Hi! I’m Dr. Amy Rosner and I’ll be your instructor for this course. I’m a certified clinical hypnotherapist and health coach with a doctorate in physiological psychology, which basically means I am an expert in mind-body relationships. I want to use my knowledge from my education and my experiences with the clients in my private practice to help you get more control over your physical and mental health. 

Many of us want to be as healthy as we can be throughout our lives. The problem isn’t wanting it, it’s getting the right information to make it happen. We are constantly bombarded with contradictory information from people who seem to be experts about what we should do to live our best lives, and it’s overwhelming and frustrating. 

I’m going to give you some different information than you’ve probably received from doctors, nutritionists and personal trainers, because I am none of those things. I’m a scientific researcher by training, and I know good science - and not-so-good science. There are a lot of principles of “good health” that have been ingrained in our minds to the point of seeming like common sense, but they actually come from bad science or no science at all. And they’re wrong, according to good science. 

The two things we must get in line to be optimally healthy are stress and nutrition. Actually, poor nutrition can be seen as a physical stressor. I'm going to focus on how you should be eating to reduce stress on your body, and therefore on your mind. Pretty much any diet out there can help people look good - often with dire consequences for your biochemistry and future disease risk. This isn’t about losing weight per se, it’s about moving our bodies into their natural state of using fat as their primary fuel rather than burning only sugar, which is what most of us are doing right now, and it’s negatively impacting the way our minds and bodies work and causing problems. It's a huge stressor.

The information presented here is for those of us who want to get healthier in our own time while still enjoying life. It’s for those whose motivation to work out daily is less than stellar, or who want to eat and drink their way across Europe for a week without feeling guilty. It's for people who can't meditate because they can't sit still for so long doing nothing. It’s for the parent who wants to have fun baking cookies with their kids while teaching them to make healthier choices. We just want to know how to make healthier decisions. We’re playing the long game, wanting to reduce our risk of chronic illness and increase longevity in a way that’s comfortable for us and for our families.

Just as our minds can be in stress mode or relaxation mode, our bodies can be in either sugar-burning, fat-storing (stress) mode or fat-burning (relaxation) mode. Stress mode is great for our health in very short-term bursts, but we should be spending the VAST majority of our time in relaxation mode for optimal body function, including hormones, metabolism, detoxing, and so on, as well as for clear, creative thinking, productivity and happiness.

You want to be a fat-burner because, according to Dr. Ben Bikman, who is a Bioenergetics researcher, all non infectious chronic illness (including but not limited to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, neurological and psychological issues and even cancer) in our modern, industrialized world today are ultimately due to a combination of stress and insulin resistance from the sugars and starches that we eat WAY too much of. In one day, we eat as many carbs as our ancestors did in a year! Let that sink in a moment. We are literally poisoning ourselves on carbohydrates and many “experts” are encouraging us to eat more of them! Does everyone need to drastically cut carbs to be healthy? No, but odds are you’re one of them. How much to cut them and which ones to cut is a matter of individual differences to some extent, and I’ll show you an easy way to figure it out, to decrease your disease risk, even for those of us who are happy at their current body weight and composition. 

Most of us were able to eat pretty much anything when we were younger, but as we get older we have to move to a diet more in line with what our ancestors ate and how they moved and lived for 2.5 million years, as shown in a growing amount of clinical and experimental research, thanks to scientists in many disparate fields from nutrition science to exercise physiology to experimental evolutionary biology and beyond (check out Michael Rose's work, which shows that even fruit flies have this same requirement). It's in our genes. Humans are very adaptable to new environments, diets, and other changes, so we can survive on just about anything when we're young (though not without consequence later), but our optimum health and longevity depend on optimal gene expression, which we have to really pay attention to as we get older than our 30s.

The results of these studies, as well as understanding the fatal limitations of previous research and expert opinions based on it, have been taking hold more and more strongly in the health industry, broadly conceived. More and more doctors prescribe low-carb diets for their patients (and are on them themselves), especially the ketogenic diet, which has been helping kids with epilepsy for decades and is now shown to help adults with many diseases, notably diabetes, heart disease, cancer, depression, anxiety, bipolar, Alzheimer’s and other dementias, Parkinson's disease and even ALS. When your body is in fat-burning mode, using fat-derived ketones and free fatty-acids for fuel rather than sugar, therapeutic biochemical changes and anti-aging benefits occur all through your body.

I won’t be throwing a bunch of science at you. That’s already out there. I’ll give you references to researchers and doctors you can look to for more information on various specific topics. If you want to just learn the basic changes you can start easing your way into now, without wading through research and explanation and without committing to a strict plan, this course will make it easy for you. It’ll get you going with the right mindset to work your way back to a more natural diet and lifestyle that your body and mind have been begging you to embrace.

My philosophy is simple: work with your brain, not against it. It’s amazing how often we get in our own way when trying to live healthier lives. Sometimes we need to outsmart our brains to do what’s best for us. Making that transition can be really hard and painful, both physically and mentally, or it can be easy and comfortable. I recommend you ease into it. Take your time and enjoy the ride. 

Here's a hypnosis recording to make your ride even easier and more enjoyable:

This is a basic, cut-to-the-chase, no-BS program of simple things to start doing now, goals and hacks to let you take baby steps in the right directions to help you feel better and better every day, both mentally and physically. The way I see it, the mind and body are two sides of the same coin, so changing one changes the other, and those changes can and should be made in ways that are comfortable, with no feelings of deprivation or suffering.

Now, before you do anything else, go to https://the-stretch-and-smile-club.circle.so and join our Stretch & Smile Club community. It's our forum for questions, comments, support, recipes, AMA Q&A videos, group coaching and hypnosis - anything and everything that can help, educate, or even amuse!

Now let's get started!