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 Neela Sakaria: Thank you for your time. Please tell us about your background as a health educator and nurse. What prompted you to write MASTERING LEPTIN?
Mary Guignon Richards: Throughout nursing school, working in several doctor's offices, and eventually in my own business, I have always felt a strong desire to empower women to have healthy options and ways of taking care of themselves that could avoid the need to rely on medications. MASTERING LEPTIN is an expression of that passion in very real terms, taking new discoveries and explaining them so as to help individuals eat better and truly gain a better state of health.
Neela: What is Leptin? Why is it important to understand?
MGR: Leptin is a hormone that comes from fat. It signals the brain how fast metabolism can run. As we gain weight leptin communication does not work well. This causes excess weight gain, yo-yo dieting, and more serious
problems including low thyroid function.
Neela: What makes your book MASTERING LEPTIN different from other health-related books or books aimed at helping people achieve an ideal body weight?
MGR: It explains a way to eat that helps leptin work properly, thus enabling metabolism to run faster without dieting in the conventional sense. Leptin is very powerful, it enables our race to survive famine and not perish. In today's world, especially in America, most people have too much food on hand. Eating too often is a main reason for leptin problems.
Neela: Is the book only aimed for overweight readers? Should people who already have a healthy or even below-average body weight follow different rules than those outlined in your book?
MGR: Our book is for individuals of any body weight. Overweight and underweight people have specific leptin issues. Underweight people may become anorexic or develop eating disorders if they do not eat correctly. Normal weight people will tend to stay normal weight as they age if they follow the guidelines we recommend. Not only is this information important to body weight, it is essential for having a good energy level as well as preventing disease.
Neela: Your advice to eat 3-4 meals without snacking seems to be contradictory to the advice we hear about eating frequent, small meals. Can you explain?
MGR: Every time a person eats their insulin level rises. Insulin signals calories to head for storage. Snacking actually prevents fat from being utilized in metabolism and induces calories to store as fat. Eating too often disrupts leptin and insulin, resulting in difficulty losing weight and increased risk for heart disease. This exact science is clearly explained in the book MASTERING LEPTIN.
Neela: You talk about not eating right before bed, because of hormone levels. Are there ideal times of day to exercise?
MGR: Some people are morning people and others do better exercising in the afternoon or evening. The key issue is consistency of exercise and getting a relaxed feeling from walking/aerobics and a toned muscle feeling from resistance exercise. Many people, especially as their energy starts slipping, exercise too intensely and get too tired out instead of refreshed. Individuals who are stressed really need to focus on consistency and a refreshed feeling from exercise.
Neela: Can you tell us about the process of writing this book? What kind of research was involved?
MGR: This is the first time that over 5,000 studies on leptin have been translated into something very useful for the general public. It took several years to review all this information, even to make sense out of many studies that at first appeared conflicting. MASTERING LEPTIN clearly explains the first way of eating that is based on a significant amount of cutting edge science.
Neela: Is there anything else you'd like to share with our readers?
MGR: 300,000 people a year are dying from obesity-related health problems. This is a preventable condition. MASTERING LEPTIN offers clear solutions, even for individuals who think they have tried everything. The beauty of this book is that it appeals to people's intelligence and makes sense. It is not another diet book or fad health book, it is based on science and offers new solutions. It has been extremely rewarding to see so many individuals who had given up on their weight issues actually make fantastic progress and feel better.
Neela: Thank you very much.
Mastering Leptin
ISBN: 0972712100
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