The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Jill Fleming, a certified nutritionist and author of Thin People Don't Clean Their Plates.

Kevin: Why don't you tell me about results? I love hearing results. I love hearing about results. Why don't you tell me one or two success stories that people that you've basically helped them change their lives?

Jill: When I teach 8 week weight loss classes, which I do in my local community, I continue to monitor people after they've completed the class and the time they started the class to completed the class and we did this with measuring tapes and weighing and then I continue to track them for two years after taking the classes.

Kevin: Two years? Wow!

Jill: Two years. Yes, because beyond two years people moved and it was hard to get hold of them and then they didn't want to come in and we had 92% success rate, which is exciting, which is how I knew I needed to put the information into a book, because so many other people could benefit from this information. When I speak in settings with large audiences the funny thing is to me that I'm up there talking to them about how they can improve their health and lose weight and feel better and have more energy and usually about one or two just really intensely take the information to heart and I will get an e-mail a month later that will say I'm 56 years old -- I just got this two days ago - - 56 years old and never thought I could lose weight and gave away all of my smaller sized clothes and now lost 25 pounds and I have more energy than I ever had. Everyone's asking how I did it and it was all because I added breakfast. It was all because I added more fruits and vegetables and had a smoothie and a salad a day. All because and they took away one or two nuggets of what we were talking about where they were weak in their Wellness Triangle and improved it to reach their ultimate goals. They'd given up. They thought they couldn't do it.

In my local community I had a guy that when through my weight loss class and then he took it again and he took it a third time. He lost 115 pounds and just e-mailed me probably a month ago and said that he's maintained 105 but the other 10 came back on and he's going to get that 10 back off again and the interesting thing is he's within about 10 pounds of his ideal body weight. He was planning to go through gastric bypass. I talked him out of it, because he loves food. He loves to eat as much as I do and I said if you love to eat, you're really going to be giving up that choice. You're going to be so limited in the amount and the types of things you can eat that it won't be an enjoyable lifestyle for you. He agreed. He loves to go out and barbeque. He just has a little bit less of the fattier foods and he really went to town on the vegetables.

Kevin: Okay.

Jill: Exercises everyday and has tons of energy and he is definitely a role model that I keep coming back to him and saying how did you do that again? What are you doing?

Kevin: Yeah.

Jill: Tell me how you did that again? What was the piece of information that stuck out for you? But the interesting thing is that it's different for every person.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jill: So what Dennis had to do versus what I had to do versus what someone else who wants to lose weight has to do, you can take all the information and see which is going to most affect your life in the positive direction.

Kevin: And how did you measure the 92% success rate? What were the criteria?

Jill: They could not gain more than 2 pounds back of what their final weight was.

Kevin: Wow.

Jill: The majority of people went on to lose even more weight, because they only had them, well we did an 8 week class with a one month follow up, so we only had these people for three months, but the changes that they made in three months were changes that they've kept for a life time. They said they could never go back to their old way of eating because they had too much information one and number two, they felt too good.

Kevin: Wow

Jill: And that's the big thing. It's not just about looking great in your skinny jeans. It's about the energy that you have. You don't need to fill your body with caffeine and chemicals to stay awake and alert. You can do it naturally.

Kevin: Yeah. In a world where the studies say that 98% of people who lose weight gain it back a 92% success rate is just absolutely incredible.

Jill: I think the big part of the success we had with our classes was that I was able to individualize and help people see how they could fit their lives into the plan. Not just switch from their life to the plan, but incorporate little things from the thin choices routine into what they were already doing. If they weren't eating breakfast that was an easy one and I didn't give everything all at once. I said lets work on breakfast and water today. Those are the only things that you're going to work on this week and then come back and we'll see how that feels and then start adding something else. So I think I think that's the big part. Looking at the person and seeing where is the stress in their life and if they're a stress eater, they're eating for reasons other than true hunger. You've got to help that person realize what they can do to get the stress either out of their life or to help relieve it. Maybe they just need to do some meditation or take a yoga class. Their stress comes back under control and they're better able to make choices in the other areas of their life.

Kevin: And it's probably not just about -- I don't actually know this. It's not about what kind of stress or what they're doing. It's just about them recognizing it. Correct?

Jill: Yes. Yes and if you're turning to food, because you're depressed maybe we need to look at the depression. What is the reason? Is it you're living in Wisconsin and you don't have enough sunshine in the winter? Maybe you need a sun lamp as opposed to turning to the food. I went through that about two years ago. We had 25 days without sun and I was just depressed and I was just craving chocolate and I thought what is wrong with me. I gained about 7 pounds and I just couldn't get out of it. Well, I realized that it was a lack of sun, so I went on a vacation. As soon as we got about the clouds in Minneapolis and the sun was shining in, I was just drawn to the window and I realized that sunshine is a big part of my health, so I needed it. So I regularly schedule vacations in the middle of winter to get out of out of the cold and that helps to keep my stress level down, because I turned to food when I was feeling depressed.

Kevin: It's amazing how the health clues kind of unveil themselves as you continue on.

Jill: Yeah and it was so interesting to me that no one else was impacted by this lack of sun in my house. I was the only one, so I just thought that I was crazy. I thought do I need drugs? What do I need? Do I need more chocolate? All I could think was that I needed chocolate, because I couldn't think clearly.

Kevin: Right.

Jill: But it's amazing, that sun. I thought, okay. That's what I needed and I'm learning and you learn more about yourself everyday I think. You just have to be open to it and listen to what your body's telling you.

Kevin: Yeah. That's incredible advice. Why don't you --

Jill: It could just have been the vitamin D that I needed, but I'd rather lie on a beach and think about it.

Kevin: Yeah. Get your 15 minutes in.

Jill: Exactly.

Kevin: Where can someone go to find some more information about you and what you - why don't you tell them what you have to offer?

Jill: Okay. I have a website called simplelifestylechoices.com. You can also get there through thinchoices.com and you can get the book, Thin People Don't Clean Their Plates, there and it doesn't say this on the website, but anyone who ever orders a Thin People Don't Clean Their Plates book, it's been instructed that they will also get a Lifestyle Diary sent out with that.

Kevin: Oh, cool.

Jill: The Lifestyle Diary is so important and it's just a small, probably 5 inches by 4 inch book that you can stick in your purse or carry in your back pocket and you just write down what you're doing. For people who that just want to go to the website and get the free download, it will come out on a full size 8x11 paper but just start writing down what you're doing, keeping track of it. Track it for a month. You'll probably after three or four days of tracking see where you can make improvements and once you start doing that it will almost seem too easy and then please do e-mail me at jill@thinchoices.com, because I love the success stories. They just keep me motivated and that's why I continue to do what I do.

Kevin: Great. Well, Jill, thank you so much for that information. I know how valuable your time is and I want to thank you for sharing this information with us.

Jill: You're welcome. It's very its fun. It's always fun sharing your passion with others that it can help.

Kevin: Yeah and I think what you've talked about really seems so easy and I think really it kind of is.

Jill: It actually is so easy. I think we've made weight loss much more difficult than it needs to be. Stop dieting. Start listening to your body. It's truly all about your choices.