#93 What causes sugar cravings, should you have cheat meals, and is almond milk better than soy milk? With Cassie Bjork!
Welcome back to another episode! Today’s guest is a globally recognized industry leader in weight loss, a highly sought-after speaker, and #1 International Best Selling Author of Why Am I Still Fat? The Hidden Keys to Unlocking That Stubborn Weight Loss. For more than a decade, she has helped tens of thousands of women and men achieve the bodies they want—not by starving or skimping, but by feeding themselves foods that fuel effective and sustainable weight loss. It is such an honor to have Cassie Bjork on the show today!
Audio version: https://chantelray.podbean.com/e/wa93/
Video version: https://youtu.be/imfqawSAinc
Cassie’s website: https://www.cassie.net/
Chantel Ray: Hey, guys. Welcome to this week’s episode, and I’m so excited because today’s guest is a globally-recognized industry leader in weight loss, and who doesn’t want to lose another extra pound? She is the number one international best-selling author of Why Am I Still Fat? The Hidden Keys to Unlocking That Stubborn Weight Loss. For more than a decade, she’s helped tens of thousands of women and men, not just women, achieve the body that they want. It’s such an honor. Cassie Bjork, welcome to the show today.
Cassie Bjork: Thanks, Chantel. I’m super excited to be here. I saw you were at Paleo f(x). I don’t know why we didn’t connect there.
Chantel Ray: You know what? I had a wedding this weekend, so I was supposed to be there, but I had a wedding I could not get out of, and so we have Michelle Norris, the CEO on our podcast, and so tell me about Paleo f(x). I was dying to be there. If I could have been there, I would have. Tell me about it.
Cassie Bjork: Oh, right, yeah. What I love about Paleo f(x) is, it’s just such a cool, holistic health conference where everybody that’s there is just wanting to improve their health and their energy and vitality, and I speak there every year, and this year, I got to speak on why … My talk was called Why One Nationally Recognized Dietitian Kissed Her License Goodbye and the Shady Side of the Food Industry and What You Need to Know About It. I’m sure we’ll dive into some of this stuff today in our conversation, but it’s just something I’m super passionate about and just really opening people’s eyes to some of the stuff that goes on that we don’t see. Really, I’m sure we’ll dive into why my approach to health is very unconventional. My program is called Rule Breakers because we’re breaking a lot of the dieting rules that we’ve been told for years. It’s just really fun to get to share that message from the stage at Paleo f(x) and just see some new people that are uniting with the same mission and passion, their health in mind.
Chantel Ray: That’s awesome. I know that you really talk about, just like me, you’ve tried every diet out there, and even once, you tried to count your calories, and you gained weight. Tell us about that, and tell us about that story.
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, I mean the crazy thing about this is, I went into school to be a registered dietitian because I was just excited. I was passionate about nutrition and health and helping people, and I knew that food was the answer to a lot of things. Nutrition is really important. When I went into school to be a dietitian, they were teaching all of the metabolism equations and calories in and calories out and exercise more, and eat less, count calories, so that’s what I did. I followed the low fat, low calorie diet. I started running marathons, and I restricted my food intake, and for the first time in my life, I started gaining weight, and not just two or three or five pounds but 10, 15, 20 pounds. Before I knew it, I was 25 pounds heavier than I am now. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had this happen before where you’re following all the dieting rules, and you’re eating oatmeal for breakfast with skimmed milk and those hundred-calorie snack pack crackers for snack. Lunch was wholegrain bread with lean meat and fat-free cheese. What even is that?
Cassie Bjork: I was eating those types of things, and as I started to gain weight, I doubled down on the dieting rules. I ate less, and I worked out more, and I still was gaining weight. Literally, the only thing I was losing was my self-worth and my confidence, and especially being, I was training to be the expert in all things metabolism and weight loss, this was super, super confusing and frustrating and embarrassing for me. Anyone who’s dieted and tried to lose weight probably knows how that feels.
Chantel Ray: I ask everyone this. I ask every person I meet. It’s funny, because I had some really great interviews. I had to go to that wedding I was telling you about. I found these girls who had … You’ll see on our Facebook and our Instagram, I just posted these two girls that had the most amazing body. They were both 38 or 40 years old, and I saw their bodies. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” so immediately, my husband was like, he saw me glaring over them. He was like, “Oh, there she goes.” I was like, “I’ll be back.” He’s like, “Of course.” I was literally gone for … He got mad at me because I was gone for an hour and a half. We became best friends with these girls that I never met. Of course, I said, “What do you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner? Tell me everything that you eat,” so I’ll ask you, “What did you eat yesterday? What did your eating look like in the morning, afternoon, everything?”
Cassie Bjork: Well, it’s very different than when I was following the low fat, low calorie diet. I mean these days, I eat more butter than I have ever eaten. For breakfast every day, I have a couple of eggs cooked in coconut oil, and I use a couple huge spoonfuls of coconut oil in the pan. Then, I put some spinach in there. I just saute it altogether. Then, I usually do … Today, I did half of a sweet potato sauteed in there with the eggs. Yesterday, I did half a banana on the side with some almond butter on it. I always think of things. I think of it like protein, fat and carbs, so PFC. You want to have protein, fat and carbs every time you eat. This has taken a lot of brainwashing for me because back in the day, we were taught in the 1970s that you’re supposed to eat less fat, that low fat is the holy grail.
Cassie Bjork: We’re supposed to restrict calories and fat, but the problem is, and what I found, the crazy thing is, as I was gaining this weight, I started to really look into the research. I was like, “Holy cow, my whole dietitian education isn’t even based on actual science.” I found that there’s a lot of really scary intertwining with the big food industry and the pharmaceutical industry and food sponsorships and food manufacturers and my dietitian education. That’s where it became very interesting and eye-opening for me.
Cassie Bjork: I started to look into the research, and I realized that wow, your metabolism, there’s actually a lot more to it than just food and exercise. You have to take into consideration things like hormones, thyroid, stress, sleep, supplements. Yes, food matters and I’m glad we’re talking about food because it’s really important, and exercise matters too, but all of these different pieces of the puzzle, which would end up becoming chapters in my number one international best-selling book called Why Am I Still Fat? because we have to look at all these pieces of the puzzle. For me, food is important, and I eat pretty well. I mean I eat more fat and more calories than I’ve ever eaten in my whole life, but it’s not just about food. These days, I focus so much more on self-care and keeping my stress levels down and doing the right types of exercise but not too much and making sure to rest. I have to look at all of the pieces of the puzzle.
Chantel Ray: Okay, so let’s go back to what you ate.
Cassie Bjork: Oh, yeah.
Chantel Ray: In the morning, you had those two eggs with coconut oil. You had a little bit of sweet potato, and then what about for lunch?
Cassie Bjork: Oh, for lunch, I always have a huge salad with a really big piece of salmon or some other type of fish, but I usually have salmon. For protein, I always try to think, you want to have the thickness and the circumference of the palm of your hand for protein because protein is actually what boosts your metabolism the most. It can boost your metabolism up to 35% for the following two to three hours after you eat it, so a lot of us don’t always think of protein at lunch. A lot of the times, when people have salads of lunch, they get hungry in an hour or two later, and it’s because they’re not having enough protein on it. If you don’t like salmon, you can always add hard boiled eggs, a couple of hard boiled eggs, but I usually do a huge piece of salmon. That’s my protein. My carbs is all the salad veggies. Then, for fat, I slice up half of an avocado. I also use olive oil for dressing. That’s a pretty easy basic lunch.
Cassie Bjork: Another, sometimes, I do this for lunch, but yesterday, I did this for a snack in the afternoon. I buy those cans of tuna, canned salmon and canned chicken, and I alternate them. Yesterday, since I had salmon for lunch, I had the canned tuna as my afternoon snack. I literally just buy the one that’s packed in olive oil, so it’s protein and fat already in the can, open it up, and I literally just take a spoon and just eat it. I’ll have a handful of grapes on the side for carbohydrates. I’m getting protein from the tuna, fat from the olive oil and carbs from the grapes. I always try to think like that, like the whole PFC.
Cassie Bjork: Then, for dinner last night, I actually had fish again because my neighbor cooked dinner, and I went over there, and she was making these … I think they were just tilapia fish filets, but that was my protein. She cooked them in coconut oil. I watched her cook it in coconut oil. Then, she served sweet potatoes, and she had broccoli and asparagus on the side, so I just had a bunch of different carbs. It was protein, fat and carbs every time you eat. The reason that’s important is that actually helps keep your energy levels up, your blood sugar levels stable. It helps keep your metabolism boosted, helps you lose weight if you want to lose weight because having the protein, the fat and the carbohydrate, they all work together to keep everything nice and stable. If you skip any of them, you’re just not going to be as balanced. You’ll probably feel the effects too.
Chantel Ray: I know you spoke at the Paleo f(x) conference. Are you a big advocate? Is that the majority of your diet? Would you say you eat 80% paleo? Would you say you eat 90% paleo? What’s that ratio for you of how much of your diet would be basically lean meats or just meat, fruits and vegetables?
Cassie Bjork: I’m a lot more liberal than I think a lot of paleo people are. I’m pretty in-line with the approach, but I think back when I was trying to lose weight, I was a lot more clean eating and stricter about falling close to that paleo approach, but then, when I reached my goal weight, I really started to just not be so stressed about food. I think for me, I really do focus on fruit and vegetable carbohydrates for the most part, but I’m not going to say that I never have a piece of bread or a cupcake or something like that. What’s interesting is, ever since eating a lot cleaner and following more of a paleo approach, I noticed that I pay attention to how my body responds. If I have something like ice cream or a cupcake or even a muffin or something like that, I noticed that I feel different. I feel tired after, and I got brain fog. I crave more sugar because sugar is addictive, and the more we eat, the more we crave.
Cassie Bjork: We get into this vicious cycle. It’s so easy to fall into that vicious cycle of sugar addiction. It’s actually something that I struggled with for a long time, was getting those super compelling cravings for sugar, which we can talk about in a little bit too, but just one of the reasons why you get sugar cravings is when your blood sugars are low, your brain is super smart. Its SOS system goes off, and you crave sugar. A lot of people talk about will power like, “I just don’t have any will power. I can’t not eat the cookies in the cabinet,” but it’s really not your fault. It’s not about will power. It’s actually a biochemical response to not keeping your blood sugar stable.
Cassie Bjork: For me, when I do eat protein, fat and carbs every time I eat, I don’t crave sugar as much. We see this with our weight loss coaching plans in our Rule Breakers Program. A lot of them were craving sugar because they were following these low fat diets. They just weren’t eating enough. They were having salads at lunch, but they weren’t having enough protein on it or maybe not enough fat on it. If you’re skimping on calories or especially protein or fat, you’re going to crave sugar because your blood sugar levels will drop. Then, your head may go down, and your brain wants them to go up. Then, you start riding this blood sugar rollercoaster, and you get cravings all the time. The goal is to keep things super stable. That’s where you don’t get the sugar cravings.
Cassie Bjork: For me, I eat pretty clean. I don’t know what the percentage of paleo would be, probably, I don’t know, maybe 50 to maybe close to 75%. I don’t think about it too much. I basically just always think about eating protein, fat and carbs and just doing the best that I can. Also, when I don’t eat very well, I feel the effects. Then, that encourages me to get back on the bandwagon, type of thing.
Chantel Ray: Let’s say that 75% of the time, you’re eating a paleo diet. Then, what does that equate to, for you? Would you say, when we’re talking about having … Let’s say you were going to have cookies or ice cream or pizza or whatever it is, that you made that decision, “Hey, I’m going to go ahead and indulge on this,” would you say that equates to twice a week or two meals or once a day? How do you process that in your head of where you go, “Hey, I’m eating clean, clean here,” but would you say, “Everyday, I have something,” or would you say, “Every week, twice a week, I have something.” How does that work in your mind?
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, it’s probably, I don’t know, sometimes every day. Sometimes, it ends up a couple times a week. The way that I look at it, I don’t deprive myself of anything, but I do create space between when I want something and when I have it, so if I’m craving dessert, I’ll wait for 10 minutes and see if I’m still craving it. If I am, I’ll have it because I’m sure we can all relate to trying to avoid something. Then, you end up having way more of maybe something else.
Chantel Ray: Yes.
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, if you ever have had low fat ice cream, it’s terrible because ice cream is fat, so when they take out the fat, it’s disgusting. Then, you end up eating the whole carton because you’re not satisfied anyway, instead of having a regular serving of actual full fat ice cream. The way that we teach our clients too in our program is just like, so many of us women are used to restricting and depriving. It doesn’t do us any good, and also, when we go off the deep end, and we end up binging on these foods that aren’t good for us, then our body has to spend days trying to recover from healing all the inflammation that happened as a result. It’s actually better to space things out. I mean that’s more of what a balanced approach is anyway. I’m saying that I’m not 100% paleo. I think what I was really thinking about was, paleo was dairy-free, and it’s [crosstalk 00:13:59].
Chantel Ray: Grain-free.
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, and I’ll still have some grains. I don’t think they’re good for anyone, really, so I don’t really buy them, but if I’m out somewhere and there’s bread at the restaurant, I might have a piece or something, but I actually try to stay away from it because I noticed that when I eat sugar, because all carbohydrates even bread turn into sugar in our bloodstream. I crave more. I don’t really like doing that to my body. I was thinking about the dairy part though because I do put heavy cream in my coffee every single day. My body feels really good, having heavy cream, and it’s just an easy way to get fat first thing in the morning, not half-and-half but full heavy cream.
Chantel Ray: Heavy cream.
Cassie Bjork: That’s not paleo, because a lot of people are sensitive to dairy, so if it’s something that you’re sensitive to, it’s obviously not going to be good for you. It’s going to cause inflammation in your body, so you have to know yourself.
Chantel Ray: [crosstalk 00:14:46]
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, yeah.
Chantel Ray: I love when you said that, that statement you said that you create space. Talk about that for just another second because I really like that statement. You’re saying like let’s say I really want a cupcake. Maybe you’d say, “Okay. Right now, maybe I’ll go have a cup of tea or have a cup of coffee.” Then, see, I’ll wait 10 minutes and then go, “Do I still really want it?” For me, coffee. Coffee really helps me. After dinner, for whatever reason, or after lunch, I always want something sweet. For me, if I have a cup of coffee, that 10 minutes when I’m like, “Oh, I really want something sweet. I really want something sweet.” That cup of coffee actually allows me to create that space. Then, after 10 minutes, I can go, “You know what,” either, “Yes, I still really want it,” or not.
Cassie Bjork: No. Yeah.
Chantel Ray: Is that what you’re talking about?
Cassie Bjork: Yeah. It sounds like I’m smiling because I’m thinking about how I went shopping the other day. I do the same thing with shopping. I’ll be like, “Oh my gosh. I really want that. I really want that purse,” but then I go home. I don’t buy it. I think about it for a couple days and like, “I really don’t care about the purse. I don’t need another purse,” but if i really wanted it, I could go back and buy it. I use this approach for more than just food, but yeah, how it relates to food is, I’m thinking about a coaching client that I had a while back. Her name was Jackie, and she had this huge sweet tooth, totally addicted to sugar. She’s a doctor, so she worked in a hospital setting, and she said every time she walked by the break room, there’d be doughnuts, cupcakes, cookies, and she’d just get a craving, even just thinking about the break room. She’d always just … Every time she walked by, she walked right in. That was her biggest weakness, and it was her biggest challenge in our weight loss coaching program with her.
Cassie Bjork: I use this technique. I said, “Let’s just create some space. You can totally still have the doughnut, the cupcake, whatever it is. You’re going to eat it. You can eat it. Nothing wrong with that, but let’s just create a little bit of space between thinking of the break room and just going in there and demolishing that doughnut.” What we did is, we had her start by just … She started by just walking down the hall, turning around and coming back. That’s all she would do, and then she’d go have the doughnut. Then, the next step was creating a little bit more space. I had her just go sit down for a minute, like timer on your phone for a minute. Write down how you’re feeling. Then, go have the doughnut.
Cassie Bjork: Again, you still have permission to have the doughnut. You can do it if you want. Then, we had her set the timer for five minutes and write down how she was feeling and go have the doughnut. Then, we had her go do a different task, go see another patient and then come back. Eventually, there was so much space. She was like, “I actually never really even want the doughnut.” A lot of times in the journaling process that she was doing, and journaling sometimes, I think, can seem like such a simple tool. I don’t know. Nobody wants to journal. It doesn’t sound that fun, but it’s amazing the revelations that can come from just writing down how you’re feeling.
Cassie Bjork: She noticed that oftentimes, she was stressed and that just by journaling about whatever that was or calling a friend or just getting that out in a healthy way would make her not really have to have the doughnut. Other times, she realized she was actually hungry, you know? When we crave sugar, a lot of times, we’re actually hungry. If you can identify the root of it, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t have it, but it was just interesting how eventually, she just didn’t even want it. I think giving ourselves permission like, this is why my coaching program is called Rule Breakers because we are so … Anytime we’re given a rule, I want to break it. When someone’s like, “Don’t touch this.” I’m touching it, you know? We’re the same with food. When we’re like, “I’m on a diet. I can’t have it. I can’t have it.” Then, we eat all of it. That’s oftentimes what happens, and we see that with our clients.
Cassie Bjork: They have these binge days where Saturday is binge day, so then, they restrict all week. Then, they just go crazy on Saturday. That’s just the worst thing you can do to your body. I’d rather have them having dessert every freaking night if they want it instead of harming your body that much in one day. That’s my approach in general, is having more of a balance. Give yourself permission. It’s okay. You’re human. You can have dessert, and you can lose weight and feel your best. You can do both.
Chantel Ray: I love that, and I love the idea of what you said about the journaling or calling a friend. What was that game show where you could pick up the phone?
Cassie Bjork: Call a friend.
Chantel Ray: Yeah, you could phone a friend if you …
Cassie Bjork: [crosstalk 00:19:08]
Chantel Ray: Whatever it was, but that’s what you need to think about. It’s like call a friend right there. Find someone who you can call and go, “Hey, what I want to do right now is go eat all those brownies, but I’m not going to. What I’m really feeling is, I’m overwhelmed at work. I’m stressed,” and the other piece that I want to add to what you said is just, are you hungry?
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, yeah.
Chantel Ray: Are you physically hungry, or are you using it for something else? All right, let’s jump right in. This is from Monica in Virginia Beach. “I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, but it’s been insane for the past couple of months. Literally every time I eat lunch or dinner, I immediately crave something sweet. I’m not talking about one or two bites. This is actually new for me as I’ve always been a savory person. Number one, what could be the explanation of this? Number two, how do I keep it under control? Monica in Virginia Beach.”
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, yeah, so what’s interesting is, if this is like, one, she’s eating, so there’s two reasons why we have sugar cravings. Number one, I’ve mentioned, is when your blood sugar levels are low, we crave sugar. That’s number one. Number two is you can actually be low in the neurotransmitters, which are brain chemicals. It’s a fancy word for brain chemicals. You can be low in those, and those are needed in order to create … Glutamine, which is the most abundant amino acid in your body, is required to create neurotransmitters, which are required to determine whether or not you get sugar cravings. If you’re low in glutamine, then you end up being low on these brain chemicals that actually bring your sugar cravings down.
Cassie Bjork: For me, I’m someone who’s super sugar-sensitive, so I have to take this supplement every single day in order to actually make sure I don’t have sugar cravings. Those are the two reasons. You’re either low in the brain chemicals, or your blood sugar levels are low. I think it’s interesting that she’s having cravings when she’s eating, so it makes me think it could be one, it could be both. It could be that she’s just low in her blood sugars. Her blood sugar levels are low, and once she eats, if it goes away, then I would know that, that was probably the problem, but if you’re someone who’s just craving sugar all the time and one or two bites doesn’t satisfy it, then it could definitely be that you’re low in these neurotransmitters. Then, what I recommend doing is taking some L-Glutamine. It’s ana amazing supplement. It’s the most natural supplement you could possibly take because it’s already the most abundant amino acid in your body. It’s just that a lot of people are low in it.
Cassie Bjork: It’s super easy to take. You can take it in powder. I formulated a product called Pure GlutaCaps, which is super potent. It’s for people with intense sugar cravings like me. You can just take capsules or put it on your tongue, and it actually helps to prevent sugar cravings and bust them in the moment. Those are the two different reasons. A lot of people don’t realize this. A lot of people just realize, or they just believe that it’s all about will power, and I think the most empowering thing about realizing that sugar cravings are not about will power. They’re actually a biochemical response. It can make us more empowered because there’s something we can actually do about it. We either need to eat protein, fat and carbs, and stabilize our blood sugars and/or just take more glutamine, the most abundant amino acid in your body and just help your body to make more of these neurotransmitters so that you don’t get sugar cravings.
Cassie Bjork: Now, the interesting piece of this is, we can actually physically take away the sugar cravings, so Pure GlutaCaps will take away your sugar craving. It’s crazy. It’s almost too good to be true. It’s a miracle. It’s what a lot of our clients say because they’ve never experienced this before, and you can still crave sugar because sometimes, the craving is actually not physical. It’s like when you find yourself standing in front of the snack cabinet, and you’re like, “I’m not even hungry, but I’m trying to find something to eat.” It’s that habitual, emotional. There’s always other reasons why we eat. We don’t just eat because we’re hungry, so it’s interesting to start by taking away the physical sugar craving and then noticing what’s coming up.
Cassie Bjork: Oftentimes, that’s the really uncomfortable part where we’re like, “Oh, I’m just really sad,” or “I’m just really stressed out,” or “Why am I even,” really digging down to like, “Why am I even craving sugar right now because I’m not physically craving it, and I still find myself standing here?” That can be where a lot of really interesting answers come from, and emotions can come up. I think that’s where some of the really powerful transformation happens in those moments.
Chantel Ray: Those Pure GlutaCaps, talk about that. Do you have that somewhere on your website that people can go to?
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, so I actually have a supplement company called Real Food Vitamins, and the URL for that is rfvitamins.com, and those are on there. That’s probably our best-selling supplement because some supplements you take, they all work if they’re high quality, but you might take a multivitamin, and I would say probably half of our clients feel better because I put a lot of B vitamins in our multivitamins, so it gives them energy, and people that have really good energy levels already might not notice the huge difference, so they might take it and be like, “I don’t know if I really feel different, but I’m still going to take it because I know it’s filling in the nutrient gaps and helping below the surface.” The thing with GlutaCaps is, if you’re someone who gets sugar cravings, you will notice the difference.
Chantel Ray: Wow.
Cassie Bjork: You’ll send me an email after taking just a couple of these because your sugar cravings will go away. That’s why it’s one of my favorite supplements to talk about, also because I struggle with sugar cravings, and if I don’t take those every single day, I will get sugar cravings. I have to battle that sugar dragon. It’s just a simple thing. I love these simple hacks or just simple boosts that you can add to your everyday life to make things easier for you.
Chantel Ray: Wow. Now, so that site, I love that it’s called Real Food Vitamins because I talk about, all the time, about how mad I get when I see the supplements and all the magnesium stearate and all the chemicals that are in most of these supplements. Do your supplements have magnesium stearate and all of that in yours at all?
Cassie Bjork: There’s no fillers. There’s no additives. The crazy thing about supplements, and this just gets me so fired up too is the whole reason I even developed a supplement company is, I never realized how shady the supplement industry was, even when I was a dietitian, nobody told me. You guys might be familiar with, in 2015, the New York State Attorney General’s Office released its report that four out of five supplements on store shelves didn’t even have in them what they say they had and what they say on the label.
Chantel Ray: Wow.
Cassie Bjork: Literally GNC, Target, Walgreens, Walmart, these major retailers, they have these bottles of supplements, and on the label, it says something. Four out of five of these supplements, when they tested them, didn’t even have anything they said in the label, and so what did they have? They had gluten. They had fillers. They had additives. They actually had a lot of stuff in there that can be inflammatory, which means I had clients coming to me trying to lose weight, and they were taking these crappy supplements from places that they thought were reputable and even places like health food stores, and these places aren’t regulated by the FDA. They were taking these supplements to help them lose weight, and it was actually causing weight gain because when you’re putting inflammatory things like these additives and fillers and stuff in your body, you’re going to gain weight. It’s just crazy. Nobody would think to blame supplements on that.
Chantel Ray: No.
Cassie Bjork: That just got me really passionate when I saw that supplements aren’t regulated. What you want to look for is pharmaceutical grade supplements that are third party tested. That means they’re actually being tested by a third party outside of their organization to see if what they have on the label is on there. Those supplements are only offered through licensed healthcare practitioners because they actually work. You’re supposed to … That’s why, and then also, they’re usually more expensive because I mean we pay for this every single … This is expensive to have a third party come in and actually test all your supplements to make sure the stuff in there is in there. Yeah, I’m super passionate about this because it just drives me nuts. I always tell people, “It’s better to take no supplements at all than to take ones that could potentially be harming you,” so just always keep in mind keeping it really simple and making sure if you’re using supplements, getting them from a trusted source.
Chantel Ray: Wow. All right, this next question is from Heather in [South Bank 00:27:29]. Her question says, “I work at Starbucks, and I’ve noticed a huge shift in milk choices. For years, the people who wanted to eat or drink healthy were ordering soy milk in their coffee. Now, all they want is almond milk. Nowadays, I’m shocked when someone orders soy. What caused the shift in milks? Is this just another trend, and did we find out soy milk is bad for us?”
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s definitely not a trend. Almond milk is definitely healthier, so the reason why we believe that soy is healthy is because of how it was marketed to us, so the media has called soy heart-healthy and a good source of protein for years, but the media is also telling us that eggs are bad for us, and whole grains are good for our heart and things like that. I do not recommend soy. Soy can actually … They recommend soy because it lowers cholesterol, which is a whole other conversation we could get into. Cholesterol is actually a really important nutrient. Without it, you would die, so I’m not a huge advocate of lowering cholesterol and low cholesterol diets and all of that. Soy can actually mimic estrogen in the body because soy isoflavones, which is part of soy, these are a class of phytoestrogens in the body. Altering estrogen levels is not beneficial for men or women.
Cassie Bjork: For men, this can actually decrease sperm production, lower libido, cause weight gain, and higher levels of estrogen can really put women at risk for higher, a greater chance of breast cancer and lowering fertility. It also messes with your thyroid, so it messes with your hormones, your thyroid. A lot of soy products endure a lot of processing and stuff, so soy, long story short, soy is just not good for us. I always look at all these missing pieces of the puzzle like we were talking about. I outline all of these in my book, so I’m looking at hormones and thyroid. You have to have all these pieces of your personal body and health puzzle in place, and soy is one of those that can really wreak havoc on a lot of them, so it’s just better, better to keep it out.
Cassie Bjork: Almond milk is great because almonds are a healthy fat, so it can actually be good for your metabolism. Coconut milk, I like even better than almond milk because it has more healthy fat in it, so it helps me think more clearly. It’s good for cognitive function and your waistline and your metabolism and keeping your blood sugar levels stable, so you just feel consistently energized throughout the day. It helps with weight loss, so those are definitely better options than the soy.
Chantel Ray: Awesome. Well, you know, we are going to give away a copy of your amazing book that is an international best-seller, by the way. It’s called Why Am I Still Fat? I love that title, so if you go to our Facebook page, go to chantelrayway.com and hit our Facebook page or Instagram, we’re going to give one lucky person a copy of your book, which I am so excited about giving away. If people want to find out about you, and I’m so excited about your supplement line, so that’s amazing, but if someone wants to find out about your coaching or anything that you have to offer, where do they find you at?
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, thanks, Chantel. Cassie.net, that’s where the party starts. Cassie.net is where everything is. I have my vitamin company link over there too, but the vitamin company is rfvitamins.com. I hang out a lot on Instagram. My Instagram handle is cassiedotnet. You just have to actually spell it out, so it’s C-A-S-S-I-E-D-O-T-N-E-T, so there’s not actual dot.
Chantel Ray: Oh, okay, got you.
Cassie Bjork: Yeah, I’m excited to give away a copy of my book. I think, so just to clarify too, the title, why i chose the title, Why Am I Still Fat?, that’s literally the most frustrating, emotionally-charged question. We get that question from our new clients all the time because they’re like, “I’ve tried everything to lose weight. It’s not working. I feel more like a failure. The only thing I’ve lost is self-worth and confidence. Nothing’s working,” and so they’re asking that question. Then, The Hidden Keys of Unlocking That Stubborn Weight Loss is the subtitle because we’re really looking at all these keys, these missing pieces of the puzzle that are overlooked by most dietitians and healthcare practitioners.
Cassie Bjork: We’ve got to look at the big picture in order for your body to work how it should. These are in the book. I go through 14 of the hidden, never talked about keys for metabolism and weight loss, which we’ve touched on a few of them already, so if people want to go deeper, definitely grab that book or win your copy.
Chantel Ray: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You were amazing, and I feel like I’ve fallen in love with you already.
Cassie Bjork: Aw, thanks, Chantel.
Chantel Ray: Thanks so much, and if you have a question that you want answered, go to questions@chantelrayway.com. We’ll see you next time. Bye, bye.
Cassie Bjork: Bye.