A Mindful Approach to Weight Management

Todd McGuire of wellness company, IncentaHealth, talks about a sustainable way to get to target weight and stay there. Todd found me through the Insight Timer app and one of the meditations he commissioned, called Eating Mindfully, is included at the end of the podcast. You can also find it separately here.

Transcript

So,

Hi,

I'm Tom Evans and it gives me great pleasure today to welcome Todd McGuire,

The co-founder and chief technology officer,

CTO of Incentor Health.

Welcome Todd.

Thank you,

Tom.

Thanks for having me on the show.

This is a treat for me.

Well,

I think we should let the listeners know how we met.

We met through that wonderful app,

Insight Timer.

You know,

You're a member of the community and you heard me and many of the guides and you got in touch because your programs,

Which are all about wellness,

Corporate wellness and individual wellness,

Which we'll talk about in a bit,

You wanted to add mindfulness components to that.

And initially you said to me,

Could you have some of my Insight Timer meditations and in discussion we thought we'd build some specific meditations and visualizations for weight loss,

Which we'll talk about later.

But that's how we introduced each other.

So thank you,

Insight Timer,

For making this connection to us.

Yes,

Exactly.

Insight Timer was the connection across the Atlantic here.

I'm in Denver,

Colorado.

And I remember that the morning that I had my bookmarks of all the different meditations I had been working through and just really on a neat journey personally,

One of my twin boys picked your meditation one morning and we sat and listened to it.

And I didn't know it at the time,

But I think your scientific mind married over with the meditative mindful mind just struck a chord and said,

This is the type of thing that my community needs to really learn how to manage their weight better.

Fantastic.

We'll talk about that a bit later.

So tell me about Incentahealth,

Why you founded it,

Co-founded it in the first place,

What it's all about and what difference you've been making in the world.

Certainly.

You know,

Incentahealth,

We are in our 15th year in business.

And when we started the company,

I started with a business partner named Jack Ruhl.

And we looked out at two big trends that we saw a connection.

One just the rise in health care cost and number two,

The rise in obesity just coming across all of the developed world really like a tsunami.

And the numbers in the United States are just depressing.

67 percent of the adults are overweight or obese.

And it's just a frightening trend.

And we looked at it and I looked at it in particular from a technology mind and from a behavior change mind.

And we said,

What if we could try a different way to stem the tide of this growing problem?

So we began by saying,

Who would pay to have us help people improve their health?

And that led us to the large employers,

The large health plans that really care about the these large populations of people and their health condition.

And then we said to the second part,

What could we do to get the individual who might be an employee of a company or a member of a health plan to want to pay attention to what we had to offer?

And that led us to this idea of behavioral economics.

We said,

What if we could build a system that could help people learn how to do healthy eating and active living?

And if they could measure themselves every 90 days and show progress,

We could then say to the employer,

This is an individual that's making a positive change and is helping you perform better as a company.

Let's share with them some of the financial rewards.

So let's pay them every 90 days for following this program and coming back and demonstrating their commitment to it.

And it's really a win-win.

We're only paying out an incentive if we can get someone to make a change.

And it led to a whole suite of tools to support that behavior change.

But that was the seed of the company was saying,

Let's try to use behavioral economics.

And also,

Let's try to not make this a frightening medical scare tactic and try to beat you up with your medical numbers.

And people often tune out when you do that.

And they put getting into this program on the bottom of the list right after they get their colonoscopy.

We said,

No,

Let's go the other way.

Let's take a page from the consumer marketing giants out there that find a way to get people to want to engage with the product.

And we said,

Hey,

Let's make this fun,

Playful,

Non-threatening.

And maybe we could break through that initial barrier to get started and get people on a nice long journey.

Wow.

So how does the actual incentive system work?

What's the mechanics of that?

It's a great question.

The way we do it is we ask anyone who starts the program to just do an initial weigh-in.

They get on one of our patented visual scales that takes their photograph full length so we can see them head to toe.

And it sees their feet on the scale.

So we know they don't have one foot on the ground or they don't have one of their kids or their Labrador Retriever on the scale.

And we can see it's them.

We say,

This is your starting point.

Then if you follow our daily coaching and come back in 90 days and do your first checkup,

If you've had a 5% improvement in your body weight,

We'll send you a $15 reward.

If you had a 10% improvement,

We'll give you $30.

A 15% improvement,

$45.

And it's this gamified reward pyramid.

If you look at it,

The closer you get to your target weight,

And it's all dynamics based on your exact healthy target weight range,

But the closer you get to it,

The bigger your incentive.

And we send that on a Visa card,

Brightly colored with IncentiHealth.

You can take it,

Do what you'd like with it,

Reward yourself for making this change.

And if you come back and just demonstrate that you're maintaining the change every 90 days,

We keep sending the incentive because that's really the hardest part.

The initial change is tough,

Maintenance is tougher.

Wow.

So obviously,

You're still in business a good 30,

40,

50 years later.

It must be working.

It definitely is.

It is really surprised all of our customers where we have put this program in place,

It has exceeded their expectations.

And I think it goes back to the very different approach,

This playful feel that we have with our invitation to get someone to come and join.

It really just speaks to people and it speaks to the right type of person.

You have a dynamic that a lot of employers and companies have run into is they'll try to do a wellness program and they'll put in a fitness center at their work site.

And it's a great idea,

It's a great investment.

But if you go walk into that fitness center and look around,

It's the people who are already a fitness enthusiast,

Maybe like myself,

That are there working out and the person that needs to really get involved typically doesn't do it.

If you look at our program,

Our typical participant,

The most common person that joins is 40% 34 years old with a 33 body mass index,

Which to put that in terms of most people would think of,

It's about a five and a half foot tall person that weighs about 210 pounds.

They're 60 pounds overweight.

They're exactly the kind of person that really wants this type of program.

And our message seems to get that person involved and get them to stay involved for multiple years and lose clinically significant weight loss,

Usually over 5%.

And your methodology isn't just about what you eat,

It's about how you exercise and also mindset as well,

Isn't it?

Exactly.

It's very much a very slow,

Gradual,

Steady approach that tries to undo a lot of the mass marketing types of things you see,

Whether you're watching The Biggest Loser on TV or you just look at any magazine in the checkout stand at the supermarket that says the secret to your weight loss struggle is you don't have the right equipment or you don't have the right ingredient or you're eating too much gluten or you're eating too much of some,

There's a very specialized type of a culprit that's usually pointed at.

And our approach says,

It's much simpler than that.

If you can learn,

You'll get an acronym called HEAL,

Healthy eating and active living.

If you can learn how to feed yourself wherever you are,

Whether it's at breakfast,

You're looking in your pantry,

If you're out at a restaurant,

If you're at a corporate cafeteria,

Look at a typical plate and know what a healthy protein is,

A healthy carbohydrate and how to fill the rest of that plate with leafy vegetables,

We can teach you how to eat wherever you are.

And the exercise side is a similar pattern.

Instead of going on a very extreme fitness regimen that I'm pretty sure you will not be able to sustain for the next 30 years of your life,

We start people with the expectation of you're probably coming off the couch and taking baby steps and we're going to gradually build physical activity into your day with the objective of getting it to be like brushing your teeth.

The results of that don't last and so you recommend it daily.

It's the same thing with the nutrition and exercise.

You've got to have a slower,

Steadier,

More realistic thing you can keep doing and then see slower results that you can probably live with and sustain for decades.

And I guess that avoids the kind of yo-yo diet in effect then.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And in our coaching,

If you were a member of our platform and you're getting our daily meal plan or daily workout routine,

And it's very specific by the way,

Tommy,

We're going to come through and say,

You know,

Good morning,

Tom,

It's day 22.

You're a vegetarian.

You've told us that you don't have access to a gym,

So you do your exercise at home.

Well,

Here's your breakfast,

Lunch and dinner.

Here's some mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks.

Here is your workout for today with a video from our trainer of exactly how to work out at home with milk jugs and soup cans because you don't have equipment.

We're giving you that very specific instruction day by day,

But you'll never see the word diet in there.

We just talk about healthy eating,

Active living.

That's something you can keep doing.

A diet usually isn't something you can do forever.

Now,

You're based out of Denver,

Colorado,

Which you showed me a lovely picture before we started this interview where it's snowing at the moment in the middle of May,

Which is quite incredible.

Is this solution then specific to corporate America with extensively private healthcare or is it applicable worldwide?

You know,

It started out as a corporate America type of a product mainly out of necessity of starting a new business and trying to find out who would pay for the program.

But it has now,

I wouldn't say pivoted to,

But it has expanded to go directly to consumers.

And the gateway that led us to that is one of our big customers is a health organization called Kaiser Permanente.

They are both an insurer and a provider of healthcare.

And they were our beta site actually 14 years ago.

We tested our platform,

Tested our technology among their employees,

Had great results for many years.

And then together as an experiment,

We said,

Let's go into the community and say,

What if we put out our program to the citizens of Colorado and let anybody join and do this not attached to a company.

And when we first teed up this project six years ago,

The general consensus was,

Well,

If you got 3000 people involved in something like this,

You know,

Feel proud of that because it's a hard challenge to do out in the consumer type of health programming.

And in the first year,

15,

000 people came out for it.

And now we're at about 90,

000 people.

And it's growing beyond anyone's expectations.

And it's individuals doing this in the home.

And it's led us to develop and we're launching this summer a wireless home scale that you just use with your iPhone or your Android phone and do this in your living room,

In your bathroom,

Wherever you are,

Very much on your own terms as a consumer.

So we took UK PLC as a big corporate,

For example,

And that could apply to any country in the world.

And you're spending all this money on health care.

You're spending all this money on education.

Surely,

It's just a case of saying,

Let's switch some of the budget that we're throwing at health care where we're fixing people that are broken to education so they don't get broken in the first place.

Exactly.

The key word there is prevention,

Shifting it from sick care,

Which is often what health care really ends up being,

To preventive efforts to really try to get to the root of the problem.

And the way I look at it,

If you go through the top dozen chronic conditions that people wrestle with,

Whether it's diabetes,

High blood pressure,

Cholesterol issues,

Heart issues,

There are two components of the solution that a doctor will generally tell you.

One is a collection of medications that are used to treat that issue.

The other is a lifestyle change.

And the way I look at it,

If you don't change that underlying lifestyle and the underlying physical taxing of the system of,

In our case,

The individual that's got 60 extra pounds to lose,

Which I don't know what that would be in stones.

Is it 12 stones to the pound?

Yeah,

14 stones to the pound.

Yeah,

So that's four or five stones.

If we don't take that load off the body,

Intuition shows you,

Well,

You're more likely to need to have your knee replaced,

Your hip replaced.

You're carrying around all that extra weight.

So the treatment of the lifestyle has largely been ignored.

And it's such an opportunity.

If we can tackle that and do prevention,

We might be able to avoid some of the medication and even some of the procedures and get to the root cause.

Well,

It's also the root cause.

The problem that politicians in your country have them in for eight years is that Trump doesn't get impeached before that.

And with us,

We've got this four year term as well,

Which can go on indefinitely.

But is the issue really is that we've got to be thinking 20 years out and getting the incentive,

The incentive to be healthy into schools.

So in the next generation,

We don't have this budget black hole for health care,

Which goes up and up and up and up when we can actually get people to be healthy in the first place work by teaching them from when they're kids.

Very much so.

And we're we're at the the early days,

Coincidentally,

Of some school district based participation in our program,

Where we are trying to get the parents and the teachers as the participants in our program and therefore the role model that the student sees and trying to use this gamified competition and showing how the parents and the administrators can get healthier and lead by example.

And that's that's definitely been our view of one way to address childhood obesity is largely through who fills up the grocery basket every week and sets the the food eating plan for the family.

And that's often the mother of the house.

And coincidentally,

In our demographic,

80 percent of our participants tend to be female and 20 percent male.

And we didn't intend it that way.

But we we just seem to to resonate more with that with that mindset.

And we're excited by that,

Though,

Because that is a gateway to a lot of the decisions,

Whether they're healthy decisions or unhealthy decisions,

Come from the the mother of the house.

And we're we're excited to have a daily dialogue with them on how to to feed the family better.

Fabulous.

I like the way you got into this gamification,

Because of course,

Kids love playing with their with their phones and their tablets.

And of course,

What you generated by taking the photograph of somebody is like a weighty or a sort of weight weight management version of a selfie in a way,

Haven't you?

It's a healthy selfie.

I love it.

You know,

It's funny you bring that up is one of the most surprising things that we've discovered looking in our data and really what we built our program around is everybody that joins goes through a motivation assessment and a barrier assessment.

And they also tell us,

Are they vegetarian?

Do they have a gym?

That lets us tailor the messaging every day so I can say,

If you tell me,

You know what,

Todd,

I have trouble finding a safe place to exercise.

We will give you a coping strategy from our behavioral scientists of how to get over that topic or if you can't make vegetables appealing,

We'll give you one for that.

But the other side is the motivation assessment.

And it's got it's written by our behavioral scientists and it covers the waterfront of what people are generally motivated by.

I want to have energy for my children.

I want to be a leader in the community.

What my doctor told me that I need to make a health change.

I want to fit my old clothes and look better.

We look at all of those assessments and the last time we looked at over a hundred thousand of those,

The bottom of the list,

Which surprises everyone,

Is my doctor told me to do it.

The top of the list is I want to fit my old jeans and look better.

I want to fit my old clothes and feel better about my appearance.

And a conscious decision we made with Incenta Health was saying the wellness type efforts of a decade ago would have would have looked at that data and said we need to double down on that that medical importance issue and make it more important in the mind of the participant and really try to convince them even more that this is serious.

Our view is a bit more like,

You know,

Judo where you use the energy of your opponent to your own advantage.

We said if they're driven by how they look and feel,

Let's play to that.

And so when you're in our program front and center,

You see this visual flip book that shows your appearance on day one on day 91 on day one hundred and eighty two and on through the year and potentially multiple years.

Our longest running client is in their 12th year in Michigan running our program.

And these individuals see this this transformation they've undergone.

And that really to me is the key to the retention and the stickiness of our program.

People see the effects and they go this investment in learning how to feed myself better and move my body more is working.

And it's personally rewarding and it's intrinsically rewarding for me.

And that healthy selfie,

You know,

We did that photograph.

And I know you're also an engineer by trade.

We did that as an audit mechanism to make sure I could see your feet on the scale and confidently pay you a cash reward.

But it turned into the best retention and long term engagement device we've ever seen.

Wow,

That's phenomenal.

What brought you to want to embrace mindfulness in the in the app and the program,

Apart from your personal interest in it and your one of your twin sons?

Exactly.

You know,

So much of what comes up when we look at the the inquiries that come into our call center and every one of the members in our program can email one of our health coaches,

They can chat with them on text,

They can pick up the phone and call.

But the most common struggle point is people hit a plateau and they they don't see results fast enough,

Perhaps.

And they're they're just really struggling with the question of motivation and and what to do next.

And as we look at that and we look at just the general,

You know,

The level of stress and anxiety that people are under the this always on environment where your cell phone is buzzing,

The news feed at every time you walk by a TV is blaring some urgent news on whatever is happening.

There's this kind of undercurrent of the need for relief from that.

And you can see a lot of different ways to classify it.

Is it mental health,

Behavioral health?

Is it mindfulness?

Is it meditation?

Whichever,

You know,

Moniker you look at,

To me,

It's it felt like we need something that's perfect,

You know,

That the way our platform is migrated now so that the entire thing is available on your smartphone.

And I can see my video of my workout.

I can see my meal plan.

I can see my reward pyramid of how close I am to getting my next payment.

I can see all of that.

Why not have and especially when I sat there and listened to,

You know,

Just the the calming,

Mindful power of listening to a meditation in front of my fireplace in the morning.

I said that should be in our app.

And that sent sent me on the quest to try to find,

You know,

The the type of partner that wasn't just too far out there on the the woo woo spiritual side that might turn some people off,

Even if it's it's right on in its in its ways.

I wanted to have a more approachable way to get started and say,

Look,

Just if you're looking to to be calmer and if you look at the page in our app that has your meditations,

It just says,

Take a moment.

And it shows a park bench in front of a green wall of ivy.

And it's just saying,

Let's slow down and and listen to our mind and our body a little bit.

Fantastic.

Last great news.

I'm so glad you reached out.

What we'll do is we'll include one of the meditations from the group of seven that we've created at the end of this at the end of this interview.

So Todd,

Where's the best place for you to start with this?

Because obviously you've got you've got obviously you've got a fantastically strong product for for corporates who can reach out and that will work worldwide.

But also you've got this new offering for individuals or even schools and that sort of stuff.

What's the best place to jump in and start and start this new journey,

This healthy,

Healthy journey?

That's a great question,

Tom.

I would say just begin by going to Incentahealth.

Com.

And that's I n c e n t a health h e a l t h dot com.

Because there you can see I've been describing people going through this transformation.

You can see those individual stories and watch people as they've gone through that journey.

If you are more from a corporate view,

You can look through and see the corporate case studies of what it's done in population health.

But that'll give you a feel for what the coaching looks like,

What the visual healthy selfie weigh in looks like on the kiosk at your office or at your home.

You can see the wireless scale there.

And from that point,

You can go right online and purchase the home scale if you want to have this at home.

You can take your next step.

And if you're an iPhone user,

Go to the Apple App Store,

Just type in Incentahealth smart scale.

You can go right up,

You can get the app there,

You can do the same thing in the Google Play Store.

But one of those spots would give you a neat feel for what the journey looks like and let you engage with the tools.

Fantastic.

Well,

Todd,

I wish you every success in all the stuff you're doing.

And I know this is also the tip of the iceberg.

You're not going to stop here.

This is going to be a game changer as far as the world's relationship with health is concerned.

So less people weighing more on the planet,

It puts less pressure on the planet as well,

Doesn't it?

Less weight on the planet,

But also more importantly,

Less stress on the resources of our special planet too.

Indeed.

Indeed.

Yeah,

We are excited and love the transformation at an individual level.

And you're right,

It scales up to the communities we're all in.

And it's a win-win for everyone really.

So thank you for having me on the show today,

Tom.

Oh,

It's great.

It's been lovely to hear that background.

So what we'll do is we'll just segue now into a meditation that I recorded for you called Eating Mindfully.

Now this is a meditation you can do either with real morsels of food.

It's an eyes-open meditation.

Don't do it while you're driving or off-rate machinery,

Flying a jumbo jet.

And as it says,

Using a cheese grater or a potato peeler.

I love the fact you made me put those into the water.

So thank you for that.

So but basically,

It's an eyes-open meditation.

You can do it with real food or with imaginary food.

And it's a real treat.

So have a listen.

And there's another six where this came from,

Which you can get access to on the app.

So it's been great to talk to you,

Todd.

And let's speak again in a month or two's time about other aspects of this whole journey and how mindfulness leads to weightlessness,

I guess,

In some respects.

That sounds fantastic.

Thanks,

Tom.

Take care now.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Guided meditations like this can make you drowsy and sleepy.

It's not a good idea to drive,

Operate machinery,

Or use a potato peeler or cheese grater while listening to this meditation.

This guided meditation will help you form a new relationship with the food and the drink that nourishes you and keeps you alive.

You can listen to this meditation in two ways.

And it's a good idea to try both methods.

For the first method,

You keep your eyes open and actually eat something during the meditation.

The second method involves you simply imagining you are eating or drinking something.

If you want to try the second method first,

Just sit up somewhere upright comfortably and keep listening.

If you want to try the first method first,

Pause and go and get something you would like to eat mindfully.

Ideally,

Something like some grapes,

Raisins,

Nuts,

Or small pieces of fresh or dried fruit.

You can also use a juice drink or a cold soup.

The main criteria is to choose something you enjoy that you know is good for you.

So pause now if you'd like to do this with your eyes open and go and get something to eat or drink.

Or just continue if you simply like to imagine you are eating mindfully.

So before you start,

Just take a deep in-breath through your nostrils and expel all the air from your lungs with your out-breath about four times as long as the in-breath.

Just become aware of the tension in your body.

If you are holding any tension in your forehead,

In your jaw,

In your shoulders,

In your arms,

In your wrists and your hands,

In your chest and your abdomen,

In your pelvis,

In your thighs,

In your knees.

Let all the tension flow all the way down through your ankles,

Through your feet and into the floor.

Take another deep in-breath and again expel all the air from your body on the out-breath.

With the food in front of you with your eyes open or the imaginary food in front of you with your eyes closed,

Let's eat mindfully.

In this first mindful minute with your food or drink in front of you or imagining that it's in front of you,

Just look at it and observe it.

What colour is it?

What shape is it?

How have you arranged it in front of you?

What do you imagine is inside it?

What path did it take to get to you?

In this next mindful minute pick up a piece of the food and feel it lightly in your fingers or if it's a drink touch the surface.

Is it smooth,

Sticky or wrinkly,

Thick or thin,

Round or irregular,

Hard or soft?

Just imagine what actions would your mouth have to take before you can swallow it.

How do you feel about what you're about to eat?

In this next mindful minute hold a piece of food to your nose or sniff the surface if it's liquid.

What does it smell of?

What will it taste like when you put it in your mouth?

Will the taste change as you chew it?

Give it a gentle squeeze or rub or stir and sense if it releases new odours.

And consider this,

How does what it smells like make you feel about popping it in your mouth?

In this next mindful minute put a piece of the food in your mouth or take a sip of your drink.

Let your tongue play with it and feel it.

Now start chewing it slowly and mindfully or if it's liquid use your tongue to coat it around all of your palate.

And at the end of this mindful minute you can now swallow it.

In this next mindful minute pop another bit of food in your mouth or take another sip and let your mouth do what it wants to as it would do normally.

And when you're ready swallow it.

Now become mindful of your esophagus and the automatic peristaltic action of the muscles that pushes the food down into your stomach.

Sense the passage of what you've consumed for as long as you can.

In this next mindful minute pop another piece of food in your mouth and chew it slowly.

Or if it's liquid,

Zip it and roll it around your mouth coating the whole palate.

As you do this take your awareness down into your stomach and imagine what it's doing with the pieces of food you've already eaten.

Just sense it breaking them down into nutrients and energy for each of yourselves.

Thank it for serving silently and doing this on your behalf and for your greatest good.

For this next mindful minute ask your stomach what it would like you to do.

Is it ready to process another morsel of food or take another sip of your drink?

Or would it like you to wait a while because it's busy?

Guess on what your stomach tells you to do right now.

And in these last mindful minutes pause again and look at the food in front of you.

Thank the shopkeeper who kept it fresh for you.

Thank the truck driver who delivered it to the shop.

Give thanks to the food producer who made it so edible.

Thank the farmer who nurtured it from seed.

Thank Mother Earth for providing a safe environment for it to grow.

And thank the sun for providing all the energy sources it needed to get to your mouth.

Thank your stomach and intestinal system and let them know that while they're busy with their job you'll go about your days mindfully,

Timefully and kindfully making a difference in the world.

And while they're busy you will be making sure the next meals will arrive in a timely manner and be prepared mindfully and lovingly so your internal organs will receive what they need to keep working efficiently.

And finally give yourself a pat on the back for taking some time out to become more mindful about what you eat and drink and how you go about it.

And if you had your eyes closed open them now and come back into the room.

I've been Tom Evans and you've been listening to The Zone Show and you can find loads of books,

Meditations and resources to help you get in and stay in The Zone on my website www.

Tomevans.

Co

Reviews

Excellent, thank you Mr. Evans!🙏🏻

Thank youTom, for this VERY INTERESTING Conversation, followed by a Meditation centering on one of my greatest personal challenges!
I will definitely be checking out this new (for me) Resource!
🙏🏻💕

Very interesting! Thank you!

This is the most relatable meditation I’ve ever heard on the subject of healthy lifestyle and mindful eating. It also made me laugh

Great company in CO doing awesome work. Keep it up Great meditation. It help to connect me to keeping my foods natural from earth with little processing or gimmicks 🙏🏼🌱❤️

Best half an hour of my day. The last five minutes of thanks was life changing.