Dr Libby’s new six-week Shake Off Sugar online course launches on February 20 at drlibby.com. Photo / Supplied
Dr Libby Weaver glows with health and vitality. She tells Penny Lewis that with time and age, we can become better at remembering “life happens for us, rather than to us”.
Dr Libby Weaver turns 50 next year, but the milestone is not one she thinks about.
“I don’t think in terms of age,” she says.
“I deeply appreciate every day, and my work is one of the ways I try to demonstrate my gratitude for the education I received and the gift of life,” she says. “I think with time and age, we can become more practised at remembering that life happens for us, rather than to us.”
The nutritional biochemist has been part of the female-health zeitgeist for more than 15 years, kindly and calmly addressing issues that women face in all stages of their lives – exhaustion, hormone problems, weight gain and how to eat and live well.
She’s written 13 books, is an international keynote speaker and has her own range of natural health supplements.
Her company Dr Libby hosts online clinics and courses on topics ranging from detoxing and cooking with real food to sleep and thyroid problems.
Chris Weaver, Libby’s former husband, remains as chief executive and chairman of the business. The couple split in 2016 after a 10-year marriage.
“We have a great working relationship, with an endless exchange of ideas that I highly value,” Libby says.
When Libby spoke to Reset, she was Zooming in from Tasmania, after a weekend at home in Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast after returning from a speaking-engagement trip to Canada.
It’s a busy life, but one she is equipped to handle – her 2011 book, Rushing Woman’s Syndrome, explains the biochemical and hormonal reasons for slowing down and taking care of yourself.
When asked if she’s proud of her achievements so far, the self-described introvert says she doesn’t “think about achievement”.
“I feel fortunate I get to work in the world I care about. I’m also not much of a planner – I tend to act on things as they arise. I’ll write a book once a concept is fully formed in my mind, or I’ll notice people raising similar health concerns with me and dream up a way to offer support and solutions. I love gardening and just pottering about outside too, so the possibility of growing more veges over the next decade is pretty high.”
Her approach to health is life-long.
She grew up as the only child of Chris and Kay Ellis, who worked for an electrical wholesaling company and in retail. The family lived in a house in the suburbs of Tamworth, New South Wales, known as Australia’s country-music capital.
Grandmother Jean would come and stay regularly.
“She lived an hour outside Tamworth in a tiny little country town. And when she would come to visit, she wasn’t like any other grandmother. She didn’t bring chocolate; she used to bring me a tub of natural yoghurt. And she’d say to me, ‘And now a big, exciting thing is we’re going to put a teaspoon of honey in it.’ Growing up I just thought that was normal. It wasn’t until I saw other grandmothers giving their grandchildren chocolate, lollies, and biscuits that I realised it wasn’t. She had a tiny little suitcase and in it, she’d have wheatgerm that she used to put on her breakfast and a little container of vitamin C and a little container of vitamin E,” Libby recalls.
“We had fruit trees in the backyard, with oranges, mandarins, peaches, and strawberries. And we grew green vegetables and had chickens as well. If I went down to get an orange off the tree, I remember Mum saying things to me like, ‘It’s full of vitamin C and helps stop you from getting a cold.’ So even as a child, I had an awareness that food had nutrients in it and that made a difference to your health.”
She describes her family as “beautiful people”.
“Dad was a farmer at heart. He’d grow wheat in a tray in the backyard every year and one day I asked him why he did it and he said he wanted to see how the wheat crops were going to look like out west.”
When Libby started her studies in dietetics at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, where she went on to earn a PhD in Biochemistry, she was the first person in her family to go to university.
She credits Dr Merv Garrett, a doctor who specialised in allergic medicine, as the mentor who had the biggest impact on her.
“He taught me to investigate what was going on for people, to get to the heart of what was driving symptoms, rather than just offering Band-Aids.”
Recognising what her patients need has been part of her life ever since.
“So often we are looking for soul food, not food-food when we seek out poor quality food choices,” she says.
There are other ways to nourish the soul: “Sitting outside and noticing the night sky, making a ritual out of watching the sunset every day, appreciating the smell of a freshly cut lemon, watching your children sleep and soaking up their preciousness helps us feel more joy, rather than relying on food to provide that.”
When it comes to poor-quality food choices, sugary food is one of the hardest to ditch. And despite what you might think, it’s not just a lack of willpower that makes sugar so hard to give up.
“We have both a biochemical and an emotional connection to sugar, essentially an addiction. Because our biochemistry and our emotions are both involved, it’s one of the hardest things to stop,” Libby says.
“What I’ve seen in my patients, time and time again, is that sugar begets more sugar. We now understand what it does in our brain – sugar drives the brain to produce dopamine. But unfortunately, we need more and more sugar to get that same dopamine hit and uplifting effect.”
Libby says she can divide her patients into two groups, which sometimes overlap – people who are biochemically addicted to sugar, and those who use sugar to change how they feel.
People emotionally addicted to sugar might normally eat in a nutritious way until something upsets them, and they’ll have way too much sugar.
“It doesn’t have to be a really big, significant, traumatic event, it can be that they saw someone in the supermarket who normally would say ‘hi’ to them, and that person didn’t speak to them on a particular day. And that can be enough to lead someone to eat in a way that doesn’t serve them. I call those people love bugs. They’re hooked on the feeling of being loved and accepted.”
Libby says there is nothing wrong with sweet food itself; how we consume it and how much we consume is the issue.
On average, New Zealanders eat approximately 37 teaspoons of sugar per day, when the World Health Organisation’s official guidelines suggest that adults have no more than six teaspoons daily.
It’s best to get our sugar fixes from fruit and other whole foods.
“Most people are getting sugar from highly processed food and drinks – cakes and biscuits, muesli bars, all those types of things. Soft drinks and juices are really significant, some breakfast cereals, and icecream. They’re the big guns. There’s way too much sugar and also no vitamins and minerals. So, there’s no benefit from it. And it’s just really easy to over-consume,” Libby says.
Excessive sugar is linked with low energy, headaches, a depressed mood, and anxious feelings, as well as bloating, digestion issues, acne, and other skin problems.
It can also lead to accelerated brain ageing, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, an increased risk of kidney damage, and heart disease.
“The more sugar we eat, the more insulin the body typically needs to produce to deal with it, which in excess, instructs the body to store fat instead of burning it. Doing this day in and day out tends to lead to insulin resistance, which can make it seemingly impossible to lose body fat. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness or failure — uncomfortable emotions that people all too often attempt to mask with a sugary fix,” Libby says.
It’s sobering stuff and makes the 3pm trip to the snack machine seem like a bad idea.
What does Dr Libby eat when she feels like something sweet? “I might get a fresh date and pull the seed out and shove three almonds into it, and it’s crunchy and it’s sweet and there’s nutrition. I’m very boring. Or I like a banana,” she says with a laugh.
Dr Libby’s new six-week Shake Off Sugar online course launches February 20 at drlibby.com
Get sweet flavours from fruit and some vegetables, such as sweetcorn.
“Corn is sweet, which we can’t taste when we’re having lots of processed foods, but once you don’t have refined sugar, corn is actually sweet. When you get your sweetness from those sorts of whole foods, you get a lot of bang for your buck.”
With the rising cost of living, fresh produce has never been so expensive, but Dr Libby says frozen fruit and vegetables are a good option.
“The nutrition content of frozen vegetables is very high. Frozen berries have very, very high nutritional content because all the goodness is retained by snap freezing when they’re frozen very close to picking.”
Save money by shopping local.
“I know not everywhere has markets, but if you have a local market, then you’re buying direct from the grower, and it can help save money.”
If possible, grow your own.
“You can have pots of herbs on an apartment balcony, so when there’s a recipe where you need basil or parsley, instead of paying $5 for a bunch of basil, you just go and pick the leaves off your own plant.”
The new free open-air saltwater pool is already proving popular.