We welcome Dr. Dianah Lake, an ER Doctor and a Fitness & Weight Loss Coach to the show. Dr. Lake is here to crack the code on prioritizing health and self-care, especially for our amazing women in healthcare.
Forget the fad diets and quick fixes. Dr. Lake will share what truly motivates us to take charge of our well-being, and why lasting health transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. Tune in for practical tips on what to change from your diet and simple actions to build a healthy lifestyle that fits your busy schedule. Dr. Lake will also delve into the power of regular self-check-ins, staying active, and developing sustainable eating habits.
Whether you’re a doctor on the frontlines or simply juggling a demanding life, this episode is packed with insights to help you become the healthiest version of yourself. Don’t miss out!
Key Points From This Episode:
- What can motivate people to take action and prioritize self-care?
- Showing up for yourself authentically i key to living the life you desire.
- True transformation of your health and well-being is a journey, not a sprint.
- Avoid sugar and learn to manage your cravings. Alcohol and major stressors can also derail your progress.
- Start the practice or regular self-check-ins.
- Explore the concept of emotional eating and how to manage it.
- Manage your movement to stay active.
Resources:
Listen to the previous episodes here
LISTEN HERE
00:05 Dr. Ann Tsung Are you struggling to advance your career and sacrificing time with your loved ones because of endless to-dos, low energy, and just not enough time in the day? If so, then this podcast is for you. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung, an ER critical care and space doctor, a peak performance coach, a real estate investor, and a mother of a toddler. I am here to guide you on mastering your mind and give you the essential skills to achieve peak performance. Welcome to Productivity MD, where you can learn to master your time and achieve the five freedoms in life.
00:51 Hello. Welcome to Productivity MD podcast. I am your show host Dr. Ann Tsung. Today I have Dr. Dianah Lake here. She is a Certified Emergency Medicine Doctor who travels for locums, and she is the Founder of Dr. Di Fitness. Also, a mom of two boys with special needs. The reason why I wanted to bring her on is because I wanted to show like no matter how busy we are, no matter what life throws at us, how can we prioritize our health and just stop saying no, I don’t have time for self-care or my health and my fitness. That’s why I really wanted to talk to her. So thank you again Dr. Di for coming on. Would you tell the audience a little bit in detail about yourself, and why do you do what you do currently?
01:38 Dr. Dianah Lake Hi, everybody. I’m Dr. Dianah Lake, as she said. And so what I do basically is I work with physician women, dentists, veterinarians, pharmacists, women in health care and other high-level professions that are very much like me. You have your job. You have your home that you’re managing. You’ve got children, possibly. You’ve got a love life. You’ve got ailing parents. You’ve got all these things, right, different hats that you’re filling, different roles. Sometimes we tend to keep our own needs on the backburner and we’re giving, giving, giving and giving and giving, and then we suffer. So what I do is, I support professional women to start to bring their own health and wellness and self-care to the forefront of their lives so that they are in such a better position to do all the other things that they do. So that’s in a nutshell what I do. I help you prioritize your health and fitness so that you’re able to come from a better, a healthier place in all the other roles that you serve.
02:44 Dr. Ann Tsung And so just tell me a little bit about why people should care. Because people are busy. They have kids to take care of. They often, yes, like you said, put the family ahead of themselves. Down the line, why should they actually care about this? What can motivate them to actually begin to take action, to say that this is a non-negotiable?
03:07 Dr. Dianah Lake Oh, my gosh. Great question. So if you really think about your longevity, your lifespan and how it’s going, you really want to start thinking about how do you want to feel when you’re 70, 80? Like, do you want to be that person that’s on 20 medications, or do you want to be that vibrant 80 year old playing tennis? That’s what we mean, by the way. Right? Do you want to be that? When you see these ladies, you see they play tennis. When I go to the court, I’m like, I’m going to be just like her. They are vibrant, and they look happy. They’ve spent their time well in a way that they have actually created a lifestyle for themselves that they enjoy. Right? So what’s in it for you is enjoyment of the things that brings you happiness, that brings you joy, that makes you feel alive, that makes you feel vibrant in your body. Right? If you’re not focusing on your health and fitness, you’re going to more than likely be tired, fatigued. Right? You’re going to have chronic inflammation from the foods you’re eating that’s making your gut health not be optimized. Right? And if your gut health is not optimized, then you’re prone to get illnesses. Because about 70% of your immune cells are in your gastric system, in your GI tract. So all the pieces connect, right?
04:31 Imagine your health and fitness part of this house that you’re keeping up which is your lifestyle, and you’ve got these pillars that are keeping this lifestyle together, keeping your house up and stable. So if pieces of those pillars are breaking apart, you can visualize that the house is not going to stand very long. So that’s how I like to present it, that analogy of all the pillars that are keeping your house stable or your mental wellness, your physical wellness, your rest, resting your brain. Like, do nothing. Right? Create space for nothingness. Create space for just resting your body, so you can actually do all the things you’re supposed to do when you’re in that recovery or restoration mode.
05:17 So what’s in it for you is showing up for yourself in a way that allows you to live the life you want. So ask yourself. What do I want my life to look like? How do I want to feel in my body? Then who do I need to be to be able to create that? We’re creators as human beings. We create whatever we want, right? So you can start asking yourself. How do I need to show up differently to be this new version of me that I want? So that’s what’s in it for you. It’s becoming this higher level of yourself. You’re getting things done that needs to be done for work. You’re getting things done for your health — which you’re telling your patients to do. Yes, you are — but possibly not doing yourself, right? So that’s what’s in it for you. So many people come to me with this exact thing. I feel like a hypocrite. I’m telling my patients to do X, Y, and Z and I’m not doing it. A lot of us have that experience that we’re not walking our talk. So that’s what’s in it for you. You get to walk your talk. You get to live your message that you’re giving to your patients. You get to be the poster child of health and wellness, which is what you’re telling them to do. So now you get to be the embodiment of it. And it feels amazing. Don’t you want to feel amazing?
06:37 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, there’s a multiple factor. There’s so many factors. Number one, your health is your wealth. That’s what I often say. That without your health, if you’ve been injured, if you’ve been temporarily disabled, if you’ve even had a fracture or even a sprain, I mean even like normal activities of daily living, after a delivery can be super painful. So you really realize the little things that really matter in your health. So do it for that reason. At the same time, you can do it for others, for your patients, to have energy to spend with your kids, to have energy to have fun adventures with your spouse, perhaps.
07:15 Dr. Dianah Lake Yeah, it ripples out. When you become a healthier human being, everyone who experiences you gets a better version of you. Like you said, you have now more energy to spend with your partner. You have more energy to run around with your kids at the park, and you’re not exasperated after five minutes. A lot of my clients come to me with these stories. “I can’t tie my shoes because my belly is in the way. I can’t follow my kid at the playground because I’m short of breath after five minutes.” These are things that are real for people. So become more functional in your body. Basic things that are becoming a problem will no longer be a problem. One of my clients said she was surrounded with her medical students or residents that went up two flights of stairs. At the top, she thought she was going to die. She was like, I had no idea I was that unfit. She said whatever the work, it’s attache. Right? She was like, I had no idea two flights damn near killed me. Everybody walked off, and she had to stand there and get herself together. Because after two flights of stairs, she was like literally gasping for air.
08:23 Dr. Ann Tsung Wow.
08:24 Dr. Dianah Lake Right? Yes. And she’s like, all of them just took off like it was nothing. Because, I mean, they’re younger, right? They’re medical students and residents. They’re in the prime of their lives. They can run up two flights and go in this. She’s there like, oh, my God. I’m about to die. That was the moment for her, like, I’ve got to do something about this. So for a lot of us, some of us need to have that moment where we’re like, I cannot bend over to tie my shoes. That’s a problem. Or, I’m short of breath after two flights of stairs. That’s a problem. So when you start thinking that functional things that you could do normally is becoming a problem, it’s really time to start focusing on you and your wellness so that everyone around you gets to experience that higher level that you know you can get to.
09:15 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I can definitely resonate with right now. I’m like 39 and 4 days now. It’s hard to tie my shoes. It’s hard to run around with my own son in the playground. I have a temporary sense of what that feels like, and it doesn’t feel good. I feel like it’s unsafe. Sometimes I can’t be alone with him in the playground, or I have to cut things short because I can’t run up and down so fast in the playground with him currently.
09:39 Dr. Dianah Lake And you don’t want him to be in an area where if something happens that you can’t reach and things like that, you know. There’s a safety issue there. Yeah, absolutely.
09:48 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, if it’s not for your health, it’s—
09:49 Dr. Dianah Lake These are real functional things we’re talking about, you know. This is not oh, I want to be in a hot bathing suit. Yeah, that’s great, too. We want that too, right? Feeling confident in your body. I cannot tell you, Ann, how many women hide behind their white coat. They don’t take it off at all. They put it on in the car. Like before they get out and walk into the hospital, they hide behind that white coat. They don’t ever take it off because it’s protecting them. People can’t see the rolls. People can’t see the — whatever they feel in their mind is an unhealthy appearance for them is hidden behind that white coat.
10:27 Dr. Ann Tsung And what would you say then if people do decide to change right now, how long does it take? What kind of frequency are we talking about and what end result can they achieve, or what can they feel after a certain period of time? What’s the difference that you’ve seen in your clients?
10:46 Dr. Dianah Lake Good question. A lot of people always want to know how long is it going to take. And always I say, how long did it take you to gain 50 pounds? I mean, it’s not going to be magic. Let’s be realistic. We’re in this microwave world where everything must be instant. But true transformation of your health and wellness takes a lot of mindset mastery. It takes a lot of shifting of the way you see yourself. The negative self-talk, the inner critic stuff, the unlearning of things that society says we should be doing, there’s so much that you have to unpack. So if you start from that place that this is going to be a process, then you can get less anxious about the time. And you can say I’m in this for the long haul. I’m going to do what it takes to get to that goal.
11:39 On average, most of the women who work with me lose a pound a week, if it’s weight loss they’re coming for. So in 20 weeks, you could be down 20, 25 pounds. That’s five months. That’s if you’re not doing — that’s just organically doing the behavior modification changes that I’m going to recommend for your movement, your meals, hydration, sleep, stress management, time management, all the things, all these pillars like I said before. So you want to be managing your pillars, all the things that are going to be part of your overall wellness. It’s not just eating well and going to exercise. It’s managing your stress. It’s managing your sleep. I cannot tell you how much sleep plays a role in our fitness. Our muscles tone when we sleep. Growth hormone, our fountain of youth hormone, is produced during sleep. All of our organs are doing their self-cleaning thing during sleep, right? So if you’re not getting enough rest, you’re shooting yourself in the foot for the fitness part. You could go to the gym seven days a week. But if you’re only getting four or five hours of sleep, I don’t think it’d be 10 out of 10. But if the other things are like 3 or 4 out of 10, it’s all for naught. Do you understand what I’m saying? So you want to have a general sense that this is going to be a process. If I’m focused on weight loss, one pound a week is a decent goal assuming that I’m doing the work. Because it’s one thing to hear it and know it. It’s another thing to implement.
13:10 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, great. Another thing with sleep is when you don’t get enough sleep, you increase your cortisol. When you increase your cortisol, you essentially increase your insulin. And when you increase your insulin, you increase your fat.
13:20 Dr. Dianah Lake Oh, you just go down this rough cascade, metabolic cascade that’s not working in your favor. And the next thing is, you start to make choices that next day when you’re sleep deprived that are not helpful. You’re going to be going for the salty foods, to sweet foods, to comforting foods. You’re not going to be using your prefrontal cortex to make decisions. Your primal brain will be running the show. Because you’re annoyed. You’re groggy. You’re not a nice person when you don’t get enough rest. So it’s like the whole thing just doesn’t work for you. So when I tell people what to expect, I give them the bigger picture. I say we’re doing this for your life. This is a longevity game. So I give them the timeframe of the one pound a week, if that’s what they’re here for. Some people don’t even want to lose weight when they come to work with me. They want to build their strength. They want more energy. They want to tone and sculpt. They’re fine with their weight. So it’s not always about weight loss.
14:19 So depending on what their goals are, I let them know what the expectations are time-wise around that. Then I tell them what we’re doing here is a forever game. You’re now creating new ways of being that you’re going to take with you moving forward. So the practices we build here is something that that’s just who you are now, right? This is not a fad. This is not for the moment. This is who I am moving forward. This is how I sneak now. This is how I eat now. It doesn’t matter if I’m on vacation, wherever. I’m implementing these things with little tweaks here and there. Offline, we were talking about the 80-20 rule, right? So yeah, you learn how to live in that 80% of consistency, and you give yourself the grace. You build in your indulgences as part of the deal. If you want your wine, the wine is on the list. Nothing is off the table. That’s the beautiful thing about how I do this. Nothing is off the table. The key is: what is the cadence? How frequently do you do it? If you’re mastering your meals and you have a glass of wine, it’s really not a big deal. Right? Or, you have a piece of cheesecake. Again, not a big deal. But it’s the frequency. How often is that happening? Do you understand what I’m saying?
15:37 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah.
15:38 Dr. Dianah Lake Then we talked about it. So there’s no guilt around it at all. Because women will guilt themselves in a minute. We are good for that. So we work on all those things, working it in a way that you’re not — there’s no self-proration about it. You just add in the treats. The indulgences is part of your plan. How awesome is that?
16:02 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think that leads into my next question and that I wonder. Because I was going to ask you. Foundationally, are there three things that they must avoid? It doesn’t sound like there is. I’m just curious. It doesn’t have to be food either. But I’m curious. Are there three things they must avoid foundationally and three things must start now?
16:24 Dr. Dianah Lake Okay. Great question. So if I had to do three things to avoid, the biggest one is sugar. The biggest one. It’s such an addictive chemical in our bodies, right? So if you can master the sugar game. I’m not saying don’t eat it at all, but master it in a way that the ultra-processed foods come off your plate. The ultra-processed thing like your sugary drinks, your sodas, your Starbucks drinks. Oh, people don’t like that one when I give them the homework to go and look up their favorite Starbucks drink and see how much sugar. Some of them have 70 grams of added sugar. And the recommendation per day is 50 grams. So if your one drink has 60 something grams or 70 grams of added sugar, you’re done for the day when it comes to sugar. Think about it. So think about if you’re happy that macchiato — I don’t even know the names of the drinks.
17:24 Dr. Ann Tsung Frappuccino, macchiato.
17:25 Dr. Dianah Lake Right. Frappuccino or whatever they’re called. I usually just get my green tea when I go. Green tea. That’s it. Maybe I’ll get one of the little refresher drinks, but I’m very mindful about the sugar. So if I had to take three things, the sugar is the one that we would be watching really closely, and minimizing alcohol. Alcohol is another sugary source. Alcoholic drinks are sugary, especially the mixed drinks, right? They add all the simple syrup and all the things in there that’s all straight sugar. So for every gram of alcohol you consume, you get seven calories you have to burn off. And it makes you feel full. That’s why alcoholics, when they come into the emergency department, we have to actually give them the banana bag. We give them vitamins and things because they’re usually malnourished because of all the alcohol that they drink. So they get that big belly, the bloating. It messes up your gut health and all of that. So alcohol. So alcohol would be the second one. Sugar. Alcohol has sugar too, but the alcohol is in its own category.
18:37 Then the third thing that I would say really you want to avoid is major stressors. Like major, major. We all would have stress off and on, right? But remember, cortisol is a good thing if it comes in spurts. If our body makes cortisol in a stressful situation very short-term, it actually helps us. But if you’re chronically in stress mode, so many of us are, right? We’re chronically in survival, like I got to do this, I got to do, like chronically anxious, chronically stressed out, chronically sleep-deprived, you know what I mean? If you’re in that chronic mode of stress, not only is your insulin just deranged. Your cortisol is deranged. Your food decisions, the decisions for what you’re going to eat, is going to be based on your emotions. And if you’re emotionally eating, you’re eating that way because you want to shift your mood. You want to eat something that’s going to make you not feel sad, not feel fatigued, not feel disappointed. Whatever that negative energy is, you want to shift it so you eat. But if you’ve found a better way to manage the stress, then you start to look for other ways for feeling good and not with food. Right? So those would be my three: managing the stress, reducing the alcohol, and drastically reducing the sugar. That will clean your meal plan so well just by doing those things.
20:02 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think I very commonly hear they don’t snack at home, or they don’t stress eat at home, but they would do it in the hospital. And in the hospital, what would you say to somebody who has lots of candy at the nurse’s station, cookies, whatever, and they always bring those things. And they—
20:20 Dr. Dianah Lake In the ER too.
20:22 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and it’s very hard to resist when you’re stressed in the hospital. They’ve tried maybe counting the amount that they eat. That doesn’t work. Once they start, they just like go. They’re like, oh, I already started, so I’m just going to — the day is ruined. I’m curious. What would you advise that—
20:40 Dr. Dianah Lake That’s the thing. That’s the great thing you just mentioned. The day is ruined. The day it’s not ruined. These five minutes are ruined. It’s a whole different mindset. Don’t put the day into it. The day has nothing to do with it. This moment is ruined. The rest of the day could still be good if you choose it to be. Right? So that’s why we do so much mindset mastery in my program, because you have to unlearn all these little phrases you tell yourself. Oh, I screwed up here now, so the day is ruined. No, it doesn’t have to be. You can totally turn this thing around. You can sit with yourself and acknowledge what has happened and say, okay, that didn’t go too well. I’m calling myself out all the time. And when you are calling yourself out and you’re staying in integrity with your word — listen. I said I was going to do this. I know this day hasn’t started great. When I said I was going to make this commitment to myself, I’m going to stay in integrity with my word. So we’re going to turn this thing around. Right? So the way you speak to yourself really has a lot. It plays a lot into how the day goes. If you focus on the winning and you focus on the positive, and you focus on that didn’t go so great, but how can I show up now? How can I show up differently now so that the rest of this day actually goes well? Right?
22:03 So let’s just use the example of the pizza. That’s the thing in the ER. They always buy pizza. I’ve been doing this 21 years, so I had to come up with a way to deal with it, right? It’s like, okay, they’re doing it again. You can’t stop people from buying pizza, or bringing chocolate, or whatever. So you have to really create a practice for yourself where you’re staying on course even when you can see it right there in the box. But you get to a point where you either decide I’m going to have a couple of slices, and that’s it. I’m making a decision to do this. This is not I’m giving in. I’m making a decision. I’m going to do this today. And you do it. Then you say what the consequence of that is going to be. What am I going to do to counter it? Am I going to do a workout? Am I going to do a longer workout, whatever you’re going to do to balance that out, right? Or you can choose to say this is not in my plan. I know I’m stressed right now, and that will be the thing I will typically go to. That’s that primal brain running again to the brain reward system. It wants the dopamine surge. It wants to quick fix. It wants to think that it’s going to make you feel good instantaneously.
23:21 But when you train yourself, which is something I’ve had to do and all of my clients get to do, is you train yourself to say, here’s that situation again where I’ve self-sabotaged. Call yourself out. This is a situation where I will self-sabotage and screw up my plan for today. I’m choosing not to do that. That is a win, right? You check that off as a win. Because normally, that would be something you would just — you will see it there, and you would say that Monday is ruined. I’m going to eat three more anyway. But when you start this practice of checking in with yourself, when you start this practice of calling yourself out on your behavior that got you into the situation in the first place, and you start being in more integrity with yourself and saying I have a commitment to me. This is the thing I said I was going to do. This is the thing I said I was not going to do. Here’s the test. I’m in it now real world. Every time you do it and you win, you come into the group. You say I had a win today. I normally would have 3 cookies or 10 cookies or whatever. The nurses brought this stuff in. I didn’t have any of it. And we cheer you on. Like, we do the whole little accountability loop. You come in, and you share your win that you did this thing that was hard. It’s hard because you’ve been doing it all your life, right? So now to unlearn a behavior or to stop doing something you’ve been doing for so long so easily is a hard thing. But every time you do it, you give yourself a win and you start trusting yourself more. You start saying I can do this. I just did it yesterday. Right? So when you see the next box of pizza, you’re like, okay, I didn’t have it yesterday. I don’t need it today. So you start having better conversations with yourself to not give into the indulgences. You make your indulgences be planned, right? I’m going to dinner with my husband.
25:22 Dr. Ann Tsung And what if you do give in?
25:24 Dr. Dianah Lake But once you give in, make them be planned. Yes, I’m going to dinner with my husband. I’m going to have that cheesecake. I’m going to have that whatever. You make it be planned just like you’re planning to have it. It’s part of the deal. I’m going to make sure I get my—
25:40 Dr. Ann Tsung What if they fail? Like the discipline portion, what if it wasn’t planned and they fail it, what is the self talk that is appropriate?
25:50 Dr. Dianah Lake Okay. Good question. So it wasn’t planned. You’re out with friends. That’s the other thing about emotional eating. It can be positive emotions that bring the eating on too. It’s not always negative emotions that make you overeat. You can overeat because you’re sad, disappointed, angry, frustrated, mad. Or you can overeat because you’re celebrating. We’re at a dinner party. Everybody’s drinking. Of course, I’m going to have the third glass of wine, right? Or, of course, I’m going to go and have the whatever cake or whatever. You’re in the celebratory mode, and so you overeat. You over indulge. You overeat just like you would if you were in that sad mode. So both can be true.
26:32 So let’s say you do that, and you’re at a party. You went a little overboard. Then basically, the conversation now is going to be, number one, let’s acknowledge that this has happened. Don’t try to pretend. Some blame it on someone else or whatever. You were the one putting the drink to your mouth, right? So you have to own that. You have to own it. You have to call yourself out. Okay. This is what happened. It was a part of the deal. You have that conversation with yourself. You give yourself grace. You say, okay, what have I done well today? This particular moment did not go well, but we’re not going to dwell in it. Other things went really well today. I finished my charts. I got the kid to school on time. So you go back into that mode of let’s focus on the positive. We’re acknowledging that this thing here didn’t work, right? Well, I’m not going to go down this spiral with it because I know that never serves me. Because then I’m just going to overeat some more and be disappointed in myself. And then it just spirals out.
27:41 So you can acknowledge that it didn’t go well, and then make a plan for how are you going to change that for the next day or the remainder of the evening. What can I do differently? Maybe moving forward, I’m going to just have some water with lemon. I can still socialize. I don’t need to have the fourth drink. I don’t need to have the third piece of cake. I’m going to shift right in this moment. I’ve had a little more than I wanted to. But right now, I’m going to have some water, or some tea, or something else and still continue to enjoy the experience of communicating and connecting with people but really take my focus off the food now. Let me put my focus on engaging with people and having the social connection, the social engagement. And so that’s how you can shift in that moment. It’s basically acknowledging you’ve had this moment. It is great. You’re enjoying it. But now it’s time to shift. It’s time to shift, get back on track. Then maybe that next day, you really go hard with your movement. You’re really on point with your macros. Then the next couple of days, clean it up. Take your probiotics, because you know you’re going to be bloated for all that sugar and alcohol. You’re going to look like you’re seven months pregnant, right? Because then the bad bacteria is going to kick in, and you’re just going to feel icky. That’s that post-party mode, right? You don’t feel good. So anticipate it’s coming. Take your probiotics to protect your gut. Hydrate really well. Get moving again. So you just literally try to make up.
29:19 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, essentially, be kind to yourself in terms of the self-talk. Then it’s really, it’s the average of everything that you’re doing. So don’t have negative self-talk just because of one moment or one night, and appreciate that the connection that you had as well. I definitely want to touch on how you were able to prioritize everything. You have mentioned that with your family situation, with your kids, can you just tell us a little bit of how you were actually able to prioritize your fitness with everything that’s going on? Because this is a peak performance productivity podcast. Were there like top three tactics that you used that was able to allow you to do that?
30:04 Dr. Dianah Lake Yes. Okay. So let me give them a little bit of background. So my fitness journey started way back 2012 I was going through a divorce. My youngest son was 15 months. So just imagine. You have a 15 month old and a 5 year old. You go into a divorce, and you’ve recently lost your dad. So there’s a lot of things that you’re mourning. You’re mourning the loss of the marriage. All these things are going on. During the separation, we find out our youngest son is on the autism spectrum. So now that’s a new diagnosis. So if you guys, if you can imagine, I was at a really low place emotionally. So the emotional eating was woof, like through the roof, right? Feeling really pitiful and in this place that was really not healthy. And so one of my girlfriends who was visiting me that day said — I was like in a mess, emotional mess. She was like, let’s go for a run. I was not a runner. I was like, girl, I do not run. She’s like, okay, let’s just go and walk. She would do these runs and things. That was her thing. So I was like, okay, fine. Anything to get me out of the house, you know.
31:19 And so we went and we did two miles. I remember this so vividly because it was the turning point for me. We did two miles. It was like a run, walk, run, walk, run, walk. The exhilaration I felt when I got home, oh, my god. I was like, I want that every day. You know how doctors are. We get geeky about things. Once something works, like we want to go, we want to take into the umpteenth degree. I was like, I need that in my life. I need that, and I love how I feel. When do we go again? So that feeling for me was like I can do anything if I’m feeling this good. So my fitness became priority because it pulled me out of this negative energy I was in, and it allowed me to get some clarity. Just being out doing the runs, clarity. So that’s the thing that started for me, was being able to have the mental clarity. Then say, what else do I need to feel well? What else do I need to feel well? I know I need to eat better. And so then I started focusing on my meals. And as I told you, we like to go all the way. So I ended up doing a bodybuilding competition. At that point, I was 42. I’m 49 now. So I did a bodybuilding competition, and that also brought discipline to be able to do that and get on the stage.
32:52 So I’m giving you all of this to say when you are in that low, low, low place, you really have to think about what do you need to be well. So think for yourself. Is it support? Is it rest? Is it movement? So it will be something different from person to person. But ask yourself: what do I need right now to be well? What do I need? Ask yourself that question. Is it sleep? Is it movement? Do you need to cry it out? What is it that you need? Then what I would say the top three things would be is really managing your movement, getting up every hour on the hour. Whether it’s just to move around the office, move around the clinic, whatever your industry is that you’re in, move. Keep moving every hour on the hour. Because sedentary lifestyle, they’re saying now, is almost as bad as smoking. Right? So be active, first thing.
33:53 The second one is managing your eating habits. Anti-inflammatory meal plan. Really reducing the inflammation in your body. Because diseases start from inflammation. The first start is inflammation before it progresses into a disease. So if you’re really reducing the inflammation in your body by reducing the toxins you’re introducing into your body, that’s going to support you. The other piece is stress management. I’m going back to the stress management again. Because the stress is like a silent killer. The stress is causing your blood pressure to go up. The stress is causing your anxiety to go up. The stress is causing poor food decision-making. The stress is causing poor sleep, right? The stress is causing weight gain. The stress is causing depression. The stress is the source for so many other things. So if you can imagine going to therapy, whatever you need, life coaching, to deal with the stressors and find solutions, you’re on your way. So managing the stress, managing what you’re putting into your body, and managing your movement.
34:58 Dr. Ann Tsung So as a summary, it sounds like the top three to avoid is sugar, alcohol, avoiding stress. And top three to do is actually managing your stress to the lowest level plus movement, any sort of movement on the hour, every hour. Then number two is an anti-inflammatory diet. Typically, what I tell people a lot of times is, because there are so many different types of diets, if you don’t feel good after eating it, then it’s not good for you typically. If you feel great after eating it—
35:29 Dr. Dianah Lake Yeah, that’s a good one. If it makes you feel bloated, if it makes you feel so fatigued — and that’s why I love the concept of macros. So if you understand your macros, most of the women, actually, all of the women that I’m working with have a macros plan parameters that they follow. How many grams of carbs per day? How many grams of protein per day? How many grams of fat per day. Looking at your sugar content, your fiber, all these things. So start learning about your nutrition. We don’t learn about nutrition very well in medical school. I remember having one class in nutrition that was not even a whole semester. I think it was several weeks. So we don’t learn much about nutrition. So make it your business to understand food, and start creating a healthy relationship with food where you’re using it to nourish your body, to fuel your movement, to fuel your workout. You’re looking at it in a positive way. There’s no negative guilt around eating. I think that would really support a lot of people to be able to do it that way.
36:34 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I agree. Without understanding where you currently are, it will be difficult for you to change. And I’m curious. So if people want to find out — because you talked about the woman that you coach, the macros, so what exactly do you offer in terms of your coaching? What type of resources do you offer, and where can people find you? Because I know we talked about a lot, but that’s really just like the surface of it.
36:59 Dr. Dianah Lake Yes, it’s the surface, but I think it gives people the problem awareness. Right? They are now aware of things that are possible for them. Okay. I can actually do something about this. I can actually do something about my meals, my movement, my mood, my sleep, my thoughts. So the way you can find me, Dr. Di Fitness, that’s my Facebook public page. I’m on Instagram as well. What are the other ones? I think that’s pretty much it. I don’t do TikTok yet. Maybe I should. I don’t know. But Facebook and Instagram.
37:38 I have fitness coaching program that is 5 months and 10 months. You can choose one based on what your goals are. So for someone who maybe say they’re focused on losing less than 30 pounds, I will have them do the five-month program. Someone with a much bigger goal would do the 10-month program. And in the program, they have a course, a Fitness Transformation Course that I’ve created which gives you up to 35 hours of CME, continuing medical education credits. So they get that. So they can actually use their CME to pay for it, the CME allowance to pay for it. They can use the HSA, all those things to pay for it. In the program, they get the course. They get accountability partners. They get one-on-one coaching. They get group coaching. A lot of the things we do is focus around mindset mastery, their nutrition, their movement, their stress management, their time management, all those things, and making them more productive in their lives so that they show up more powerfully in all the roles that they have to play.
38:37 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Thank you for sharing that resource. Drdifitness.com?
38:41 Dr. Dianah Lake No, it’s just Dr. Di Fitness. It’s a Facebook page. It’s just Dr. Di Fitness.
38:48 Dr. Ann Tsung Okay. Got it. And then they will find you where the course information is going to be on there.
38:53 Dr. Dianah Lake Yes, so if they go on Dr. Di Fitness, there’s a way for them to make an appointment. If they wanted to do a free consultation with me, they can set it up from there.
39:02 Dr. Ann Tsung Okay. Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your time. And I know the audience is. I think we’ve simplified it down, especially the mindset, the action. So after this, just take one action. You don’t have to do all six. It’s okay. But just do one. Just make a commitment to change your identity for one, and then just let the momentum go. So, again, Dr. Di, thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom, your experience with all the clients. We really, really appreciate your insights here.
39:35 Dr. Dianah Lake Thanks for having me. This was great.
39:37 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, thank you. And remember, to the audience, that everything we talked about, all the resources, it’s going to be in the show notes at productivitymd.com. And remember, everything we need is already within us now. Thank you.
39:51 Dr. Dianah Lake Absolutely.
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