Episode 188:
Show Notes
In this podcast episode, Dr. Lucy Burns introduces a special guest, Amanda Moore, who shares her remarkable health transformation after completing the 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance program. Amanda, who had been battling rheumatoid arthritis, discusses her health struggles and the impact of medications like prednisolone on her well-being. She emphasises the sudden onset of her health issues and the rapid decline in her physical and mental health.
Dr Lucy delves into Amanda's journey, discussing the challenges posed by autoimmune conditions and the need for managing inflammation. Amanda highlights the grim period of her life, characterised by pain, fatigue, and the loss of physical function. The conversation touches upon the harsh side effects of medications and the pivotal role of finding sustainable solutions for long-term health.
Amanda explains how she stumbled upon the 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance program, expressing her initial skepticism and concerns based on past dieting experiences. Dr Lucy explores Amanda's motivations for seeking change and the wake-up call that prompted her to prioritise her health.
As Amanda shares her experiences with the program, she describes the sense of freedom and increased energy she gained. Notably, she discusses the positive impact on her joint health, reduction in medication dependence, and improvements in gut health. The conversation also touches on the economic benefits of the program, as Amanda found herself consuming less food.
The discussion expands to include the psychological aspects of the journey, addressing stress management and the importance of self-care. Amanda acknowledges that stress remains a significant challenge for her but underscores the value of implementing various strategies, including hypnosis, to cope with it.
Towards the end, Amanda reflects on her current state, expressing feelings of empowerment, improved energy levels, and a sense of control over her decisions. Dr. Lucy commends Amanda for her commitment to self-care and the positive changes she has experienced.
In her concluding remarks, Dr Lucy encourages listeners to consider the program and emphasises the importance of adopting a different mindset toward health and weight loss. The podcast episode serves as a testimonial to the transformative impact of the 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance program on Amanda's overall well-being.
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Episode 188:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I'm Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Lucy Burns (0:23) Good morning, my gorgeous friends. How are you all today? I have a special treat for you today and Dr Mary is not with me, but instead, I have a gorgeous woman, Amanda Moore, who has recently done our 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance. But I wanted to get her on the podcast because she has a remarkable journey and a transformation in her health. So I thought it would be awesome if she was able to share that with you. So good morning, Amanda, and welcome to the podcast.
Amanda Moore (0:49) Good morning, Dr Lucy. It's great to be here and a little bit fun and surreal to be actually part of the podcast rather than listening to it.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:59) I know. Well, I did hear you just saying that you've been binging it and it does often feel like that. I remember when I first uhm, I still listened to this podcast called The Two Keto Dudes and I was listening to it one day on the airport, on the way to the airport when I was going to a low carb conference. And listening, listening, listening. It was again, right, maybe five or six years ago when I was fairly new to this whole hoo-ha. And then I went and met the Keto Dude, he just happened to be at the conference and oh my god. So yeah, that's a tiny bit, kind of, you know, fangirling. So yeah, I do get it. I do get it. So, um, God, just wanna tell us, tell us a little bit about your journey. Tell us what was happening for you.
Amanda Moore (1:39) Well, like so many other people. I've had the old battle of the bulge over the years and done a lot of diets. But then in the middle of 2021, I had a sudden onset of rheumatoid arthritis. And it wasn't just a sore finger or sore toe, I was completely incapacitated, both legs were affected, couldn't walk, couldn't do most things, and lost all use and function of my right hand. So I was a one-limited person for for quite some time. So life had got a little bit miserable. And I put a lot of weight on during the course of that ill health and the medications. So I was looking for something to try and help my health. I try and help get rid of some of that weight loss.
Dr Lucy Burns (2:27) I'm imagining that some of those medications would have included prednisolone. Would that be right?
Amanda Moore (2:32) Yes. So I started on quite a high dose of prednisolone and methotrexate because my body wasn't responding at the time. So they actually had to up my dosages. And I would have been on the prednisolone solidly for seven or eight months before my body started to actually respond.
Dr Lucy Burns (2:54) Gosh, and how did that prednisolone affect you? Like what did it do? You know, how did it make you feel?
Amanda Moore (2:59) Well, it was miserable. I was physically tired, I was incapable of really doing anything for myself. Brain fog, like I lost a lot of mental capacity during the time and generally felt mentally and physically unwell to a point that I've never known in my life. It was really quite grim because we have our own business. So it wasn't just that my husband was picking up the load at home, but it was also happening at our business. So it was grim.
Dr Lucy Burns (3:34) Yeah grim. Gosh, that's a very powerful word. And I think, you know, what you've just described there is what happens to us when our health which most of us take for granted, is suddenly taken away from you.
Amanda Moore (3:50) Yeah, absolutely. And it happens so quickly, too. And you, you know, you sort of bumbling along in life and think– Oh, well, I can work on the weight loss, or I can work on my mental health later. But then sometimes bang, it happens overnight, and you don't have a choice to deal with it.
Dr Lucy Burns (4:08) No, no. And look, autoimmune conditions, you know, ever increasing. I remember seeing lots of people in my practice with various autoimmune conditions of which rheumatoid arthritis is one of them. And the treatments are, you know, reasonably brutal.
Amanda Moore (4:24) Yeah. And there's really nothing for it, you sort of view you go to the specialists, and well these are our tools. And at that point, you have no idea what's going on. So yes, just give me anything and everything to help this autoimmune condition resolve itself or at least get to a point where the inflammation is under control.,
Dr Lucy Burns (4:45) Yeah absolutely. And I think that's the trick, isn't it? I mean, you know, auto-immune, it means our immune system is dysregulated. For some reason, it's actually overworking and creating things that you know, the immune system is designed to protect the body, but when it's overactive, it does the opposite instead of protecting the body, it attacks the body.
Amanda Moore (5:09) Yeah and I think, that's the wake-up call is that all of a sudden, the body's not happy. So is it the food? Is that your own little cells? I've my family referred to the little trucks going around in your body, you know, what's fighting with whom? And where? And, you know, got to work through it.
Dr Lucy Burns (5:29) Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds like you're in a pretty bad way, then with developing rheumatoid arthritis. And then the medications that we use to try and dampen down the immune system, in particular prednisolone, which is used for lots of conditions. And look, you know, like, we always say, medications. You know, it's not that we believe that medications are terrible, in fact, for a lot of people, they are life-saving, but they do come with a raft of side effects.
Amanda Moore (5:58) Yeah, and I mean, you know, the choice between losing lots of hair, which is what I did, and, you know, some of the weight issues that came with it, were far less important at the time, then dealing with the situation that was at hand. But then when you get over that, you're like, well, I need these medications to manage the situation. But then, you know, what do I do now, to turn it around?
Dr Lucy Burns (6:27) Yeah, absolutely. And I can imagine, I mean, you're right, you know, you'd say, you know, you lost function, you weren't able to function, you weren't able to live your life, and the medications helped you regain that. But then, you know, one of our favourite sayings is always we want people to be able to get to the point where they're using the lowest effective dose of any medication.
Amanda Moore (6:50) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, once I'd got over the worst of it, I was still dabbling in the prednisolone. I'd still have the occasional, you know, issue with a wrist or ankle or the knees. And so the prednisolone was always there in the background needing to be tapped into.
Dr Lucy Burns (7:06) Yeah, absolutely. So what then moved you to the point where you go– Alright, so I've got over, you know, the worst of the rheumatoid arthritis like the big storm has passed. And now I'm bumbling along and you know, not feeling great. What tipped you into doing something?
Amanda Moore (7:25) I think I'd had such a wake-up call about my health, that it was more than just losing the weight to help my joints. It was about getting myself rolling, because obviously, I wasn't well, otherwise, I wouldn't be in that situation. And you know, like you I've done the Weight Watchers millions of times, I've done all sorts of other diets, and you know, the weight come off but never stayed off. And it never made me well. So I was just a bit lost. I was, you know, in the forest and not knowing which way to go. And I needed something to turn my health around. And for whatever reason, there's your smiling face and Mary's face popped up on Facebook or Instagram. I thought I could look at this.
Dr Lucy Burns (8:13) Yeah, absolutely. You know, you've heard me talk the whole dieting history of that queen and you know that other queen as lots of us, we're all queens of dieting, we're pretty good at it. You know, we can lose weight. By dieting. Nobody is, I don't think anyone would dispute that. But the method in which we do it is so harmful to our, to our metabolism, to our metabolic rate, and to the way we live, that the only tools we're given, you know, willpower, or, or to what I like to call kind of, abdicate your responsibility, abdicate your decision making to a meal plan or points calculator.
Amanda Moore (8:56) Yeah, I mean, food really becomes your jailer. You're either so heavily in a restricted plan of what you eat when you eat it, how much eat or on the other side, you like, better be good, and I better not have that or no can't do that.
Dr Lucy Burns (9:12) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. And in fact, you know, what, you've just sort of reminded me then of this idea that for lots of us, we, you know, careering down the road of life, you're either on one side is perfect, strict, restrictive, hungry, but you know, all in the quest of losing weight, or you're on the other side, which is just kind of scuffing everything in sight, you know, because, you know, the next step is to go back to that restriction. And so you've got this and you know, there's just an exhausting cycle and yet when you learn the skills and have the confidence to do that middle of the road, and then have Lane Assist, just keeping you in the middle, it's freeing.
Amanda Moore (10:02) Yeah, not having fatigue and exhaustion. You just, I thought that was a normal part of life. I mean, I was joking with Nikki yesterday that I'd have 8 to 10 coffees a day in the office. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:18) Yeah. Yeah to just power through your day. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? So at the time, you're obviously feeling apart from you know, feeling overweight, and you were tired, fatigued, any other symptoms?
Amanda Moore (10:35) So brain fog. Lethargy, I think most of the time, and then I think more so it's that feeling of being lost.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:46) So I guess then if you're thinking, you know, you want to change your life, you want to do something, what, what goals were you wanting to achieve?
Amanda Moore (10:52) I think a big one was finding something sustainable. Finding something that would nourish me and keep me going to address that sort of fatigue and exhaustion, and really anything that could help my system beat the, you know, the inflammation, and, you know, I didn't have a great gut. And, you know, all of these little things come together, and you think, well, the whole system needs a reboot and a refresh and I need something that's sustainable and you know that I can do it forever. Yeah, absolutely. Without killing some pills and potions that you see on the internet.
Dr Lucy Burns (11:35) Yeah, totally. So it's interesting. I mean, you know, there are some Hippocrates famously said, that all disease begins in the gut. And there are plenty of theories that are looking to say that in autoimmune conditions, there may be some gut involvement. So yeah, it's interesting, then that you mentioned that your gut wasn't a bit unhappy as well. Yeah. I know, for many people, they get worried when they're, you know, thinking of changing their lifestyle, like there are things that they think they might not be able to do. Was there anything like that for you? Did you have any worries or concerns?
Amanda Moore (12:12) I think, probably that I'd done so many diets before that, it wouldn't work. And I went initially with the view that it was a diet. But then I had a little episode in August before the 12 week rebound started, and I thought, Oh, sugar. Okay. I'm just going to join because I don't, I can't I can't face another six months of terror.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:37) Right? Okay, interesting. What was the little episode?
Amanda Moore (12:41) So I had terrible pains in my stomach, it was like, almost like someone was stabbing me. And that would be from a certain movement or having a sip of tea. And my inflammatory markers did a bit of a spike. So I have monthly bloodwork and my rheumatologist was on the phone. You're alright, no, oh, well, actually.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:02) It's interesting, isn't it, we often talk about this concept that people will change, when the pain of staying where they are, becomes greater than the pain of moving away from that. So for a lot of us, we will tolerate things, you know, we’ll tolerate our dodgy guts, we’ll tolerate some joint pain, we’ll tolerate, you know, not being able to put our shoes on or something like that. Until they get to a certain point where you suddenly go– Oh, actually, I can't tolerate this anymore. I need to do something.
Amanda Moore (13:36) Yeah, yeah. And it really was for me. The mind went– Okay, you've been tossing this idea up for a couple of months, because I first saw you in the May 1 or May, 12 Weeks, was coming off– Oh not sure. And then as soon as my mind goes– Yep, I need to do something. That was it. There was no stopping. So just, you know, enrol into it.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:01) Excellent. Excellent. And so what's happened to you since?
Amanda Moore (14:03) Well, it's it's been quite amazing, I think. The freedom, like all of a sudden, you're having to use your brain and make your own decisions for our foods. And I no longer sort of grazing looking for food, don't have the afternoon sort of fatigue. I'm finding that I've got so much more energy. I haven't had any issues with my joints at all during this period. And it's, I think, the overriding sense of freedom and having energy now, that has just made the world of difference.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:47) Amazing. So when you say you haven't had any, any issues with your joints in this period, how long are we talking?
Amanda Moore (14:54) Well, I'm really looking at sort of that September 2023, to now, January 2024. I would almost always have a niggle of some sort of varying degrees. So for me, that's great.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:09) Yeah, absolutely. So four months no need for prednisolone. Is that what you're saying? No, not at all. Which, in itself is phenomenal. Because, you know, again, as you know, we love to say to people, it's the lowest effective dose, and particularly for things like prednisolone, that can be zero.
Amanda Moore (15:28) It's awesome. Yeah. Yes, brilliant. But I think you know, that the first diagnosis, you know, fatigue and lethargy are just got to be part and parcel of it. Well, I, I've lost so much of that now. I've got so much more energy. I mean, yeah, I can, I'm not where I was when I was 25. But most of us aren't. But, yeah, it's really made a big difference to how I'm feeling physically for energy and even, you know, the clarity of mind is. Yeah, it still has its moments because of menopause, but that feels better as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:03) Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I think we, we talked quite a bit about menopause. And, you know, for lots of people, they will potentially need some hormone replacement, or now as it's called menopausal hormonal treatment. But a lot of women, once they just change their food, manage their mind, address their stress, find that actually, their symptoms are so much improved, they don't need it,
Amanda Moore (16:29) And you start eating so much less. I know, when first started the 12 Weeks, I've kept going on, it's gonna cost so much more money, goodbye, you know, me too. And, you know, kind of change all of this. And my husband actually commented before Christmas, no, we're actually using less, you know, and you're eating, you might be eating two meals, and you're not actually noticing that you're missing out on something and you're not snacking. So all those little extraneous things that go on the shopping list, or out at the cafe, when you're out during the day, they're gone. So it's actually quite a good economics in it as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (17:07) I love that. And in fact, I think you're right, like, it took me a little while to adjust my shopping list, which used to be sort of massive, and I buy all this food, and then I'd find actually don't have, I don't have the time or the appetite to eat it. Like I have the time, but I'm not hungry enough to eat it. So it just sort of sat there for a while until I kind of had to do a little adjustment.
Amanda Moore (17:31) Yeah, completely. And that's, you know, for someone who's always been hungry to suddenly go– Oh, actually, you know, two meals is plenty. And then when you finish, I'm not looking for dessert or late-night snacks. You know, it's really amazing. I mean, it did, you know, probably took me sort of week, eight to week 10, before my brain and body got into gear. But then it was just like– wow, I don't need to eat all the time.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:00) No. It's amazing, isn't it? And I think, you know, it's like, like we just said, sometimes it takes a while for your brain to catch up with what's going on. Because, you know, as you'll know, we always say our brain is a pattern machine it does. It likes to do what it's always done. It relies on past experiences to predict the future. And when it's suddenly going up. I don't need to buy this much food. I don't need to eat this often. It can take a little adjusting.
Amanda Moore (18:29) Yeah. And I think you know, even people with gut issues, the change of eating, like, just for me personally, I've noticed that, you know, the whole sort of gut and processes are so much better as well. Yeah. And I think, you know, you just got to give it, you got to give it a go and give it time because most of us have taken, you know, 15, 20, 30 years to get where we're at.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:53) Yeah, totally. And, you know, I mean, I think part of it is you know, we teach people a way to eat that reduces their processed food. And like I look at the processed food I used to consume, I didn't even consider it processed food. I didn't consider bread to be processed food. I thought the bread was healthy. And I certainly didn't consider things like you know, muesli bars to be processed food, particularly if they were diet muesli bars like they were good for you.
Amanda Moore (19:24) It was a really good snack. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:28) Or a diet yogurt with some hideous goop in it. So again, I think it's really important for people to realise that what we did that actually wasn't helpful. Isn't our fault that we were taught that.
Amanda Moore (19:45) Yeah, I don't know what made me think of it, but I've suddenly got ankles again.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:52) Oh amazing. Amazing. I know and I love that so there's all these funny and you know, we call them the non-scale victories that, because again, you know, yes, there's some weight loss involved. But if that is your sole focus, then you're missing the point. And so we always look at it, right? Well, what other things have improved? And so, you know, from you, you've got ankles, and you've reduced medication, like toxic medications.
Amanda Moore (20:18) Yeah. And it's, you know, reducing that medication load on the system. It's not just how you feel physically, but also, mentally, you don't have this worry about this medication that, you know, you'll have to take for the rest of your life. But what is it doing to you? And like in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, you know, there's issues potentially, you know, your heart disease, and all sorts of awful other illnesses out there. And, you know, you just have to do something to help your body mitigate those potential risks. And if eating real food like it's just around it or the outside aisles of the supermarket, it's an easy thing to do.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:04) It is once you know, once you've got the easy strategies once it becomes second nature, it's just an easy peasy.
Amanda Moore (21:14) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:17) And I guess one of the other things that can be really important, and you alluded to this, right at the very start is looking at things like stress and the effects that stress plays on your body and on diseases. How are you going with managing that these days?
Amanda Moore (21:31) Oh stress is still my kryptonite. I work full-time, and I have a fairly intense job. And so for me, stress is there all the time. And it's the thing that will wake me up at night. So I'm really needing to work on the hypnosis, and just trying different things to mitigate that. But I think for me, that's probably the more difficult one than the food.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:01) Yeah, interesting. It's interesting. And I think, you know, you just described it beautifully. Like, there are things that, we call external stressors. So that's busy work or demanding jobs, or, you know, for some people, it's, it's little kids waking up, like, there's things that you can't change, but what we can do is change the way we react to them. And the way in which we, our brain and body are affected by them. And so yeah, coming up with various skills for that, and I think people set maybe some people forget, it is a skill to learn how to meditate or how to listen to hypnosis, or how to do tapping, which is one of the other things we teach people, or how to just, in fact, as busy high achieving women, how to learn to just stop.
Amanda Moore (22:56) Yeah, and it's that thing, I think so many women, whether you're working or whether you've got a family, it's so many other people come first. And that's where our physical diet, their mental health, they sort of take second seat to everything else. And one thing that I've been learning through some of the hypnosis, and the 12 Week program is to go well hang on a minute, you're not much used to anyone, if you're not around, you know, you got to start looking after yourself.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:29) Absolutely. Maybe we should call it the 12 Week Put Yourself First Program.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:39) Gorgeous one, so how are you feeling now? How do you feel these days?
Amanda Moore (23:42) Actually really good. I feel physically I feel I have more energy, I don't feel sluggish at all. I feel empowered to actually make decisions when I'm out at a restaurant or at a family gathering. Whereas before there was either no thought or you better not do that. So you know, more control more energy, generally just feeling so much better. Like I can do things that before I'd be like, oh, yeah, just sit around and have a bit of a lie here and watch the TV or something.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:24) Yeah. You know, I love that. Because what you're saying, and this is what I mean, really, one of our aims is for people to feel better, have more energy have increased vitality, so that they're not living their life on the sidelines.
Amanda Moore (24:39) Yeah, completely. And, you know, when you've had the energy removed from you, and all of a sudden, you find it, and it's just like, oh, wow, you know, I can actually go and do all those extra things that I didn't think I could do. Amazing. I love that.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:57) So lovely. If you had a top tip for somebody who's new, who's thinking, you know, I need to do something, I've got brain fog, I've got no energy, my joints are sore. What would be your top tip for them?
Amanda Moore (25:11) Oh, gosh, well don't hesitate in doing the program as I did, first of all, and just go into it with faith and know that will take some time for you to get your head around how it works, because it does work. And it feels to me now that it's something that I can do long-term, it's not restrictive. And that to me is worth so much.
Dr Lucy Burns (25:39) Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love that. And I love the fact that you, as you said, recognise that it is I mean, it's a life-changing operating system, we have been programmed to look at health, look at weight loss, look at behaviour change in a certain way. And what I think Dr Mary and I try and offer is a different way, it's a different way to look at things. And that can feel a little tricky at first. But, you know, as they say, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
Amanda Moore (26:14) Yes, and I can say no diet that I've been on before has made me feel energetic.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:19) Great. I love that. I love that. Well, gorgeous one. I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that you've got your health back, that you've got your movement back, that you've got your energy back because the world needs you. You've got a lot to offer. You've got an important job and we want you around for a long time.
Amanda Moore (26:37) Oh, thank you. That's so lovely. But you know, it's a really big thank you to you and Dr Mary and the rest of the team because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you guys.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:46) Well, I think a joint effort, definitely a joint effort. Gorgeous one, take very good care. Lovely listeners, that's it for me this week, and I will catch you next week. Have a wonderful week and we'll see you soon.
Dr Lucy Burns: (27:03) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
