all you wonderful people out there that listen to us. We love you very much. And today we’re going to talk to you about our new Weight Loss Detective program. And it really is a very interesting program, based on the premise that when it comes to weight loss, one size does not fit all. And that’s why we’ve developed the Weight Loss Detectives, who are trained and qualified to look into underlying causes that could be preventing you from losing the excessive weight that you’ve been carrying. Doesn’t matter for how long. But the people who come to us are people who really tried everything else to lose weight, even including bariatric surgery. But they put the weight back on. And they know that losing weight is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. And it can be impossible to lose the weight till you find all the missing parts to that jigsaw puzzle. So that’s what the Weight Loss Detectives help you to do.

So, when you join our program, you fill in a very comprehensive questionnaire, which is analyzed by a Weight Loss Detective. And you receive a personalized report and recommendations based on your answers. And you also get regular monthly consults with the Weight Loss Detective. You can also have blood tests that look for hidden causes of weight excess. We are also going to be doing fortnightly podcasts and monthly Zoom seminars and answering your personal questions via email.

So, Victoria, we were discussing how weight loss really is like a puzzle. And for many people, they try different parts of the puzzle, but they don’t get all the missing pieces. And that’s why they give up.

VICTORIA: Yes. There are just so many reasons for why people can’t lose weight. Some of them are actually biochemical, functional, and there are the psychological ones. And those are the ones that we’re going to address, as well as there’s no blood test for those. But as we get to know each other on our many consultations, we can tease those out and overcome those by making them shrink, be appropriate for you, so that you can overcome any of those that you might have.

DR CABOT: That’s right! The secret is self-discovery, really.

VICTORIA: Definitely! People with a weight problem usually just have a poor self-image. It‘s not fair! Not fair on yourself, because there’s so many things that can be causing that and hampering your best efforts. It can be a faulty gut microbiome. It can be your hitchhikers that are causing the problem. Nothing to do with you at all! Just have to get them back in the line.

DR CABOT: That’s right! Because if you have got an overgrowth of yeast or unhealthy bacteria in your small intestine, they want to be fed! And they will release substances that make you crave carbohydrates.

VICTORIA: They definitely do! And they don’t go out without a fight. But don’t worry! We’ve got the ways of actually curtailing them.

DR CABOT: You starve the buggers.

VICTORIA: Starve the buggers and outcompete them. And you give yourself different forms of energy that are safe.

DR CABOT: That’s right. Non fermentable by the unhealthy bacteria. So, we’ve got to get your gut bacteria right. That’s important, if you’re overweight. We look at your liver. We find that in most people who’ve been overweight for several years, their liver’s not working properly. It’s storing fat when it should be burning fat. So, they have a fatty liver that has to be addressed.

VICTORIA: Or you can have their phase 1, phase 2 can be out of sync. And they’ve got a lot of inflammation. There’s inflammation. They’ll store fluid. It’s just correcting, so that your body can actually work in sync with you.

DR CABOT: It’s balancing the physiology.

VICTORIA: It is indeed!

DR CABOT: You’ve got to fine tune the biochemistry and the physiology. And hunger hormones. That’s another thing that we can test for, if you want. But usually, they will be elevated, if you have been overweight for years. You’ll have high levels of insulin and leptin, which are the hunger hormones. So, you won’t really know when you’re hungry or not. You’ll just eat because..

VICTORIA: …because you want to eat!

DR CABOT: And you’ll have excessive hunger and it won’t go away. So, you’re never satisfied.

VICTORIA: Well, you just don’t get that message that “Now’s the time to stop eating”. So, you just keep on going.

DR CABOT: That’s right! So, we have to get those hunger hormones under control. We always look at the thyroid, because thyroid hormone controls your metabolic rate. So, if your thyroid gland is sluggish – mind you, it may not show up in conventional blood test – but you will have a slow metabolic rate.

VICTORIA: And that’s a bit like having a 25 meter handicap in a 100 meters sprint. It’s just not fair You’ve got to work harder to get the same effort for somebody that’s got a well-functioning thyroid.

DR CABOT: That’s right! And in women, there’s often other hormones to blame, such as progesterone deficiency, which occurs in polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is always associated with insulin resistance in the women who are overweight with polycystic ovaries.

Now, we’re not ignoring the guys out there It’s for men too.

VICTORIA: That’s exactly right!

DR CABOT: So, any guys out there who think they’re going through male menopause or andropause and have low testosterone, we can help them. We have to address the low testosterone.

VICTORIA: Now, we also may have to address the conversion of their testosterone to estrogen. And if you’ve got man boobs, they’re the ones we’re talking to.

DR CABOT: That’s right! Yes, man boobs.

VICTORIA: That can be reversed. It’s not a one-way street. It’s a cul-de-sac. There’s a way out.

DR CABOT: Yes. You can get rid of those. They call it gynecomastia, which is enlarged breast tissue in men. We can get rid of that just by looking at your diet, balancing your hormones, improving your liver.

Also, a lot of women, when they go through menopause, find their metabolism slows down. They put on weight. So once again, we need to balance the hormones, and we need a healthy liver and healthy adrenals. We need to look at your environment. Are you exposed to a lot of toxic chemicals and plastics, because they are obesogens

VICTORIA: But it’s so hard now to not be exposed to those. But we can just show you ways, whereby you can actually minimize those just by choosing to not do certain things that are potentially toxic to the body.

DR CABOT: That’s right! Like heating food in a plastic container in a microwave. Or having hot drinks out of a plastic container.

VICTORIA: Or leaving your water bottle in the sun in a plastic container.

DR CABOT: And also, you may need help to detoxify your body of plastics and other obesogenic chemicals.

We also look at your medications. Are you taking certain prescribed drugs that are known to put on weight. Because sometimes there are alternatives that don’t put on weight. And you can talk to your doctor about that and talk to us.

We’ll address sugar addiction, which is the most common addiction of all. How you can overcome sugar addiction.

We’re going to look at eating disorders or what we call disordered eating. That can often be a result of stress, low self-esteem…

VICTORIA: And sabotage. Self-sabotage. Family can sabotage you. And so can friends. And friends are often a very potent source of sabotage units, because if they don’t want to lose weight, they don’t want you to be nice and thin. So, let’s just keep that one in your mind.

DR CABOT: That’s right! Believe in yourself! Believe in yourself!

VICTORIA: Definitely!

DR CABOT: We’ll be looking at your sleep. Because if you don’t get enough sleep, that will definitely increase weight gain. We will be looking at food intolerances and allergies. We’ll be looking at adrenal gland function. We’ll be looking at your exercise. And we’ll be looking at your mood.

VICTORIA: With exercise, it’s appropriate exercise. We don’t want people crashing and burning. When you start off, we start off slow. And then, as you can increase the intensity, well, we encourage you.

DR CABOT: That’s right! And, of course, some people can’t exercise very much. They might have very bad arthritis or low back pain. Or they might have a disability or a neurological problem. And those people need help to design a program of exercise, perhaps with a physiotherapist or personal trainer. Or we can suggest exercises that are achievable in people with those handicaps.

And we can adjust your diet, so that you don’t have as much carbohydrate, which you don’t need if you can’t exercise. But the healthy foods to replace the carbohydrate. that won’t put on weight. We cater for a lot of different diets.

VICTORIA: The range is quite amazing! I defy anybody to find something that we’re not going to be covering here.

DR CABOT: Yes, such as ketogenic diet. A regular ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting meal plan. We can do a vegetarian ketogenic diet, if you are vegetarian. We can do a vegan low carbohydrate diet. We can do a vegetarian low carbohydrate diet, that is not necessarily ketogenic. We can do the rapid weight loss HCG diet. We can do the 15-Day Cleanse. We can do a meal replacement diet, if you want that. But a healthy meal replacement, not one that’s full of artificial chemicals or sugars. We can give you dietary support after gastric sleeve surgery. And we can do individual meal plans as an extra service for people with food allergies, sensitivities or special needs.

VICTORIA: Oh, that one’s very, very important!

DR CABOT: Yes. So, it’s important to cater the eating plan for the individual. And variety is important too. Sometimes people will try a ketogenic diet and then they’ll say “Oh, I’m really missing fruit. And now I’ve got down to my goal weight, I want modification.”

VICTORIA: Then you transition up to something else that appeals to you because you’re not going to stay on… These aren’t diets. They are new ways of eating. We’re looking for a new dietary lifestyle for you to adopt. So, that as you adopt this as the way you eat, you’d never have to have a diet again. Because it will just engender permanent weight stability at that nice low end.

DR CABOT: That’s right! And we can also help you discover your body type. So, there are four different body types, and each one has unique hormonal metabolic characteristics, which explains why some people put on weight more easily and why they put it on in certain areas of their body. So once again, it’s tailormade for the individual. And you get that wonderful support from your Weight Loss Detective, which is very important because otherwise you’ll lose your focus and you’ll lose your motivation. You need to stay focused. People do really well for a while. And then stress gets in the way. They get distracted by the stress, by other people. They lose their focus and forget that their health is the most important thing they’ve got in their lives.

VICTORIA: But there’s also, once a person is on something and they haven’t got somebody to answer to. That can also… We’ve got more than one way of keeping you on task.

DR CABOT: The Weight Loss Detectives are tough!

VICTORIA: Ohhh! Yes.

DR CABOT: And they’re also smart. They’re all qualified…

VICTORIA: Yes. We keep on task.

DR CABOT: …with proper degrees and nutrition, naturopathy or medicine. And they know what they’re doing and they’re experts in their field. So, the Weight Loss Detective program is unique and it’s going to be very helpful. And it’s very affordable, so that people can have the long-term support.

So, we’re going to have a wonderful website and facilities that you can stay in contact with us online, because that’s the way the world these days, isn’t it?

VICTORIA: Well, it makes it easy. Because this way, if you’re at the back of Bullamakanka, it doesn’t matter. We are going to be able to assist you within your environment. And that’s what I really honor about the program. Is that we meet you, where you are.

DR CABOT: That’s right! Okay! Well, thanks Victoria. You’ve been very helpful.

VICTORIA: My pleasure.

DR CABOT: And it’s stay in touch for more exciting information from the Weight Loss Detectives. Bye.