The Livy Method Podcast - Maintenance & Mindfulness: Midweek Motivation - April 1, 2026

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Welcome to your Midweek Motivation!In this episode, Gina and Odette unpack the transition from actively losing weight to becoming someone who naturally maintains it, emphasizing that this phase isn’t secondary; it’s the whole point. They explore the mindset shifts required to make new habits feel automatic, the importance of continuing foundational routines like hydration, sleep, and nutrient-rich choices, and why consistency is where real change is solidified.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/ginalivymaintenanceandmindfulnessTo learn more about The Livy Method and our Maintenance & Mindfulness group, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on ACAST, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music. It's your maintenance midweek motivation.

Some of my favorite conversations are taking place here. Wake up, look, good, feel good, no matter what life throws at you, you've got this. What life throws at you, you've got this. Yes, you do. Look at your hair. It looks so floundish. Because I feel like I've been like in a tornado all day today. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, see. Probably didn't fix the back, though, right? Oh, no, look. I know. That's why I don't have a mirror on my back wall. I always get Tony on back a head watch. And whenever we're, like, out, like, we went to, like, dim sum the other day with Tony's parents. And he kind of put his head on the back of my hair and went like, I'm like, oh, is it okay?

He's like, 73%? And I'm like, oh. Well, if his hand could come out, that's okay, then. It's still stuck there permanently. I've got this, like, double crown situation back here where I got the, I am one of those too. One of those. So it's always.

And I always tell my girl, like, can you just put some extra hair? Like, look at it. Like this. Yeah. It splits. Yeah. Like, you just put some extra hair dye back there. So I can just wake up out of bed and just go.

Oh, so here we are. What? I'm reading the comments. It's like, last live. Yeah. We're coming back. We're coming back. We're coming back.

I'm excited for us. Look at us go. Let us go. Right? we got some fun stuff planned for our next live session and we you know here's the thing I know I've been talking about how I went to that obesity summit but maintenance is going to be where it's at I think maintenance is going to end up being bigger than our weight loss programs because it's it's not losing weight it I mean yes it is and I would don't want to diminish the hard work that we've done to lose weight in a healthy way but it's being out you've all been here before and yes the way you lost your weight with the living method matters but it's really being able to maintain and sustain it oh that came on in the weight loss program this morning and was talking to our members and of course all the questions that they have about maintenance. How does it work? And it really is its own beast cana worms. It's a completely different journey. It's like it is different. It absolutely is different.

And the hardest part is going for, I mean, the automoticity of it all, right? You've made all these, you've worked through old habits. You created new ones. You have rewired how your body's come to function physically and your brain. And now it's just a matter of making it automatic, or who you are. And funny enough, they were talking about that at the Canadian Obesity Summit that I was at this automoticity. It needs to become just part of who you are. You need to adapt the life and lifestyle of a person who maintains sustained their weight. And if you've always been someone who's been focused on losing, it's a whole different thing to become a person who's focused on maintaining. So it's so important what everyone is doing here. And it's,

not secondary. I think it's more important than even losing the weight. It's being able to maintain and sustain it, no matter how you lose it. Yeah. And I think to, you know, it's not something, we always say like it's not something you want to constantly be thinking about. It's not something that you want to constantly be worrying about. It doesn't, you don't, but, but it is part of who you are. So you are going to think about it. You are going to wake up and make those choices that are going to keep you feeling good, looking good. You know, that is always going to be part of what it is. And I think this is so important. And we're talking about next steps and that plan between groups and what am I going to do and what's going to happen and, you know, where do I go from

here? And it's, it's so much more of a bigger picture than what do I do between groups or what do now. Because really, it's, you don't have to do anything differently. What you want to do is you want to keep following those principles. You're not going to stop drinking your water just because there's no program running. You're not going to stop trying to get better sleep just because there's no program running. You're not going to stop choosing nutrient rich foods because there's no program running. So it's just who you are now. It's just what you do. It's just a continuation. Yes, there's a bit of a break for a couple weeks, you know, between these programs running. But it's just it's just the next day and the day after that. It's just who you are now. It's what you do. And when the live sessions are running,

you know, if you're participating in the program, we're here to give that support. We're here to talk it out. We're here to, you know, condense it all into 91 days. But those moments in between, you're just going to continue doing. You're just going to keep the habits and routines that you have built and they're just going to keep going. Your routine might look different. That's, I want to acknowledge that. You know, we had some members saying, I always, you know, eat my breakfast while I watch the check in.

Okay. So eat your breakfast, but watch the weather channel. Eat your breakfast, but listen to 10 minutes of a podcast. You know, like if that, if those are your two things together, journal, yeah. Yeah. Those are the two things you do together. Don't stop having breakfast just because there's no check in. You know, that is the routine that you want to keep going.

Well, you want to show the gaps that you need to fill, right? Like this is like, you know, the live sessions are certainly motivating an opportunity to connect with the community. It gives you a rhyme and a reason for doing. the things that you need to do to be able to maintain and sustain your weight. But yeah, it's just about it becoming sort of who you're. Listen, the water always fucking sucks. I'm always, like, I got to, well, I got to get my water in today. Like, you're going to always need to drink water because once you realize what it feels like to be properly hydrated and how when you're dehydrated, not only do you crave sugar, but your energy sucks and all of that, right? Like, it's, it's constant

work. I am still working on maintaining and sustaining my over 100 pound loss. Like, it's still work for me. I have to be mindful. I can't just eat, you know, whatever I want. You know what I mean? Eventually I start to feel uncomfortable. My weight goes up. I have to manage my stress. So it's always ongoing.

It's always ongoing. I love the break because it creates gaps. And you need to highlight those gaps and be like, Gaps is such a weird word, by the way. But you need to be able to see where you need to make some adjustments or where you might have some weaknesses in your routine or plan. I love that. You know, we got to do.

we got to bring on like oh Dave Dave and Sue you guys I want you guys to come on we need to bring them on and and and yeah part of our conversation remember we used to do that we used to be able to do that and then Facebook changed some weird thing and yeah we got to get back to um I definitely struggle to get the water and consistently every day is different right and that's what it is every day is different and it's about you having the confidence to be like okay I get it and I have the tools and skills to keep on going here's I just want to read something that Sue says here I wasn't being mindful of the two stages of maintenance, it turns out. I think I am still in solidifying, but I have been playing a lot with maintenance by personalizing, but not intentionally.

Yeah. And you got to pick a lane. Like you have to be like, am I testing the waters and just going to see what I got with personalizing the plan? Or am I going to be intentional about following the maintenance program, like the tweaks each week? to dig deeper, to level up more, too, like you can solidify personalizing the plan. The problem is that's just kind of maintaining where you are already at. And so the tweaks each week are designed to help you get even more in tune to your portions, even more self-aware to bring up the deep stuff that you might not even know is

there, right? Like that's, that's like how, like that's being really proactive about adding more tools to your toolbox. Whereas personalized in the plan is just, it's kind of like, okay, I got that. Like, you're not looking to do anymore. You're just looking to put the time into helping your body adjust to your weight, where I think the live sessions are more proactive. And I'm not saying one is better than the other.

But like, if you got a lot of questions, you're personalized in the plan as your preferred method to solidify your weight or, and you got a lot of doubts and your second guessing. you still have a lot of food noise and you have a whatever. There's probably a lot of work to do still. And to me, I want to do it sooner rather than later. And so, you know,

three months of that versus two years of trying to figure it out on your own. I'm going to go for three months of that. Right. It's just kind of, but you have to, you can't be stuck in no man zone. You have to like, be like,

okay, it's time for me to move on to personalize the plan, that next step that comes before you just living your life. Like, where are you? Are you still solidifying physically, mentally, are you in that testing the waters? Are you ready to just live your life, right? Like, are you still getting on the scale every day and having it dictate how you feel like,

there's work to do there? It's work to do. Yeah. And, you know, we talked about this on Monday, too. Like, there's no clear line in the sand. You can't just, you know, it's not going to differentiate it for you. It's really something you have to think about and choose. And, you know, we're talking about picking a lane. We've been talking about that a lot, too. Pick your lane. What do you do? And you think. And it's okay to change lanes to if you feel like you need to. If you feel like you don't have the capacity to continue with whatever choice you made, you can always, you know, switch your lane to. Yeah. Well, here Sue's adding on. As soon as I add in some bites, that's some bites, it slides over to eating too much. And so that's like then personalizing the plan isn't ever really

going to get you to work through that, right? That's the thing. Yeah, you put your time in. but this is why, like, following through on the tweaks each week, because we were like, what's the point? Why am I doing this? Because that'll help you uncover and be like, what is that about? Is that a food scarcity issue? Is this a fear of being hungry issue? Those tend to pop up during downsizing, for example.

You know, feeding the metabolism where you're forced to check on yourself so often, that could be some insight there. Maybe it's your food choices where you're not getting in and making them nutrient rich enough protein and fats. fitting into those satiety hormones. So you're more likely to be having more carbs, which you can crave to sugar cravings. Like this is where that is like being really proactive to address that. And you don't really get that through personalizing the plan. I think personalizing the plan, like the last two weeks of the weight loss program is like a taste of what life would be like once you're just living your

life. But personalizing the plan and maintenance is like that's getting you ready for that next step of go live your life trusting when to eat what to eat and how much to eat. But if you can't trust that or you're like, well, whenever I do have some bites of bits, it's not like, oh, I'll just have a few bites and I'm good. It's like, you're overeating. Then you got to be like, okay, why is that? Why is that happening? What's going on there?

So you can be intentional about trying to figure that out. I just think this is why committing to the tweaks each week can be really helpful with that. As much as we just want to all be done already. I know. We all want to be done. And I think committing to the tweaks each week too is it's just going to help with your capacity. You know, you don't have to think about what am I doing this week? You know, I can't personalize the plan.

I don't have the mind space for that. I just need to go back to the structure. I need to go back to this place that feels familiar. Because personalizing the plan will always be there. It's not like you have to follow it on anybody else's timeline. When you feel comfortable, when you get there, when you're able to make those decisions and trust that you can make those decisions, you're going to notice when your brain is not consumed with those thoughts anymore. Like, oh, I'm just going to go there. I can do it. No problem.

Instead of like, can I, should I, I don't know if I should. Can I? I can't. I know I can't. So, you know, that place will come. It's kind of like going to the gym. I just saw Karen here saying splitting proteins and veg was an eye opener for me. And what are we really doing? We're practicing. just like if you were meditating every day or like whatever it is that you're you're learning a new skill when you're practicing. It's kind of like like the gym for your brain, the gym for being in tune, right? There's times when you go to the gym and you feel super fit and you're on a roll and then something happens, then you stop going, then you feel out of shape and I want to get back to the gym.

And this is like it's like a gym for your brain. It's like working on all that mental part of it. And sometimes you're on it. And maybe you're going to, you know, like when you work out, maybe you're doing Pilates classes and hit classes and whatever. And then maybe sometimes you're just working out from home. And maybe sometimes you're going for a walk, right? That's sort of like it's practicing these different techniques to just put more tools in the toolbox

and learn more about yourself. So I think it's the way you approach it too. Yeah. You could be having a lot more fun around here than we do. Yeah. I have fun in my mind. I love that you made that gym analogy because we actually had a comment that I wanted to talk about today. It was from Atlanta.

And she said, I came into maintenance, not sure what to expect and thought it may be different than weight loss. It all came together for me when doing a weight training class. And the instructor said at some point, you will be unconsciously competent in your proper form. So just like you're at the gym, like you said, you are practicing those exercises. doing the same weight training exercise over and over go soon, your body's just going to remember. Your body's just going to be competent in the form that it needs to hold. And I thought that is exactly what we're doing here. Eventually, you're going to be unconsciously just living your life.

You're going to be, you know, making those choices. You're going to be out there just living, not even thinking about, you know, can I, can't I, should I, shouldn't I, do I know, do I not know? one day, maybe not even one day, maybe just slowly over time, you're going to notice that you are unconsciously competent to just live your life and to just move forward. I should, I should send you the video and I got Ruth to run me through her presentation on her own. And I actually, I should probably send that to you and you can post it and people can watch it. And her study was basically on people who were able to maintain and sustain their weight for the standard, which is over two years.

And the commonalities were that people just adopted this new way of living. They understood that they could not go back to their old ways of living their life. And for those who even gained way back after doing the maintenance program, there was an understanding as to why that happened. So they were actually able to learn from that experience and be like, yeah, something traumatic happened to me. I felt back into what was safe and comfortable, which was old patterns, old routines, old habits.

And now I can see why I did that. So now I can work on, you know, new skills that can help me stay more in this awareness place and, and different ways of coping, right? Like you don't know what you don't know. So you could totally lose your weight, be maintaining for two years. Something happens to you who've never experienced before. You go back into old habits. The goal is to not stay there for too long, right?

And to be like, oh, okay, this isn't working for me. This is like why I say, and I know it's harsh. You don't get 20 pounds back and not notice. Like, you know exactly. That's the difference between. fluctuations on the scale and actually gaining weight back. You won't know. You know when you did the things that cause you to gain that way back. You wouldn't question that because you're going to know, oh, yeah, I know exactly why I know exactly why I feel like shit today, right? It's the ball of wine and

the brownies that I ate yesterday. Like, I'm not being like, well, how do I know if it's a indulged or just you fucking know? So it's a matter of like being so self-aware that you are recognizing, okay, this behavior is not working for me. What can I do to like get myself out of that, right? Like that, that's the difference and that's what you're learning. So it doesn't necessarily stop you from falling back into old patterns and behavior when you're coping. But you have more of a self-awareness to know, oh, okay, this isn't working for me. What can I do to get myself back, you know? Yeah, I think we, I mean, it's so much about awareness. And I don't even know sometimes if our members are, aware of the awareness that they have.

Like when they come into the group and they say something like, oh, this happened to me and it turned into this. I'm like, yeah, that's amazing. Would you have ever said that out loud before? Would you have ever said this happened to me and this is why? This happened and I reacted like this. And now I need to do this instead. That awareness piece, I wish everyone that wrote that comment or shared something like that

could be like, wow, look at what I just, look what I know. Like, I know more than I know. I understand more than I know. And I think that awareness piece is so huge because that does keep you. So it keeps you aware of what you are doing, but it also will keep you aware of what you're not doing. I think so many people can think like, oh, I'm doing this now. I'm indulging. I'm having more wine.

I'm having more bits and bites. But then, you know, you're also saying, what are you not doing? Maybe I'm not focusing on my sleep. I'm not focusing on getting my water in. So it's not always about all of these old habits that you are doing. It's also letting the things that do work slip at the same time. So it's twofold there. You're already doing so much here, Susan.

Yes, the unconscious competence stage. It takes practice and awareness to get there. And you do get there. And when you're following the program, the weight loss program, then the maintenance program, you don't even realize how proactive you are actually being. Like you're just showing up and doing all this stuff. As long as you keep showing up and you're paying attention and you're making the changes along

the way, even if you feel like you're not doing it perfectly, you're already doing so much. And this is your right. I think a lot of times that our members don't realize the skills and tools that they are acquiring. Like, it's amazing what we're doing and what we're talking about in the weight loss and maintenance program. Nobody is having this conversation out there. I can tell you that. I know that for a fact. this is exactly the conversation that we need to be having.

And I think people will start to catch up, you know, just like they finally caught up in the weight loss program that it's not calories in versus calories out. Like finally the diet industry has caught up to that, right? Or at least they haven't caught up. They're open to maybe hearing how it's not just that. At the obesity conference, they're saying that. It's not, we know, like I went to this interesting conference that it was like it's not calories in versus calories out.

In fact, when you drop your calories and you add exercise, it can just reinforce the need to store fat. So it actually tanks your metabolism. Like every form of dieting, except the living method, causes your metabolism to tank. Like, it's just insane. And I think that people will eventually catch up to maintenance and the conversations that we're having. It's really about behavioral change.

The problem is there's just no money in that. There's no money in our health care system to support behavior or change. There's not enough psychiatrists and learning strategists. the planet to serve the people that need to be served. The health care system is kind of broke and that it's like person by person. It's so individual. And, you know, because we have like liabilities and costs and, you know, like even our experts, they can only say so much. They can talk broadly and address. That's what's so interesting about our experts because they know exactly what you are doing and where you're at so they can speak to that. Whereas they have to be very mindful.

They can't just be ditching out individual advice because they're liable for that. Right. So, so we know that the maintenance program and the conversations that we're having is like it's next level. But this is going to give you the chance to actually make change in your life. So you can truly live a life or you don't have to fucking worry about your goddamn weight every fucking day. Right. Like that's it. Like that's what it is.

And you can live a life or you can focus on all these other beautiful things that life has to offer. Like let's get out of this like trench that we're in with weight loss and maintenance and get to a place where you're calm and you're competent and you're in tune and you get to truly enjoy all the yummy bites of bits that life has to offer. That is the ultimate end game here. That is it. That's what we're trying to get people to, you know. So you're already doing so much. Like, oh my gosh. Like, yeah. And too, like when you think of that, like, that's the end game. That's where we want to get people to. And it's, we understand that it's hard that, you know,

people can't, they can't visualize that because they've never been. there it's not talked about it's not shown it's not you know when we when we when we are bombarded with these before and after pictures oh like what's the after after like yeah there's never an after after like oh here's the before and here's the after but then what then what comes after that you're never shown that you're never nobody talks about that nobody is putting that out there so like how how can you believe it how can you trust that it's out there how can you know it's out there i think that's those, these conversations, these conversations are so important. And, you know, and I'm going to go back to like a couple years and in telling somebody, somebody asked, what do you do? And I'm like,

oh, I, I, you know, work for this wellness company, blah, blah. And I was going on, on, on, on. And my husband was in the room. He said, but it's not a cult. And I said, I said, I said, doesn't it sound so far-fetched because the maintenance conversation was never happening? And all of a sudden, We are having this maintenance conversation trying to make it like the norm, the streamline. And it's so far out there that people are like, what are you talking about? Nobody talks about maintaining weight. It's about losing weight. It's about losing weight.

It's about getting to that number. And now that we're trying to mainstream this maintenance conversation, it's it. They can't, they can't grasp it. They're like, what do you mean? Like there has, you have to put time into maintaining your weight. You can't just hit your goal and then that's it. So I think that, you know, the more we talk about it, the more conversations we have, the more mainstream we can make it is just, you know, it's just going to catapult not only our program,

but the members to the next level too. It's going to give them that strong foundation. Yeah, the system is not designed to help people maintain and sustain their weight. It's not, it's not. It's not people actually, the big businesses out there, they don't want you to actually be successful at maintaining and sustaining your weight. That's not their plan. This is why, This is why the pharmaceutical industry is the narrative is you have to keep taking these weight loss medications forever. And the narrative to that is they don't want you to stop taking them because they want to keep making money. And right now the reality is they do not have an answer to you being able to maintain and sustain your weight. And that's craziness.

That's craziness. Show us your after after. I think that we should do that. Like show us your after photo. That's like, you know, I love that. What's your after after? The daily posts are unbelievably helpful. Yeah, so this is what we, hi, Grace.

How are you? This is where we are being like, okay, so our members are incorporating this into your daily routine, part of your maintenance routine and using, you know, popping into the group and obviously our new members with our new app because now we're going to be offering the maintenance program differently. It'll be part of our membership service or incorporating this in part of your day. That's what it's all about. So what can we do to keep you, keep showing up? We're going to take more about what can we do to help keep you motivated kind of approach. Tie conversations into real life, current events and whatnot. That's one of the things that we are looking to do ongoing.

Like let's have some real. We've tried to like be in a little bit of a box. And this is sort of where like there's like imagine how do you maintain your weight when you're going through when you're dealing with grief how do you maintain your way when you are going through a divorce maybe or a separation and yet you still have to live in the same house you know due to financial reasons how do you maintain and sustain your way when you're dealing with you know financial issues that you like there's like a lot we could talk on to kind to go even deeper into this conversation for people yeah and i think that um you know members they're ready for that real real real life life conversation. They need to have those real life conversations because we know the fact of

the matter is maintaining your weight is not just about the food that you choose. You know, it's about, it is about your stress. It's about your coping mechanisms. It's about your belief system. So when that, when you're, when your coping mechanism and your belief system gets rocked, you know, how does that affect your maintenance journey? I see you laughing. I'm just laughing at Dave. He's like, wait, I'm getting a divorce. I don't maybe. I loved it. I had an opportunity to meet Dave's wife. She's lovely. Yeah. So we got to go. This is our last live of this winter session. And of course, we're going to see you again in the next spring session. There's nothing you need to do in between groups. We're around, I think, to the end of day Sunday. And then the team will be on a little bit of a hiatus. Obviously, the group will still

be here for you to pop in, review content, listen to any guest segments and whatnot. And then we're going to start up again and start the whole 91 day process all over starting on April 20th. You know, sharing is caring. We're not doing a big media blitz or marketing campaign this year. If you know anyone who's interested in the living method, please share. If you know anyone who's lost weight in other methods and they're concerned about maintaining and sustaining their weight. I think this is like where this maintenance program would be really effective for someone as well. So please share. What else, Lodette, what else do you want everyone to know? I love that point that you made about share it with people who've lost their weight on a different method

because this program can help complement those that are, you know, maybe are on GLP ones and need a lifestyle method to accompany it. I think that's important. I think what's really excited what I want our members to know, a bit of a spoiler, a bit of a sneak peek is we are making some changes around here for April 20th. So the look is going to be different. The vibe is going to be different. Oh, yes, yes, yes. We don't want to forget that. So come April 20th or even the few days leading up to it, if you are coming and looking for this

beautiful blue, we have to say the beautiful blue is being retired. And we have a whole new fresh vibe coming. We are rebranding to just keep it alive and fresh and exciting and easy. We want it to be easy. We want this to be someplace where you want to hang out. We know our members already want to hang out here. But it's just going to be elevated and it's going to be easier for you to understand. and easier for you to navigate.

So come April 20th, we're going to have a brand new look. Yeah, we're doing it. We're like, we're moving and grooving over here. And we want to keep you entertained and excited and supported and showing up. I was just reading about, as soon as someone's talking about cheer on our Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen. I didn't realize he was part of the team going to the moon or I guess circling the moon. Though I heard that's like a moon grab from the U.S. They're trying to beat China to build on the moon or something like that.

but regardless, that's super exciting. I love space stuff. Again, we don't go to space enough, I think, because there's not enough money in space. But, yeah, yes, I love that. I didn't know there was a Canadian on board. Sue, here's the change terror and excitement combined. I feel the same way, Sue.

See, we feel exactly the same way. We're all in together, trying to figure it out. We're going to be back in a few short weeks. We're not done yet this week, so make sure you reach out. Let's know if you have any questions. confident. You've got this. We've got you. We're around also on social media and whatnot. We're already looking forward. Like Odette has been busting her ass to get ready for the spring,

summer program, a whole new look and feel. I know some of you have been with us for a while. We appreciate you, whether this is your first maintenance program or your, I don't know how many you've already done. We're just really grateful for you. So thanks for joining us for all these conversations over the last few months. We'll be back. Thanks, Odette. I appreciate you. Final words? Any last minute? I think just, I mean, Kim said it this morning. I'll say it again. Thank you. Thank you for being here, for trusting us, for being on this part of your journey that really is so hard to explain to anybody that hasn't been here. But you came, you learned, you connected some dots, you filled some gaps, hopefully, and ready to do it again in a few weeks. We're here for you.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Odette. Bye