004 – Find a Better Way to Lose Weight with Elizabeth Benton of Primal Potential

Gift Biz Unwrapped,

episode number four.

Hi, this is John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur On Fire,

and you're listening to Gift Biz Unwrapped.

And now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to Gift Biz Unwrapped,

your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop and

grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Monheit.

Hi, I'm Sue Monheit,

and welcome to the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.

Whether you own a brick and mortar shop,

sell online,

or are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and grow your business.

And today I am absolutely thrilled to be joined here with

Elizabeth Benton.

Elizabeth has cracked the code to a healthy lifestyle and different

from anything you've heard before.

She started her life overweight and as many of us have

done, tried every diet out there.

Elizabeth, however,

goes to the extreme in everything she does.

I mean,

really two months of protein shakes and chicken broth or months

of apples and tilapia only combined with purging and over-the-counter drugs,

but all to no avail.

She was so obsessed with food every day and it affected

her whole life.

She didn't go out with friends,

avoided cameras and no traveling,

which meant that she didn't see her family very often and

was isolated and depressed.

I know that a lot of us can relate to this,

but here is the silver lining change happened for her literally

one day in her car.

I wish I had time to tell you the whole story,

but you can read all the details on her website to

fill in the gaps.

She might even talk about it a little bit here.

We'll see.

Suffice it to say she has now lost 130 pounds and

most importantly,

is full of energy,

confidence and has the success straight in her path.

And this is hugely important for all of us because it

takes so much endurance to run and continue a business.

And that's why I wanted to have her talk with us

today. How are you doing today,

Elizabeth? I'm excellent.

How are you?

I'm wonderful.

Can you just expand a little bit and talk about your

business primal potential and what the theory is all about?

Absolutely. So yeah,

like you said,

you know,

I was born a heavy baby.

I was a heavy kid.

I was in a very fit,

healthy, active family,

but really struggled with my weight from the very beginning and

developed a lot of shame and guilt and self-judgment around my

eating habits,

which just kind of made it worse.

And it led to years and years of kind of cycling

between yo-yo dieting and these extreme measures that you just kind

of went through some of,

and then kind of all out binging and avoiding mirrors,

avoiding, you know,

going shopping for clothes.

And so it was this really uncomfortable cycle of pursuit and

avoidance. And I was so obsessed with food and nutrition that

I actually majored in nutrition in college and I worked in

the health and fitness industry for 10 years as an obese

woman at times and was really miserable and I achieved some

significant personal goals.

And one day was driving home and just thought,

this isn't about motivation.

I'm a very motivated individual.

I'm a hard worker.

So this isn't about me being lazy,

this is about strategy.

And if I were approaching my weight,

like I would approach any problem in business or my personal

life, I would realize this isn't working.

These strategies of extreme dieting and the stricter,

the better all or nothing,

if that worked,

it would have worked already.

So I kind of took a real cerebral approach to it

and said,

something's gotta give.

And I decided to stop dieting and I decided to just

listen to my body and really honor my body and fuel

it intelligently without the extremes,

without the restriction,

without the deprivation.

And like you said,

you know,

I, I lost over a hundred pounds and then I decided

that this struggle was part of my journey.

And because of my educational background,

my personal background and my professional background,

I decided to launch primal potential to help people find a

way to reach their health goals and their fat loss goals

without the all or nothing approach,

without searching for the next best diet and really honoring their

body and doing it in a way that they feel amazing.

So that's kind of what we do at Primal Potential.

And what does primal potential mean in terms of the whole

paleo theory?

Paleo and primal are kind of buzzwords right now,

and they mean a lot of different things to different people.

To me,

what primal means is just sort of getting back to the

basics of how we were meant to eat and move.

Now I love ice cream,

so I eat ice cream.

And I,

my approach and the primal potential approach is not an approach

of extremes.

You know,

we're not hardcore anything but really leaning towards foods that were

intended for us to eat.

Not Franken foods made in a factory,

but really leaning more towards unprocessed foods because they balance our

hormones. And when our hormones are balanced,

whether we're male or we're female,

we're younger,

we're old,

we have more energy,

we have fewer cravings,

we have less hunger,

and all food choices are 10 times easier when you're not

battling against hunger or low energy or extreme cravings.

And that's exactly what I mean in terms of this being

a different approach than so many of us has heard before.

So, and this is the huge value that you bring?

Yeah, you know,

I think a lot of people,

because we've been so misinformed by a diet industry that really

isn't out for our best interest,

it isn't out to help us get lean and stay healthy,

it's kind of out to keep us fat.

So we keep pumping money into the system,

but it's really taught us incorrectly to focus on calories and

the, you know,

the more calories you cut,

the more weight you'll lose.

But that's really not how our bodies are designed.

It's not the way our bodies work.

And fat loss,

yeah, you,

you can't eat more than your body needs and lose fat,

but fat loss is not dictated by calories in,

calories out.

Fat loss is dictated by hormones.

And we just,

like I said a second ago,

we make much better decisions and it's much easier to stay,

quote unquote on track if you don't have the hormonal imbalances

that lead to very low energy,

high stress,

lots of cravings and things like that.

So interesting.

And I'm sure we're gonna get into that more in a

little bit.

As our listeners know,

we like to align the conversation around the life of a

candle. So shall we light it up,

Elizabeth? Absolutely.

Let's do it.

Wonderful. All right,

let's talk first about what your candle of choice would be.

What color is it?

I would say blue.

What shade of blue?

Like a,

like a royal blue And why?

Well, the answer that immediately pops into my mind is cuz

I love the Kansas Jayhawks and blue is one of their

colors. But also I just really find blue to be,

for me,

a very grounding color.

Like it's not too excitable,

it's not too high energy,

but it just is very vibrant and wholesome.

Okay, so we're looking at your blue candle and what quote

accompanies the candle.

I love,

for me it's kind of a mantra,

progress not perfection.

And so that would definitely be on my candle.

We've talked a little bit already about what got you into

primal potential in terms of just sparking that idea of building

the business.

Do you wanna expand on that at all?

When, when I was losing weight,

you know,

people had seen me yo-yo for my whole life and they

knew that I was very well educated about nutrition,

but sometimes that's a problem.

Sometimes we get stuck in this cycle of overanalyzing over-consuming information

and really distracting us from taking action.

And we do that professionally and personally and with our health

if we feel like we need to know more and read

more and understand more.

And really we just need to do more.

And so as people saw me really transforming from being food

obsessed to being much more relaxed in my approach and much

more intuitive in my approach,

I got a lot of questions about,

you know,

what are you doing?

How did you make this change?

If this has been a struggle for you for 25 years,

you know,

what was that moment?

And I shared my story with a lot of people,

but at the time I was working for a dietary supplement

company and it was a little bit of a conflict of

interest for me to share my new approach because you know,

I worked for a company that represented supplements and so I

decided I want to be totally free to share my perspective

based on my education and my unlearning of my education.

And 25 years of struggling with emotional eating and binge eating

and over restricting and then finding a sane way.

And that was really kind of what what started.

And it started as just a blog and then I thought,

you know what?

Obesity and health struggles can be so isolating,

even though they're not uncommon.

It's not something that a lot of people share openly their

challenges and their struggles and their setbacks and what really hangs

them up.

And so because of how isolating I personally had felt that

it was,

I decided to start the Primal Potential podcast.

And it's really just kind of grown from there because there

are so many people that want to break free from this

cycle of either analysis,

paralysis and never taking action cuz they're always looking for the

next best thing or people who are like,

not only do I want to lose fat,

feel better,

be more vibrant,

have more energy,

but I also just don't wanna be obsessed with food and

dieting all the time,

or food and exercise all the time.

I just want a more kind of laid back approach to

intuitively doing what my body needs.

You know,

that makes so much sense because our listeners are all business

owners who are trying to get their business to the next

level or perfect and make sure that they've got the right

product, you know,

the shops are put together,

et cetera.

And then if you have this side focus all the time

on number one,

not feeling comfortable or healthy,

your energy is put to a whole different direction than being

able to work on your business.

Absolutely. And I think many of us we're so programmed in

business and in life to do all or nothing.

And our,

our willpower,

our focus,

our energy,

they're all finite.

We can only have a certain amount of energy in any

one direction.

And when we aren't happy with our bodies or we aren't

confident in ourselves,

or we're stressed about food or we're always wondering about what

should I eat,

what shouldn't I eat,

that really takes a lot of our focus and our energy

away from other pursuits and really our joy from experiencing other

areas of our lives.

And so I not only wanted to lose a lot of

weight, that was very important to me to change my body,

but I also really wanted to free up my mind so

that I could build my business so that I could serve

other people so that I could enjoy my life out outside

of food because I was missing out on so much when

I was food obsessed all the time.

Not only was I food obsessed,

I was food obsessed and I was fat.

So it wasn't even like I was food obsessed in a

body that I loved.

You know,

I was,

I was just miserable on all fronts.

How long did it take you before you started feeling any

changes? Oh gosh,

just a matter of days.

Really, really?

And, and here's the thing,

I did not go from overeating and binging and fast food

to being more of a purist and sort of following a

primal way of eating.

I made gradual changes.

And I really believe that's sort of one of the cornerstones

of my approach is I like to identify what I call

the big rocks,

right? So not everything has the same degree of impact and

this is really seen in all aspects of life.

As the 80 20 rule,

80% of our results or more are gonna come from just

20% or even fewer of our efforts.

And with weight loss,

we kind of assign the same importance to all things.

Like, we gotta work out,

we gotta drink more water,

we gotta eat less,

we gotta eat more vegetables,

we need to do this,

we need to do that.

And not everything moves the needle equally.

And so I identified what my big rocks were and even

then I didn't just focus on those,

I focused on one at a time and I picked what

I felt for me for my body would be the highest

impact first.

And I really practiced it.

It wasn't like I'm gonna do this and I did it

perfectly every day.

I practiced it until it felt effortless.

And that's the approach I take with my clients.

Now we identify their biggest rock and the big rocks are

pretty much the same for most people,

but within those big rocks,

one might be higher impact for an individual who struggles with

different things versus another person.

And so I practiced them sometimes for months at a time

before it really felt like I had established the habit.

And then,

and only then did I move on to the next thing.

And I think people tend to be resistant to that approach

because they want results and I want it now.

But I found that doing it this way gave me a

smaller scope of things to focus on.

So I had more energy to invest,

so I was more likely to be successful.

But then most importantly,

it was a habit.

So when life got stressful or when I was traveling or

when things went wrong with work,

I still had that habit.

It wasn't like,

oh crap,

there goes my effort.

And now I'm back to the beginning and back to my

old habits.

I was actively creating new habits.

So I noticed more energy in a matter of days and

I noticed my body changing in a matter of a couple

weeks. So when,

when you talk about the big rocks,

what are some examples of big rocks?

You know,

a lot of people think that it's about calories and it's

really not one big rock for most people is going to

be carbohydrate timing and carbohydrate quality.

And those are two different things.

The reason,

and it's not about low carb or no carb or slow

carb or mo carb or whatever it is,

it's really about the fact that hormones control fat loss.

And the primary hormone that's driving fat loss is insulin.

And most people think,

oh, insulin's only something I need to worry about if I'm

a diabetic.

But that's not true because insulin is the master storage hormone

and we cannot be in fat burning mode when insulin is

high. Well,

insulin controls fat loss and carbohydrates control insulin.

And again,

that's not about an argument for low carb or slow carb

or no carb,

but it really is about smart carbohydrate strategies.

And so if we can control carbs to control insulin,

we really make a massive difference in our ability to burn

fat. So I talk on the blog and in the podcast

about the golden rules for carbs and fat loss.

And one of those is that you really for fat loss

results, and I'm talking for fat loss,

I'm not talking about if you're a marathon runner,

you want to back load your carbohydrates in the end of

the day.

So you do not want to start your day with carbs.

Now fruit is a carb,

you don't wanna start your day with fruit.

Oats are a carb.

You don't wanna start your day with oats.

You really want to limit your carbohydrates to the end of

the day when it will have the least impact on insulin

so that you can maximize the amount of time you're having

in fat burning mode.

And then from there,

you really want to also,

once that's effortless,

focus on carbohydrate quality and be choosing carbohydrates from less processed

sources instead of more processed sources.

So part of that is kind of transitioning away from or

minimizing processed foods,

things in a box,

in a bag,

in a can.

That's so interesting,

goes so against some of the things we've always heard before.

Breakfast is the most important part of your day,

have oatmeal and fruit.

And I will argue that how you begin your fueling for

the day is very important.

Whatever time that is,

whatever meal you wanna call it,

that is very,

very important.

However, that myth that eat the carbs in the morning because

you'll have all day to burn them off,

is based on a misunderstanding of human metabolism.

And you know this argument that your metabolism like shuts off

while you're sleeping and that's not true.

And again,

it goes back to the fact that fat loss is dictated

by your hormones and the master fat loss hormone is going

to be insulin.

And we are most sensitive to insulin in the morning.

And just a quick analogy to kind of help people understand

that, if you imagine that for eight to 12 hours you

are in a totally dark room,

no light at all,

and then all of a sudden somebody comes into the room

and turns on this huge floodlight,

your eyes would have a very extreme reaction to that light.

Now, if you've been sitting outside all day in the sun

or in a well-lit room and somebody turned on that floodlight,

you might not even hardly react at all.

And that is very analogous to the way our body responds

to insulin.

We have been fasting overnight.

When we wake up in the morning,

our blood sugar is low,

our insulin is low,

and when we introduce carbohydrates,

that's like the flood light to our eyes after being in

a dark room.

It's like boom,

huge response.

Fast forward a few hours in the day when we've been

eating a little bit,

we're not in fasting mode and we introduce the same amount

of carbohydrate our body doesn't have as an extreme response and

doesn't have this overproduction of insulin taking us out of fat

burning mode.

And so the best time for carbohydrates when your goal is

fat loss is in the evening or after a workout and

the worst time is first thing in the morning.

That is such a golden nugget for our listeners.

I've been following you now since your podcast has started and

I've been starting to do this and I really do feel

a difference,

not only in my energy level,

but you know,

I can still have my popcorn,

but it needs to be a little bit later in the

day. I can't be doing it right after lunch for a

snack in the office.

And people,

you know,

podcast listeners,

people that follow the blog,

they start making these small changes one at a time.

And yeah,

they notice huge differences in their energy,

in their cravings,

in their mood,

in their ability to sleep through the night.

And people losing,

you know,

10, 15 pounds in just a matter of weeks with just

simple changes.

Like it doesn't have to be this overhaul,

it should be slow,

gradual change so that it's sustainable.

And one thing I always ask people is if you are

doing anything that you can't say,

I could do this for the rest of my life,

then it's a short-term strategy and short-term strategies at best deliver

short-term results.

And nobody wants to put in the effort on something if

they're not gonna maintain the results.

That's, that's silly.

It's a waste.

And so I love the litmus test of is it sustainable

for the rest of your life?

And if it's not,

that's a short term strategy,

which most diets are,

and you're not gonna be able to sustain those results.

Can you give us a couple of other tips in terms

of this journey to a healthy body,

you know,

besides the breakfast and don't bring in any of the carbs

early in the day,

what other tips would you have for our listeners?

One of the best things that people can do that I

think is so overlooked is understanding that A,

as I've said,

hormones dictate fat loss,

but B,

your hormones are constantly signaling you to let you know when

things are going well and when things are not.

It's just that we don't recognize those signals as what they

are signals from our hormones.

And so one thing that I really recommend everybody do is

keep a really basic tracking document.

I use Google Docs,

you can do it on pen and paper,

you know,

you can do it in a word doc,

whatever, and track not just what you eat,

how much and when,

I mean that's,

that's helpful information,

but pay close attention to your hormonal biofeedback,

the signals that your body is sending you day in and

day out to let you know if you're in fat burning

mode or if your hormones are out of whack.

Those are things like your mood and shifts in your mood,

your energy,

your hunger,

and your cravings.

And a lot of people struggle with how to really document

that. And for me,

what I find to be most helpful is anytime I notice

something significant like,

oh, it's 11 o'clock in the morning and I'm feeling really

hungry, I'm gonna rate that sensation on a scale of one

to 10.

And I'm not gonna do it if I'm not noticing anything.

I'm not gonna think to say,

oh, at nine o'clock it was a two,

but if anything happens that's noticeable,

either I have an extreme craving or I have,

you know,

intense hunger,

I'm gonna make note of that.

And over time that is going to let me know if

my hormones are imbalance or if they're not,

if what I'm doing is working or if it's not.

And so I think that that tracking is very,

very powerful,

especially when we pair it with changes in our body.

So track your progress,

not on a scale cuz there's just too many things that

that go into your body weight,

but a pair of tight fitting jeans or your waist and

hip circumference or things like that.

So I think that tracking and paying attention to your body,

I tell people all the time,

all the answers to what works for you will be found

in that tracking document.

One other idea to close out our three tips,

I would say that people largely underestimate the importance of dietary

fat. I,

I think it's unfortunate that it's called fat if it was

called something else,

you know,

cuz we just have this negative connotation from body fat and

we assume that dietary fat leads to body fat and that's

actually not true.

And we've received a lot of misinformation about the link between

dietary fat and heart disease and things like that.

And the truth is that fat is a critical,

critical nutrient.

Yes, it is higher calorie than protein or carbohydrate,

but I like to challenge the way people think about that.

So calories are not this magical little thing that like piles

up under your belt and makes you look fat.

A calorie is just a unit of measurement and calories measure

the energy potential in our food.

So from that perspective,

the fact that fat has more calories than protein or,

or carbohydrate means that fat provides twice as much energy to

our body than does protein or carbohydrate.

So it's this long burning fuel.

And to use another analogy,

when we think if we think of our metabolism as a

furnace or a fire,

when we eat carbohydrate,

that's like throwing newspaper on the fire,

right? It burns hot but really,

really, really fast.

And that's why we end up feeling hungry.

Like, you know,

you have a bowl of cereal or a bagel for breakfast

and then 30 minutes later you're feeling hungry again and you

feel like you wanna take a nap.

That's because the fuel burns really fast and then it fizzles

out and then the body triggers more hunger and more cravings

to get us to give it more fuel.

Protein is more like a,

a medium-sized log,

right? It's gonna burn slower and it's gonna burn for longer,

but nothing like fat.

Fat has twice as much energy potential and it is going

to fuel us much longer.

So when we eat enough dietary fat and when we really

focus on that,

we find we have to eat less often and eat less

quantity of food because we are just so much more rich

in energy.

And when people start adding more fat,

they notice huge differences in their mood,

in their ability to focus in their energy level and in

their rate of fat loss because it's quality over quantity.

Elizabeth, thank you so much.

These are such really,

really valuable pieces of information.

Just to summarize here for everybody,

the three tips that Elizabeth has just given us.

The first one,

if you're going to have carbs,

do them later in the day.

Number two,

track your food and see how it relates to your mood

and your energy levels.

And also then you can see what that's actually doing to

your body in terms of numbers and you know,

inches loss,

that type of thing.

And the third is reconsider how you think of dietary fat.

That it is good and you know,

as long as it's done correctly,

you wanna rethink just how you're in,

you're taking in your fat,

right. All right,

we're gonna move on now to the reflection section.

Elizabeth, what is one natural trait you have that you think

has helped you to succeed?

I am very focused and I am very quick to identify

what I want and what is going to get me there.

I think that I have a natural ability to look past

the desire to collect all the information and rather say,

okay, what's gonna make me make progress and let me do

that so I can really focus on out outcomes instead of

processes and then take action.

What tool do you use regularly to keep productive or to

create balance in your life?

Balance in my life is probably something I could use a

little bit more of to be honest with you.

But you know,

I, I think my mom recently asked me if there was

balance in my life and I said,

you know what?

I am in the first year of a new business and

I am fortunate enough to not be balanced because if business

was slow and I didn't have any work to do,

I would be very balanced.

And so I feel fortunate to not be balanced at this

point in time.

I see that as a,

as a blessing and that's just sort of where I'm at

in the phase of my brand new business.

But as far as staying organized and attempting to be balanced,

I love Google products.

I use Boomerang in my inbox,

which is super,

super helpful to send emails back to me if I need

to follow up or to schedule them to go out at

another time so that I don't have to be reminding myself

to go back and answer something later.

And then I use Google Docs with all of my coaching

clients for their tracking so that every day they're tracking what

they eat,

how much,

and when they're hormonal,

biofeedback, and I can go into their document and prompt them

and challenge them and ask them questions So they know that

you can kind of spy on them too.

Oh yeah,

it's fantastic.

Yeah, and I bring their attention to things that maybe they,

maybe they hadn't considered.

What book have you read lately that you think our listeners

would find value in?

I think for any individual who is looking to improve their

life, and certainly for any business owner,

the obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday is a must

read. And I recently did a podcast episode,

kind of a brown,

the topics in that book and I,

I just can't say enough good things about that book.

You know what,

that's one I haven't heard of yet,

so I don't think I've listened to that particular podcast episode,

but I'm going to.

Yeah, it's a great one.

A gift Biz listeners,

just as you're listening here today,

you can also listen to other audiobooks with ease.

Get an audiobook just like the one Elizabeth is recommending for

free. All you need to do is go to gift biz

book.com and make a selection.

That's gift biz book.com.

Okay, we're circling around here,

Elizabeth, and entering into our Dare to Dream area.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

This is your dream or goal of almost unattainable heights that

you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is in inside There would be no greater gift for

me personally than if I could help every individual who wants

to rid their life from food obsession and emotional eating and

binge eating no matter what their weight,

to really create the freedom and the margin and the flexibility

in their minds to enjoy life without being food obsessed.

And every single person that I can help and reach and

help them overcome that hangup is the most amazing gift to

me. That is a wonderful gift.

And you've been doing that already today,

right here on the podcast.

Well, thank you.

If you haven't caught some of the information that we've already

mentioned, it will all be in the show notes connected up

with Elizabeth Benton.

You can go over to gift biz unwrap.com

and just search for her and you'll be able to capture

all the information.

How else can our listeners get in touch with you?

Well, the Primal Potential podcast is on iTunes and Stitcher.

Just search Primal Potential.

And we've got,

we're coming up on our 50th episode,

which is so cool.

And then you can go over to primal potential.com.

I have a VIP email list,

which is kind of my way of connecting with my listeners

and my readers.

Not only do I share my favorite recipes and my workout

tips and my fat loss tips and whatnot,

but I pride myself on responding to every single email.

And I genuinely ask people to let me know what they're

struggling with,

where they get stuck,

how I can help them,

because that's my mission,

that's my vision,

that's my purpose.

So getting on the email list is probably one of the

best ways,

And I would absolutely recommend and endorse the podcast.

It is just incredible all the information that you've listened to

today. So value packed and so action oriented.

Elizabeth just gives you more and more of that with each

of her episodes.

Thank you very much,

Elizabeth, for the tremendously valuable gifts you've shared with us today.

And may your candle always price.

Thank you so much.

It was totally my pleasure,

and I really appreciate the opportunity to share with your listeners,

Learn how to work smarter while developing and growing your business.

Download our guide called 25 Free Tools to Enhance your business

and life.

It's our gift to you and available@giftbizunwrap.com

slash tools.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

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looking for a new income source for your gift business.

Customization is more popular now than ever.

Your products with your logo or print a happy birthday,

Jessica Ribbon.

To add to a gift,

write a checkout.

It's all done right in your shop or craft studio in

seconds. Check out the ribbon print company.com