Ep. 23 - Using CBD: Effective, Safe, and Surprisingly Beneficial with RD Brooke Alpert

August 19th, 2022

The Digest on Gut Microbiomes

This post includes the transcript from an episode of the Weight Loss with Hypnosis podcast. You can find the full episode here.

Where to Find Brooke Alpert on the Web:

 

Website: https://dailyhabitcbd.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailyhabitcbd

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bnutritious

Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/dailyhabitcbd

Full Episode:

Doug: If you feel you often lose control of your eating and your hunger, if you feel anxious or even afraid to enter your kitchen or go out to eat with friends. If you feel you can’t stop eating once you start, or you no longer want to be controlled by food and the emotions that surround it, lean in my friend and get inspired.

This is your wake up call to a life where food doesn’t control you. Where you’re comfortable with what you eat and where you can easily stop whenever you want to. This isn’t science fiction and it’s not another empty weight loss promise. This is hypnosis. And if you like this show, you’ll love my powerful hypnosis audio, The Binge Blocker Protocol. This hypnosis helps you stop out of control eating the moment you feel that urge. It’s a 15 minute audio that deals with the emotions behind compulsive eating. Once those emotions are out of the way, the urge to overeat goes [00:01:00] away with it. Once you get your binge blocker protocol, you can download it to your phone to carry with you whenever you might feel that urge. Whether in a restaurant, in your home or even at your workplace when those breakroom donuts are calling your name. Whether you call it a binge, overeating or simply losing control for a moment, this audio will help you resolve it. You can get your Binge Blocker Protocol by going to anywherehypnosis.com.

That’s anywherehypnosis.com. Right on the homepage, you’ll see where you can get your copy of the Binge Blocker Protocol right now. And I’m serious about that, right now. Pause this podcast to go get your hypnosis today. Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you get back. Go to anywherehypnosis.com and sign up.

It’s completely free. And if you’re even thinking about getting this hypnosis, trust me, get this hypnosis today. Try it out because you’ll never know just [00:02:00] how effective this can be until you test it out in your own life. Again, that’s anywherehypnosis.com. One more time, anywherehypnosis.com. Now on with the show.

 (QUOTE) 

[00:02:12] Brooke: CBD is talked about and the science behind it is incredible for a lot of different conditions. So it really became like if it’s rise to fame or to becoming trendy. A lot of it was derived from its help that it did for people with epilepsy and how it could lessen the seizures or lessen the severity of them.

But the more science and more research that we’re doing, we’ve also discovered that CBD has these other incredible benefits. Specifically for anxiety, sleep pain, inflammation, if they’re great for pre-post workout. And so there’s a lot of other things that it’s really good. For me, I find my focus and my stress levels much more tolerable when I’m taking my own product regularly.

You know, it’s funny when I have my cup of coffee with daily habit in the morning, and then I look at my screen, I’m like, oh, there’s only two tabs open. On a [00:03:00] day like where I haven’t used it for like a week straight, I’ll have like 17 different tabs of it. 

And there’s incredible signs about CBD for ADD and ADHD. And while I don’t have any of that, I do tend to lose focus and be overstimulated by working remotely these days. And so it’s amazing that like I’m having benefits that I didn’t even know that I needed.

[00:04:00] 

 (INTRO) 

[00:04:19] Doug: Welcome back to the Weight Loss with Hypnosis Podcast. My name is Doug Sands, and I’m the hypnotist and the host of this show. And today I am so excited to share this amazing conversation. I know that I say this a lot about a lot of our guests, because well, all of these interviews are really fascinating for me and for a lot of the listeners who sent in some information about what they truly enjoyed. But today I had a truly fascinating conversation, a conversation unlike anything that we’ve seen so far on this podcast. 

Today, I spoke with Brooke Alpert. Brooke is a registered dietician based in the busy life of New York. Aside from being a health expert in nutrition, Brooke is also a health expert in CBD. She has so much [00:05:00] experience working with this revolutionary and very interesting supplement that I had a lot of questions asked for her. I had so many questions about CBD in particular. Like, is it safe? How does it work?

Is it legal in all areas? And Brooke shared a lot of information and cleared up a lot of the misconceptions that I had. And I know that some of my listeners may have about CBD. There’s so much fantastic information in this episode. I highly recommend that you listen in and listen all the way through, and I highly recommend that you check out her practice Daily Habit.

I know that I’m going to be checking this out right after this interview because I’m fascinated. I wanna learn a little bit more about CBD, and perhaps try it out in my own life. I know that I’m going to check it out and I recommend that you do as well. So with that, let’s dive right into the content with this interview with Brooke Alpert. 

 

[00:05:56] Doug: (INTERVIEW) Welcome back to the podcast everyone. I’m so excited for today’s conversation. [00:06:00] Today, I am joined by Brooke Alpert. Brooke, thank you so much for joining us. 

[00:06:04] Brooke: Thanks for having me. 

[00:06:05] Doug: Absolutely. Brooke, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got into your current practice? 

[00:06:10] Brooke: Sure. So I have a sort of a funny path here.

I’m a dietician by training. I’ve had a private nutrition counseling practice in New York city for over 15 years now. And I’ve loved my job and I really became a dietician because I wanted to work one on one with patients. And then, while I was helping all of my patients do really well in my office, I had a husband at home who was struggling with a lot of health issues. And so because of his struggles, it took me sort of on an unconventional path after over a decade of work. And I went ahead and became a certified cannabis practitioner, really wanting to find about cannabis and can it help my husband with his conditions.

And I ended up really falling in love with the plants and the properties and especially of CBD. So from there, I went ahead and launched my own CBD [00:07:00] company called Daily Habit. And now I get sort of a mix of both every day. So a lot of CBD, a lot of cannabis work and a lot of nutrition work. And I find that that is like the perfect match for myself.

[00:07:11] Doug: That’s fantastic. And it sounds like an excellent story. And in my practice, working with hypnosis, there are a lot of people who have misconceptions about what it actually is. Would you mind sharing what CBD is? What the health benefits are and what are some of the common myths that people come in asking about?

[00:07:26] Brooke: Sure. So CBD, the first thing is it won’t get you high, stoned, or giving you the munchies. Like that’s like the bottom line, the three things people wanna know. So the main thing is that CBD is derived from the cannabis plant. So it’s what we know as marijuana, but the CBD that we work with and most CBD companies who ship to you nationwide are working with industrial hemp, which is very similar to the cannabis proper plant. The only difference is the amount of THC, and that THC is what’s gonna get you high or stoned or potentially give you the munchies. So the hemp that we work with is [00:08:00] certified throughout the country and in order for it to be classified as hemp, it has to have 0.3% THC or less.

So it’s such a minute amount that there’s none of those psychoactive effects. So, you can take this and still fully be functional to drive or to operate heavy machinery or to care for my children, whatever it is. So, that’s one of the main things that people don’t understand. It’s similar compounds and components, but the main difference is that psychoactive effect does not exist when you’re working with a regular CBD product.

[00:08:31] Doug: I’m curious. How do people get the CBD out of the plants? Is it a different part of the plants or is it a different process? 

[00:08:37] Brooke: Sure. So, you know, we’ve got the cannabis proper as like the umbrella of all the plants, and then there’s two main strains, So one continues to be still called cannabis and that has all the psychoactive effects.

And what we know is marijuana, it can be sold medicinally or recreationally depending on what state you’re in. And the other one is industrial hemp. So it’s been bred to only have that 0.3% or less, otherwise it’s not classified [00:09:00] as hemp. and no grower is gonna be trying to sell somebody hemp that has higher levels of THC, coz they could get better money for it elsewhere.

So it’s two different types of the same plants. You know, it’s like milk and dark chocolate, right? They’re both chocolates. They’re just two different types. 

[00:09:16] Doug: That’s really interesting. And looking at the kind of products that people make out of CBD, what kind of things are out there and perhaps what kind of issues can they resolve?

[00:09:24] Brooke: Sure. I mean, so there’s a wide variety of products out there and there’s a wide variety of brands and quality out there. So for me as a dietician, anytime I’m recommending any sort of dietary supplement, it’s all about quality, and science based, and third party testing, and certain qualifications.

So that’s really important when you’re looking for a CBD brands. On top of that, it’s also about a format that you’re going to use. So they come in tinctures where it’s an oil based dropper that you sort of pour into your mouth. It comes in gummies, it can even come in some sort of like, vape pen or smokeable substance.

And then like on the market, there’s tons of different like drinks and [00:10:00] topical creams and lotions and hair stuff. I mean, it’s a very crowded space at the moment. Daily habit is a powdered supplement. And my reasoning for making a powdered supplement is that the best benefits of CBD are only gonna occur when you’re using it regularly.

So I wanted to create a product that people would actually use regularly. In my practice, like I’ve seen supplements, you know, expire in people’s medicine cabinets. I’ve seen gummies. Sure, they’re fun. But not, everyone’s always gonna wanna eat a gummy. I personally don’t like pouring oil into my mouth.

It’s just like uncomfortable sensations. It doesn’t work for me. So I chose a powder and the goal was when creating it, well, what does someone do almost everyday? Well, everyone has their coffee or tea or morning ritual. So the goal of daily habit is that since it’s a coconut powder base, it acts as like a non-dairy creamer.

So you put a scoop of daily habit into your coffee, and all of a sudden you’ve got like a creamy beverage without having to add even more than a splash of milk. 

[00:10:52] Doug: That’s fantastic.

And I really appreciate what you mentioned about the habits. So many times when we’re trying to build a new habit when we link it with another habit and [00:11:00] kind of stack it on top of each other, like the habit for coffee, I think that’s a really great way to build that in. I’m curious, do you personally make the coconut powder mixture for daily habit? Or is that something that you outsource? 

[00:11:10] Brooke: We buy all of the raw ingredients and combine it at our lab. So then we have it all manufactured and then it’s headed over to our fulfillment center. I’m very strict about the labs that I work with, the manufacturing companies, everything needs to have, you know, all of my strict stamps of approval, which make me really challenging to work with, but , it’s a really good product because of it.

[00:11:29] Doug: Yeah, that sounds excellent. And speaking of that strictness, I know that you mentioned that, CBD is allowed in most places. But personally, I live in Utah where things are very strict about alcohol CBD and other things. Do you run into any issues getting this product to people in certain areas or is that not really an issue with CBD? 

[00:11:48] Brooke: As of 2018?

When the farm bill, the us farm bill was passed, it made hemp based CBD products. So the product that we use here, daily habit, It made it federally legal mm-hmm so [00:12:00] all across the country, it’s fully legal. Now could you necessarily buy quality C B, D and at a local store based on state rules? Maybe not, but federally I can ship to all 50 states.

That’s fantastic. Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. and shifting gears a little bit, looking at perhaps your own personal experience with your husband and some of the experiences that people have had after using, um, daily habit and C B D what are some of the issues that people can resolve and perhaps how does C, B, D actually help what’s what’s at work?

Sure. So CBD is talked about and the science behind it is incredible for a lot of different conditions. So it really became like if it’s rise to fame or to becoming trendy. A lot of it was derived from its help that it did for people with epilepsy and how it could lessen the seizures or lessen the severity of them.

But the more science and more research that we’re doing, we’ve also discovered that CBD has these other incredible benefits. Specifically [00:13:00] for anxiety, sleep pain, inflammation, if they’re great for pre-post workout. And so there’s a lot of other things that it’s really good. For me, I find my focus and my stress levels much more tolerable when I’m taking my own product regularly. You know, it’s funny when I have my cup of coffee with daily habit in the morning, and then I look at my screen, I’m like, oh, there’s only two tabs open. On a day like where I haven’t used it for like a week straight, I’ll have like 17 different tabs of it And there’s incredible signs about CBD for ADD and ADHD. And while I don’t have any of that, I do tend to lose focus and be overstimulated by working remotely these days. And so it’s amazing that like I’m having benefits that I didn’t even know that I needed. 

Now, the way that that all works is what CBD does, it affects the endocannabinoid system that we have in our body. So we have the something called the ECS in our body and it’s job is literally about helping your body maintain homeostasis. So if we think about like all the conditions I just [00:14:00] named, anxiety, sleep, pain, inflammation, like there are also something like, you’re out of whack, out of balance.

And so what CBD does is help support the ECS that all humans have. To help your body maintain homeostasis or come back to balance. So it’s not like a fix, like, it’s not like I’m gonna cover up this, like this pain you have by taking a pain reliever. It’s like this pain is being caused by something that’s off balance in your body.

We’re gonna help your body’s on mechanism, bringing you back to a healthy baseline or get closer to it. What I love is that it’s not masking something, it’s a legitimate help to get you more straightened out. 

[00:14:36] Doug: That’s excellent. And asking about the issues that we don’t even know we have perhaps, who would you recommend CBD for?

Who would you recommend, you know, if they’re curious about it or if they’re, actually looking for a specific solution? 

[00:14:48] Brooke: I recommend it to a lot of people and I would recommend it for almost everybody, you know, if you have to get drug tested, you need to check in with your officer, whether it’s at work or your HR department, that kind of stuff.

If you’ve [00:15:00] had some sort of drug or alcohol dependency, I do the same thing about any supplements. Like you need to speak to, a physician about it, but other than that, I’d recommend it. What made me really inspired was what I did in my practice. And I think you and I spoke about this earlier in that I had a handful of clients that were big emotional binge eaters. 

And well, all of my training has trained me to give them these tools, everything I would throw at them wasn’t working. Right. So we would have kitchen curfews. We would write in our journal, we would meal plan. We would map it all out. We would only keep certain foods in the house, but it’s amazing what we can binge on really with having like an empty pantry.

Right. Like when we wanna binge we’re gonna go for it. And so for a handful of patients, while I was thinking of going back to school for this cannabis degree, I said, listen, let’s try a CBD product. And I found a brand that I could recommend. And I said, I’d like you to take it like an hour before your typical binge behaviors. Right? 

So for some of them who were moms, it was once the kids were asleep. You start eating the leftovers and then it’s like, you’re free and you can [00:16:00] relax, and you just wanna stuff your face. For others, it’s like, as soon as they get home from work, they open up a glass of wine and then they start snacking as they figure out what to get for dinner.

And then for others, it was a different situation, but we were able to sort of pinpoint those times and try to get ahead of it with CBD use. Five patients in one month, who I asked to take the product, every single one of them had like an instant turnaround.

Again, I’m not claiming this is a cure or whatever, but all of a sudden, as a dietician to have another tool to help support them. We still had to do everything else. Right. It still took work, but it was like somebody else holding their hand during the process and by figuring out was that it was really part of whatever that anxiety, right?

Emotional eating comes from a negative feeling we’re having in our body and we’re really trying to stuff it down. So by addressing that underlying emotion, which I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, this is not normally my specialty. We were able to get them to feel a little bit more at ease, a little bit more peaceful.

And then the irony is that two of the patients who were the [00:17:00] wine drinkers that would eat after work, stopped reaching for that glass of wine. And it was the wine that was a big trigger for their eating. You know, you, open the bottle of wine and then right away you go right to the pretzels or the chips or whatever the binge of choice was.

So it was really amazing what we could sort of do when we would be really proactive in getting ahead of some of these emotions. 

[00:17:18] Doug: That’s excellent. And I love to explore emotional eating in just a moment, but I’ve got a few more questions about CBD specifically. First of all, how long does it take to get a sustainable level in your system?

 And, does CBD stay in your system long term? 

[00:17:31] Brooke: It’s depending on sort of like how healthy your body is, about how quickly it’s gonna start to react for you. So that endo kind of annoyed system that we just talked about, it has these receptors, CB1, CB2. And literally their job is to like receive CBD products like CBD, and other compounds from the hemp plant. If you’ve been eating poorly, living in unhealthy lifestyle, like vegetables are not your friends, those receptors are not gonna be like instant. It’s just like, you’re not gonna have like have one day of [00:18:00] eating really cleanly and then you could be a changed person.

So for people who are trying to take a big lifestyle change, it can often take like up to two weeks to start actually feeling the benefits because we have to start priming your body to be receiving it. For other people, like who are super healthy or already on the path to finding a better wellness, it can happen quicker. But it really depends how you and I would react to taking it for the first time would be different because our bodies are totally different.

So it will be different. It doesn’t necessarily stay in your body, but once you’ve been consuming it for a bit, I tell people take breaks. Because it’s not a bandaid, because it’s not masking the effects that it’s having, you know, the anxiety or the emotions or the pain, et cetera.

Because it doesn’t just mask it. We’re sort of fixing it in a way. And because you’re feeling better, your body is better. So it’s like, if you need to do stretches so that your muscles aren’t tight and sore all the time, you can take a couple of days off after you’ve gotten very good at it and you’re not gonna backtrack. 

So after a bit, I can tell people like, Hey, you can [00:19:00] take a couple of days or weeks off and see when you start to need it. For me, I start to notice if I’ve taken like longer than two weeks off that as I’m working, my shoulders are going higher and they’re sort of turning into earrings. You know, I start noticing those screens like multiple tabs open on my computer or I’m like shorter with my husband or my kids.

And then I’m like, huh, you know what? I haven’t tried my own product for a little while. And then I start again and then everything comes back. So it’s funny. Like you can have very long term effects and then it starts creeping up on you again, that you can benefit from using it again. 

[00:19:31] Doug: That’s really interesting.

Question about perhaps using it for anxiety, mental health, that kind of thing. For those who are using antidepressants and things like that, doctors typically recommend you don’t go off that medication at all. And for those who might be using CBD for that kind of help, are there any benefits or detractions from using it every single day for long periods of time? 

[00:19:50] Brooke: You know, number one, I wanna make it very clear that I am not against any sort of pharmaceuticals. I think that when you need medication, there’s nothing more that’s important than your mental health and your own personal [00:20:00] wellbeing.

And however you can get there, whether it’s a pill, a plant, I don’t care. Like you need to do what works for you. So there’s no shame at all in any of pharmaceuticals there. If you are currently taking them like something for anxiety or depression or any mood disorder, speak to your doctor. Most doctors these days are happy to say, sure, why don’t we add it in? And then we can reevaluate. 

Some people get to then lower the amount of medication they’re using, but still stay on maybe a lower dose. So maybe the side effects lessen that they’re having. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can do it. If you’re considering the need to take anxiety meds, or depression meds or whatever, and you wanna give this a shot beforehand, that’s also fine too. If it works great, if you need more help, that’s also fine. So, what I have found that CBD is really great for people that, I mean, in the last two years, so many people were like, I didn’t even know I was anxious. Apparently I am. But we’re all anxious. After these two years, we’ve all been through a lot of trauma.

So, you know, even the ones who have gotten out as safe as can be, we’re all traumatized. So a lot of [00:21:00] people are going to be feeling benefits from taking a quality CBD product, even if they don’t have a diagnosed mental health struggle. 

[00:21:07] Doug: I appreciate you mentioning that. So many times, I mentioned with my clients and on this podcast that mental health is not like you either have it or you don’t. It’s a spectrum and we all can benefit from that. And for those who are curious about trying daily habits specifically, what size is your typical mailing order? And do you have like a beginner pack if someone wants to try it for a couple weeks or a month. 

[00:21:27] Brooke: Sure. So right now we have a 30 serving container. And you could just buy it once and use it and then decide if you need to reorder it again. And then if you do like it, we also have subscription services. So for a lot of us, we forget to order the things that are really important to us.

And the last thing I needed was to add stress to anybody else this day. Cause they forgot to order it. So I happen to love the monthly subscription for a lot of my personal patients, as well as just our customers because they’re like, I was just about to run out when the package arrived. Using CBD should not cause stress, so let’s make that life easier for you. 

[00:21:59] Doug: That’s [00:22:00] fantastic. And just to cover all of our basis, are there any people that you wouldn’t recommend CBD for? People on medication, young people, anyone that you say, maybe this isn’t right for you?

[00:22:09] Brooke: You know, our product is sold to those 21 and older simply because this is an adult decision to make, but I also feel that way all supplements you should be that decision too. Anytime you’re consuming in something in your body, I do believe that that’s necessary. So fish oils, magnesium, vitamin D, all of that, I feel like should be an adult decision to make. For the most part, we don’t sell to kids mainly just because that’s not my specialty. And this is a product you’re supposed to be putting in your coffee. That said, I have two daughters, they’re both figure skaters, they get a lot of bumps in bruises.

So they’re always, especially my 13 year old is always throwing in a scoop of daily habit into like her tea before practice. It really does help her focus, and her soreness, especially. But yeah. You know, other than that, any adult can really benefit from it. Again, if you are on parole or have drug testing at your workplace, you need me to speak to someone to get that approval.

And if you’re on some serious medication, we’re not [00:23:00] just talking like an aspirin. Always talk to your doctor before adding any supplement CBD or anything else. 

[00:23:05] Doug: Excellent. And thank you for sharing that. And I’d love to shift gears a little bit and look at your nutrition practice a little bit. First of all, I’d love to know what does your practice kind of look like?

Who do you work with and what kind of issues do you most often specialize in? 

[00:23:17] Brooke: So, my practice has changed over the last like 15 years, you know, I came out and started my practice and I was purely weight loss. But as I sort of, I don’t know whether it was becoming a mom or my interest changed, but I really started becoming more interested in the concept of wellness versus the numbers of a scale.

And you know, it was a personal development after having a child as well as really just sort of seeing where this world was going and that the type of person I wanted to be in it. So it really is a wellness based practice. Pre pandemic, it would be very much like in person therapy, right?

You’d sit, I’d be in my chair. Their only difference would be there’d be a scale, but we would talk about food choices and the choices we make and the reasoning behind it. Right. A lot of like psychology [00:24:00] behind it all. Since the pandemic, everything is now virtually and it will be continued from forever at this moment to be a virtual practice.

But yeah, I work with weight loss clients still. I work with wellness clients, pre postnatal, the works. So it really depends on the gamut, but it’s all a very wellness driven practice now. And it’s a much happier place. 

[00:24:21] Doug: That’s excellent. And I think that brings up a really great point about weight loss in our modern culture. You know, in the past it seemed that weight loss was a very cut and dry thing. But now it seems that people come in for weight loss, but perhaps they’ve got other issues, the mental health, the anxiety, something like this. And I think that’s a really great point to touch on that.

And for those who have never worked with a nutritionist online, or in person, I should say. What does the actual process look like? And what are some good indicators that a person would benefit from seeing a nutritionist?

[00:24:49] Brooke: I think anyone can benefit from seeing nutritionist, right? It’s like, I think anyone can benefit from therapy, right? Like, even if you’re like a healthy, stable person, like we all have things, we can always be better human [00:25:00] beings. Right. And I think the same goes for nutrition because we can always be feeding our body better, taking care of ourselves better.

And sometimes it takes that mirror to really show it to us. For my practice, we have like around a 45 minute to an hour first session, because the goal is for me to really get to know you the best that I can. So Doug, if you were to come to me and I was like, well, this is the food I give everyone.

And you’re like, I’m allergic to that and I’m a vegetarian, like, this is not gonna work for you. So. I love for that first session to be really getting to know you, your personal preferences, things that make you happy, food and non-food related, and then sort of like non-negotiables right. So what is something that’s gonna be crazy hard for you to give up right away?

So the goal at when you leave the first session is that you’re coming out with a bunch of things to be adding into your daily eating versus talking about all the things we’re taking away. So I sort of try to fill you up on really good stuff in the beginning. And then slowly, what that actually does is it makes no room for the less good stuff.

So if your plan and your [00:26:00] meal needs to have all of this healthy protein and fiber from, you know, beautiful vegetables, like there’s not gonna be that much room for white flour after you eat that. There’s gonna be a spot for it, sure. But instead of like a small dinner roll, now it’ll be a small dinner roll versus like the bread basket.

And even if that doesn’t cause like for giant jumps on the scale right away, there’s gonna be such other benefits. Non-scale victories that we call it that I think are more satisfying to a lot of people. And then about a week later, we come back and we revisit for around a 30 minute, 25 to 30 minute follow up sessions.

What worked, what didn’t, what was challenging, what’s coming up in your life? I hated the suggestion, Brooke, you know, that kind of stuff like, you know, because we have to fine tune it and then we might find that perfect match for you of how we’re eating. And guess what, life’s gonna throw you a curve ball and we’re gonna all be on lockdown again or something.

So it needs to be a very fluid relationship. But if I was to only like throw at you, eat this, eat this, eat this, it doesn’t give room for like the reality of what [00:27:00] life is like. 

[00:27:00] Doug: Yeah. And I really appreciate that you mentioned the flexibility and those curve balls that life throws at us. For people who come to my practice for hypnosis, perhaps they say, I never want to eat, chocolate again or something very drastic.

I often tell them, that’s possible, but if something happens in your life, if the fabric of everyday life is just kind of shaken up, our brain is still gonna hold onto that habit just in case we need it. And in those moments, it might reach out and grab that again, and that might become an issue again. And so I really appreciate you mentioning that. 

The idea of non-negotiables also struck me. That’s something I have not heard many health experts talk about. And I think that’s a really great point that sometimes we need that agency to say, these are things I really want in my diet. And I’m curious when someone is like, my non-negotiable is, I want to eat a pint of ice cream every night, how do you work with that? And perhaps compromise on their non-negotiables? 

[00:27:48] Brooke: Well, no, one’s comes to me with the pin of ice cream non-negotiable. Ice cream has definitely been in there and possibly for my own husband, as well as my patients. But ice cream’s definitely one of them. And the last thing I would do would be to like, recommend like a [00:28:00] sugar free imitation ice cream.

Like that’s never gonna be the answer in my mind. And I feel like all that, that does is leads to people overeating it and becoming unsatisfied and then eventually just binging on the real deal. And non-negotiable is just that. So maybe we would talk about like the portion of it. Like, if you need to have ice cream every single night, then let’s have like three quarters of cup every single night. And it’s like, it almost becomes sort of like a requirement. And then they’re like, I literally can’t eat anymore. So sometimes it’ll be like that method where, all right, you say you need ice cream every single night. It has to be in your food diary. And I need to see that you’ve eaten this amount every night.

For others, it’s a different kind of conversation. So like for me, like a non-negotiable would be soda. Like I can never in my mind recommend soda, you know, especially like a traditional soda brand comfortably and feel like I’m doing someone a service. Because drinking that type of sugar and the damage, it’s just wrong.

That’s something that I don’t have any sort of leeway on, whether they tell me the truth or not, I don’t know. But I’m like sodas will never be part of what I’m offering you, but if it’s the ice cream that you need, let’s have [00:29:00] that. And eventually, they’re feeling motivated because they’re feeling better. Their clothes are feeling better. They’re getting scale victories or non-scale victories. It almost happens naturally so the better we start feeling about ourselves and you know this better than anybody, right? The better we feel about ourselves, the healthier choices that we tend to make. And then that leads to feeling better.

It’s this amazing cycle, but it’s also the same for the negative. So that’s when I call it the F it diet where they’re like, Ugh, I made this poor choice. I woke up, I didn’t sleep well. I was in a fight with my spouse. I woke up and I said, F it, I’m just gonna eat a bagel and a sugary drink from Starbucks this morning.

Well, lunch comes around, well, I’ve already messed up the whole day. And then it turns into that whole negative cycle. So all these positive choices we make, lead to positive choices, and that’s what I’m trying to encourage. 

[00:29:45] Doug: Absolutely. And looking at the idea that we overeat or make bad choices because of emotions and not so much perhaps cravings.

And as you mentioned, the ice cream and other things, perhaps falling away. For those who are struggling with a certain emotion, maybe they don’t want to [00:30:00] take CBD. What would you recommend for them to manage those emotions without using food? 

[00:30:05] Brooke: It’s challenging and the problem with food compared to like drugs or alcohol, is that it’s still a necessary consumption, right?

I mean, I don’t drink alcohol to begin with, but like, I don’t have to go to a bar. Like I can drink other things that are not alcohol. There’s a lot of other options, I can surround myself by sober people. But I also like need to eat, right? So the food is one of my issues, and this is where eating disorders, disordered eating in any capacity is so challenging.

And that’s what makes it one of the hardest things to recover from. Because we still have to face it numerous times throughout the day. So I find journaling to be really helpful. I find taking walks no matter what the weather to be really helpful. Pre-writing what you’re going to eat and sort of sticking to it and meal planning, and also always making sure that at everything, every meal, every snack that there’s pleasure in it. When you find pleasure in the food that you’re eating, you’re much more satisfied. It [00:31:00] helps signal all those satiety, you know, markers in your body. And eventually once it becomes off its pedestal, like the chocolate you talked about or this ice cream, you’re gonna be able to be satisfied with even less.

So it really it’s you just have to get off of that negative cycle. And if you can swap it for something that you can easily do. I’m not saying instead of eating this, you’re gonna go on an hour long, hard workout. But if you can say, because I tend to binge on dessert every night after dinner, well, I can do a 10 minute walk outside and clear my head, or I can put a piece of like some healthy sugar free gum in my mouth, or go brush my teeth right away. Little small habits that are very doable and realistic. Or the best way to get you out of that cycle, especially if you don’t have support of CBD or your own personal dietician or, you know, own personal hypnosis. 

[00:31:49] Doug: Yeah. And I think that’s such an important point talking about the small habits. Oftentimes we say, you know, I’m going to lose 50 pounds by the end of the month or something crazy, or on January 1st, I’m immediately going to start going to the gym every [00:32:00] single day. Whereas when we had those small win or those small habits, we build up those small wins, we build up some momentum and I think that’s a really great way of getting into it. And looking at nutrition, looking at CBD as well.

I’d love to ask you, what do you think the most important thing to know about perhaps both of these areas really is? 

[00:32:18] Brooke: I think there’s not one size fits all is probably like the best answer there, but, you know, nutrition is personalized and you can go onto Instagram and you’ll see these people either in bathing suits or with their shirts off or in bikinis, being like, this is what I used to look like and now look at me, here’s what I did. Well, that worked for them. Like, first of all, let’s see where they are in five years. and second of all, that may not work for me. So the not one size fits all is really why going to a professional, not just someone who posts pictures on social media is super important. Because again, it is just not gonna work for everybody.

And I think the same thing with CBD, like just, cuz it helps me with my focus, or helps my husband with his pain management [00:33:00] or my daughter with her aches after an ice skating fall, it doesn’t mean that’s gonna be how it helps you. But the same thing with food choices and lifestyle choices and using CBD is you need to be able to be as in touch with yourself as possible.

And that’s where I think journaling as old school as it is, or even taking notes on your phone of just doing like a check in with yourself. Well, how do I feel today? Right. Okay. I’m waking up. I’m feeling pretty good. Like this is good. I’m smiling more. I’m not desperate for my coffee. Like what’s happening here? Today’s a good day. 

Or you wake up and you’re like, I hurt all over, a smile is hard to do. How can I set myself up for success each day? So I think it’s really important to sort of have those personal checks, to see how you are doing, for mental and physical, emotional wellness. And then you can really know the direction you need to take your food that day or CBD. Right. We need to be gentle with ourselves more often than not, and still set yourself up for success. 

[00:33:52] Doug: I really appreciate that message. And you mentioned that in the very beginning, you were pretty hardlined about things and it sounds like that gentle approach has [00:34:00] worked a little better.

I’ve personally found that as well, that meeting people where they’re at, giving them some agency, having that gentle approach really, really helps them. And for your clients in general, what is one of the most common realizations that people have when first starting a program with you?

[00:34:12] Brooke: I think the biggest ones are how few vegetables they eat and how little water they’re consuming. Like I said that, that first session, the first few ones, I’m adding more food into your meal plan versus taking anything away, but you need to be consuming in a good amount of water just for your body to function at its optimal best. Fiber and the phytonutrients and antioxidants and all the benefits from vegetables, like it’s gonna be a huge component of any healthy lifestyle.

So adding in healthy vegetables and beautiful fruits and berries and everything, like people are like, well, oh, I just grabbed a yogurt and a coffee on my weight work. There’s no nutrition there. Like where is the fiber? Where is the vegetables? Where is the fruit? And even if it’s just grabbing an apple with that, it’s such a simple thing to do, you know, or I have a Turkey sandwich every day for lunch.

Well, how about just some baby carrots and slice cucumbers? I’m not asking you to like, make a salad or cook with chicken [00:35:00] stir fry every day. But like, they’re, oh my, I didn’t even think of adding in a fruit or a vegetable. Again, I work in New York city. This is like a high, fast pace living here and people are like a vegetable, that’s a great idea. Like we forget these basics, you know? 

[00:35:14] Doug: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I’d love to ask, looking at your practice, are there any pieces of uncommon advice that you give to clients, things that perhaps run against the grain or things that they don’t expect?

[00:35:24] Brooke: Good question. I mean, recommending CBD is definitely uncommon advice in my practice, for others. But it’s like the secret tool that I have and this way that I can help so many people. And then, yeah, you know, I’m not gonna be the one that says you need to do an hour of cardio every day.

Like, otherwise the day doesn’t count. Like, I really believe in just like movement throughout the day. And so it’s funny, a patient of mine yesterday, he’s amazing about working out almost every single day. I can look in his food diary and the way he shows me, how he exercised in his recordings.

And it’s like, 45 minute hit workout, 30 minute bike ride, this or that. And finally I said, you know, throughout the day, how much movement are you getting? He’s like, well, I have a desk’s [00:36:00] job. I was like, I know that, but for throughout the day, how much movement are you getting? He’s like, well, you know, I go pick up lunch, I go to the bathroom, but other than that, I’m at my desk. And I was like, then I don’t care about these workouts. Because you know, 45 minutes or whatever this workout is, doesn’t counteract eight to 10 hours worth of sedentary lifestyle. So I’m like, I almost rather, you give the workups up for a bit while you figure out how to incorporate 10 minutes of movement throughout your day, 10 times a day. 

And so he was like shocked. He’s like, why are you telling me not to work out? I’m like, well, the working out is great, but we also need to move like your body is meant to be in motion much more than it is. So sometimes we’ll just roll a yoga mat out right next to my desk and just do like a couple of downward dogs and some stretches in between meetings, or the best part is like any of those little things of movement actually get my brain working even better. And then I tend to like focus through a lot of the junk that’s coming at me and really come back 5, 10 minutes later, very focused. So I think that that’s something that threw somebody, especially yesterday. 

[00:36:56] Doug: That’s fantastic. Especially for us working from home now with the [00:37:00] pandemic and everything, what are some of your recommendations for building in that movement?

For those in your practice who might have been walking to work in New York or those of us who may have been doing a very physical job beforehand and now they’re kind of sedentary at home. You mentioned the yoga map, what other ways are there to help build in some movements at home?

[00:37:16] Brooke: I think like really basic yoga. I’m terrible at yoga, but yet it feels so good. So I still do a couple of minutes between meetings. I think just putting alerts or timers on your calendar, you know, we all have these virtual calendars and setting alarms on your phone just to be like, all right. I know at 11 o’clock, I don’t have any meetings. I don’t need to be face to face with anybody virtually, so that’s gonna be the time. And even if it’s just like, you know, I live in an apartment, it’s not gonna be a very far walk, but checking the mail, getting outside to get, you know, just once around the block, like those little things, like by setting that timer or the calendar alert, whatever works for you are gonna actually have some really big benefits, mental health wise, as well as physically.

[00:37:55] Doug: That’s fantastic. And thank you for sharing those examples. And this has been a fantastic [00:38:00] conversation. I know I’ve learned so much about CBD, and about your practice. I’d love to know, do you have any resources, tips, tools, or other things that listeners can access perhaps on your website or somewhere else?

[00:38:11] Brooke: Absolutely. If you go to our website dailyhabitcbd.com, we have a free ebook, we have blogs, we have so much information. You’ll get bored after over too much time there. But yeah, so everything from recipes to the science broken down in really easy language, basically the way that I speak, you can find out, you can learn all about me and why I became the founder of daily habit.

It’s all at dailyhabitcbd.com. That’s the best resources. 

[00:38:35] Doug: Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. And listeners, all of those links will be in the show notes or in the description if you’re watching on YouTube. And Brooke, there was one question that I forgot about earlier. You mentioned recipes and for those of us who perhaps don’t drink coffee or tea, how do we incorporate the coconut base into our diet?

[00:38:52] Brooke: It’s super easy. You can just add it to water. To me, it’s not the most delicious way. I mean, it tastes fine, but it’s not like an exciting thing I look [00:39:00] forward to. So it depends. Do you make a smoothie for breakfast? Throw it into your blender. I was just working on a new recipe for Valentine’s day, which is a chocolate chia pudding that I added CBD into. You can bake with it. There’s a lot of other things you can do and all of those recipes are there. You can also make a golden milk using turmeric and oat milk and make a really beautiful, like high anti-inflammatory beverage. So it doesn’t have to be caffeinated, it doesn’t have to be tea, lots of drink recipes.

We have Popsicle recipes on our website, lots of different options for you. So there’s different ways. And while those are all fun, I really would like you to try to find something that you can do daily. So if you wake up and have an herbal tea every morning, whether a smoothie is something that you have like four to five times a week, find your thing that’s consistent and add it in.

[00:39:45] Doug: Perfect. And thank you so much for sharing that. And finally, Brooke, do you have any wisdom or words of advice that you’d like to leave listeners with? 

[00:39:51] Brooke: I think, just be gentle on yourself. Nobody is as Instagram perfect as it may seem. And it’s really easy to compare ourselves to other [00:40:00] people, whether online or in person.

I mean, at school pickup, everyone seems to have it together while I’m like, you know, getting there just in the nick of time and sweating from trying to be there. But, be gentle on yourself. And what I’ve learned more from my practice is that we’re all struggling in some way that that is just like human existence.

That there’s gonna be a struggle in it. And there’s a lot of beauty in this struggle so it’s a great way to find yourself. So be gentle on yourself during it. 

[00:40:24] Doug: Brooke, thank you so much for this conversation. This has been fantastic. 

[00:40:27] Brooke: Thanks for having me.

 (Outro) 

[00:40:28] Doug: What an incredible conversation that was. Thank you again to Brooke Alpert, and thank you to you, dear listener for giving us your time to learn this information. And remember if you haven’t yet, remember to subscribe. Click the bell if you’re watching on YouTube or click the plus sign if you’re watching or listening on another podcasting app, because there’s so much great information I don’t want you to miss out on.

And while you’re there, please, I encourage you to leave a review. We’ve been getting a ton of great reviews from all types of podcasting apps. And you don’t want to be the one listener who’s left [00:41:00] out, who doesn’t get a voice to say about this podcast. And we especially still need more reviews for apple podcasts.

So I encourage you. If you’re listening right now on an apple device, please take just a couple of seconds to leave a review on apple podcasts. Even if it’s just a one word five star review, that really helps us get this content in hands of people who really do need it. And perhaps you found this podcast because someone else was kind enough to leave a review and that caused the podcasting app to push it to people like you, who may have been interested in this content.

 And I also want to ask, if uncontrolled eating is something that you struggled with and you haven’t yet checked out the binge blocker on my website, what’s stopping you. Is it fear? Is it fear of success, fear of what your life will be like after you control these cravings, these uncontrollable urges around eating? Maybe it’s misconceptions about hypnosis.

[00:41:54] Doug: And if that’s the case, I really encourage you to check out previous episodes talking about the science of hypnosis to really [00:42:00] clear those up. Again, the binge blocker is free and it’s helped so many people to deal with their uncontrolled eating that I really do recommend that you check it out. 

You can check that out at anywherehypnosis.com. One more time, that’s anywherehypnosis.com. That’s all I’ve got for you this week. Next week, I’ve got a really enjoyable conversation I know you’re going to want to hear. And so I encourage you to click that subscribe bell, and I look forward to talking to you soon. My name is Doug Sands, and I help compulsive and emotional eaters to end the obsession with food and make peace with it.

Let’s go out and continue making your better life with the health changes that you really do need. 

 


 

Like what you heard in this episode? Remember to Subscribe! Click the + button on your favorite podcasting app, because there are plenty of resources here to help you on your journey.

 

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Want to know more about weight loss and Hypnosis? Check out Doug’s website! Here, you can learn more about how Doug helps people with losing weight, changing their body image, and overcoming compulsive eating. You can also get your Binge Blocker Hypnosis, to help you overcome uncontrollable eating whenever it strikes!

 

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To your journey towards better health,

Doug




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