The Livy Method Podcast - Maintenance & Mindfulness: Midweek Motivation - October 22, 2025

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Welcome to your Midweek Motivation!In this episode, Gina and Odette open up about the emotional realities of maintenance—grief, change, and the tricky business of staying grounded when life throws curveballs. They unpack the difference between coping and slacking, explore how avoidance builds stress, and remind listeners that sometimes grace is more powerful than guilt. From using awareness as an anchor to spotting glimmers of joy in the everyday, this conversation is a gentle nudge to stay present, give yourself a little compassion, and keep showing up, even when it’s hard.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 out you. You've got this. Well, hello, and welcome back to our maintenance midweek motivation conversation. We are in week six. Hi, Odette, how are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I feel better today. I think, you know, day by day, you just, there's, the list gets longer. But as you check things off, feels good. And it's been a few surreal days. And I'm sure a few more to come. But I'm feeling good. I'm feeling calm. I'm feeling settled here and now. And then, you know, you don't realize that your kids need, needs dress shoes at the last minute with all they wear our sneakers. And then you go out to,

try and find them and they're not available and they're $1,000 for what I mean. That's how I'm doing. I do. I do know what you mean. The same thing happened to me. So for anyone who's listening and I didn't catch our Monday segment, Odette's dad passed away. And so she's been visiting family and doing the things that we do when our loved ones passed away. But I remember when my aunt passed away and we were all at her house and they were talking about the funeral.

Like my kids didn't have any fancy shoes to wear, nor would have anybody. cared, but I should say just they didn't have anything but like dirty running shoes. And then you're thinking it's a million things to do and we got to go out and, you know, it's just, it makes you look at life differently. My question for you, O'Dad, is, you know, you run this maintenance program. You know how hard people are making change. Has it, did you have any, not that it's about us in our program, but I know you love the maintenance program.

It's like it's your baby just as much as it is mine. Any thoughts about that and grief? Because we talk about how hard it is to navigate grief. but also when you're trying to maintain and sustain your weight or reach goals, is that too deep for today? I don't know. It's okay if it is. No, no, it's not. No, I don't think it's ever too deep around here. And I don't think we ever need to, you know, I know you didn't say you're sorry, but we don't need to apologize for going too deep because I think, you know, when we say deep, it's just, it's real life. It's just, it's reality. You know, let's have these conversations because they mattered.

I think if we had this like toxic positivity all the time, you see through that, right? Like, it's not it's not real of course we want everyone to have these amazing glorious moments and days all the time but that's not reality so anyway let me get to your question um i think you know when it comes to grief and maintaining maintaining your weight i think that anything can be a catalyst um to throwing you off your routine whether it's great whether it's grief um you know i talked to dr paul last week and he said something that you may think as simple as the common cold can throw you off your routine. You know, so whether it's grief, sickness, work stress, kid stress, life stress, I think

it all can throw you off. I think that's the takeaway is, you know, this is just another one of those catalysts. I can throw you off your routine or have you reverting back to old habits. And while this, this catalyst for me is heavier than some of the other ones that I've had to walk through, I think the way that we cope and I think that that compassion we bring to ourselves is really the takeaway here. you know how do we let this how do we let this affect our decisions how do we let this um you know be a be part of our day and part of our life but not let go of everything we've let go

everything that we've created up until now and we had a comment from a member actually it's really long i don't think we'll put it up but it was a member named cassie and she said that um you know she slipped back into old old habits and needs to get a grip and she feels like she's slacking you know, I can't just keep slacking. And then I'm thinking, are you slacking? Are you coping? You know, like what, like what is it exactly that we're doing here? But then, you know, on the flip side, are you telling yourself, oh, I'm slacking, I'm slacking, I need to do all the things. And there's the pressure. And that in itself can throw you off your routine because then those, you know, that negative self-talk comes back and those limiting beliefs come back. So a long way to answer

your question, I think that anything can throw us off routine. This grief is a little bit heavy. but I think it's really how the awareness that we have and how we choose to cope through it and to give ourselves a bit of self-compassion that, you know, maybe in the moment we think we're slacking because we're trying to hold it together. But really, this is how we need to cope and give ourselves the time to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It is, it is a, I like someone said, deep equals a real conversation.

There's Kathy, who's I lost two moms, one of my first program and one of my second. And I was blessed to be here in this community. Yeah, this is like. I was saying last night to Tony, am I ever going to get my shit together? Like, he's laughing right now. I can hear me. But, but, like, it's what, what is my idea of arriving to where I have my shit together, right? Like, is that just too far? Like, is it something I'm inspiring? Is it, is it, like, what? That's, like, really loaded, right? Like, what am I, what am I talking about there? And really, I was, I was mentioning, I don't know if it's here on Monday or in the

group where I saw this conversation with this monk, I believe, on social media. And it was like, we only have today. And I know it's so cliche. We can't do anything about yesterday and tomorrow hasn't come yet. And it really is about making your life choices from being in the moment right here, right now, today. And, you know, this concept of like we have, we're going somewhere and we're always focused on that and not really on the day to day. Like, it's, it's very complex. Yeah. It's complex. And I think, you know, to get to your point, like, when do you arrive at that place where you have it all together? Man, I thought I had most of it all together. You know, my son's away at school. He's doing well. He's got everything he needs. My daughter's at home. She's got everything she needs. And then, you know, my son comes home and he brings his golf shorts and his running shoes for the funeral. And I'm like, dude, like, you can't, you can't wear that. He's like, well, I don't have shoes and dress pants. I'm like, oh, I don't have my shit together because how did I not know? You didn't. have those things you know so i think there's these simple reminders that you may have a lot together you may have most of it together but i think we can't think that we're going to always or even ever

have all of it all together i talked to a lovely couple last night on the spilleteen it's available for you guys in the maintenance group we don't have access yeah it's over on our it's on our podcast but so they've been together 43 years and um he has lost 38 she's lost like 24, but they talk about how there's ebbs and flows to their life. We're in the summertime, they're living in a trailer, saving sea turtles, you know, and their, you know, their weight kind of creeps up. And then they have the skills and the tools to kind of like, be like, okay, now that, now I have to kind of address that.

And I think that's life. It also reminds me the conversation I had with Dr. Sheffali, where, you know, life does ebb and flow. And I think that's really important in maintenance is to acquire the tools. that when life does get difficult, you have some tools in your toolbox to help you manage. Maybe the first time you deal with grief, it's like maybe it's chaotic and you don't do well. And then you're like, okay, what can I do next time? I see Judy here, the coping strategies I've learned while following this program have kicked in a few times over the last few months.

Luckily, I haven't had to deal with grief, but definitely stress. and yeah like it's it's um your brain is meant to change your the way you think about things habitually and whatnot and and your and your beliefs but that takes time and it's really going through something strategic and systematic like the weight loss program or the the maintenance program that you are intentional about paying attention and wanting to learn new strategies like that's the key and you're your you're you're learning so much just by implementing these tweaks each week, even if you're not doing it perfectly, you learn so much when you listen to a conversation like this. And there's like that

aha moment. You may not implement it right away, but it builds up. Yeah, it builds up. And, you know, when you're talking about how do you, you know, these coping strategies of what you did before, I was always a huge procrastinator. When something felt heavy or I didn't want to deal with, I just procrastinate it. I'm like, I'm not going there. I'm not going there. I'm not doing it. I'll deal with it later it's not you know i'm fine it's fine everything's fine no but it doesn't go away like that grief doesn't go away that stress doesn't go away it'll wait for you it's going to be there you know it's going to wait for you to deal with it so instead of so i've learned in these you know four years that i was always a massive procrastinator and now when i notice myself procrastinating

i'm like no it's still going to be there tomorrow just just and it's not like a get it done attitude it's like let's deal with that attitude you know let's just do this because then you'll it's one less thing you have to think about it's one less thing you have to worry about so it was almost like this avoidance and procrastination if i don't acknowledge it it's not there and then i can procrastinate having to face it and that didn't work for me because it just it built up and it built up and it built up and it got me in the cycle of you know spiraling downwards or spiraling backwards so now that I know that. And that's what time. It took going through it three or four times, more, probably three or four hundred times to, you know, really understand that was the way I coped. And it didn't, it didn't, it wasn't good for me. It wasn't how I did things well. So over time, you find, you know, what does, you know, what, what can you do? Like I could have easily said, okay, you know, such a simple thing. My son doesn't have shoes. We'll wait till Saturday. We'll wait till Saturday. I'm like, no, tomorrow, two o'clock in the afternoon. We're going to go find you some shoes. And that's one thing. off the list.

Yeah. It's one more thing that I don't have to think about. One more thing that can alleviate a bit of stress. So now I've taken my procrastination into just instead of avoiding, just facing it and taking action. But not everybody, like there's different coping mechanisms for people. So you find the one that works. Yes.

So it's getting to, getting to know yourself is a big non-scale victory. Right. Getting to know yourself, understand yourself, what you need. Like that, that in itself is really big. It's hard to articulate the need for that when it comes to maintenance. So we just had Sandy Van, who's like a world-renowned obesity medicine specialist and talking about, I mean, we have to also understand when people talk about these things, they talk about in relationship to other diets, crappy diets. And I know we've been sharing that research is showing it takes about two years for someone to maintain and sustain their weight after weight loss. That's chaotic weight loss, right?

that is not making all the lifestyle changes that you've made during weight loss and then everything that you're doing and learning while you're maintaining right you like you are being intentional about helping your body solidify the weight that you've lost and solidify that that mindset it's it's hard to put that in words in a sense or like you like I know it's built into the program but that really is the conversation and maintenance I just I you know I'm I'm really just grateful for this maintenance program that I didn't think we needed. I think these are the conversations that we need to have because it's not a to-do list that's going to help you maintain and sustain your weight.

Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And I think, you know, to have this program and to go through these first, like how easy would it have been to not talk about what your coping mechanisms are? And then, you know, you're here trying to maintain your weight on your own. something like this happens you talk you get into those old coping mechanisms you get into your the ways that the habits and routines that didn't serve you before and you just go back there you just keep doing it you don't have a place like this to come and talk about it or feel normal

about it or feel like it's okay and how to work through it I think that's what yeah of course the side effect of all of this is maintaining your weight that's you know we say like the weight loss program you know getting your body working optimally and the side effect is weight loss I think coming here and working through that mental work and all this awareness and getting to know yourself and being comfortable getting to know yourself and with who you are now, the side effect of that is being able to maintain your weight because you're doing all of those things that, you know, caught you here. Well, and that's it. This maintenance program to me feels like a skills program more than a food program. Yeah, right? I think that's what I'm trying to say.

So it's like a food part of it. It is exactly what I need. And so this is where I want you to, if you have found yourself gaining weight back or two years from now you gain back 20 pounds like I want you understand why probably a major shift happened in your life right stress levels maybe it was underlying health issues hormones for example we've been many women do the program and lost weight just fine many years later they go through perimenopause and like what's going on but you can't continue to do the same things right like you may have been able to lose your weight and be able to maintain it but as you're something is shifting in you you need to make adjustments and so this is I want to say before you gain that 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 100 pounds back, really understand it is

absolutely about learning the skills or awareness or having the tools, whatever resonates with you to understand where you are at any given time, what is going on, how you were feeling, the circumstances involved, and how to work with your body, not against it, right? like that's that's really just understanding your body understanding why you gained weight understanding what you needed to lose the weight and and now understanding what you need to be able to maintain and sustain your weight it can seem like a lot but we're systematically chipping away at it here it can seem like a lot and I and I love what you said about you know giving your body what it needs and where you are now and doing what you can do now like I remember

times um where I would be stressed out because it would be a stressful it would be a stressful something would be happening, you know, and I would feel like, oh, I have to have my eating right. I have to have everything lined up. I have to have, you know, I have to make sure I'm doing everything perfectly. And now I'm going to be on. I'm going to show you this. This is what I've been surviving for a few days. It's this. It's, I know if you can't, if you are only listening, it is this vial looking green sludge in a mug. But it's spinach, it's orange. It's ginger for my tummy because it's been a bit off and it's turmeric. And this is how I've been getting a lot of my nutrients because this is what my body can handle right now. Like the thought

of having to force food or eat is just not where I'm at right now. I know, you know, I will be back there soon. I think once we feel a bit settled, but, you know, being able to honor myself and say, this is what I need now. I'm going to get my nutrients in in a way that feels good for me in the moment. I think knowing where you are now and honoring that, that's not slacking. That's not, um, you know, giving up on what you have done, but it's recognizing I still need the nutrients. How can I get them in a way that feels right? Yeah, it's not slacking. It's coping. Yeah, it's not slacking. It's coping. I mean, you know, there can be a point when you start slacking and you're like, I'm starting to feel better, but this feels really good over here. I'm going to have, you know,

you're allowed. Yeah. You're allowed. You're allowed. You're allowed. Yeah. You're allowed. I know I totally sidetracked this conversation again this week. I mean, this is what I love about the live sessions. It's about sort of where we're at right now. It always seems to be relevant. So we are midway through. People are downsizing for the last time. Did you have anything specifically you want to talk about this week? I think so two things. So members are being really vocal about downsizing. I think they're really giving it a try this time. Really leaning into it. We heard members coming out of week four. Like I didn't give it a try. I didn't understand why I was doing. at some members are really leaning into it right now.

I think that's great. They're really understanding that it's not just about eating less. It's about knowing what comes up with that. Tweek is never just a tweak, as we like to say. The other thing I wanted to talk about it. And so yesterday in the check-in, the last line of the check-in was, I hope you have a great, slightly unsatisfied day. And just that one line reminded a few members were saying,

thanks for saying that. It made me laugh. Minded not to take myself so seriously. Yes. Reminded me just to have fun with this. And that was the message I wanted to carry through to today. Like let's just not let the cloud of what we're trying to do, you know, sit in front of those glimmers. And whether you think glimmers is the word or not, don't let what the focus of is, I have to do this.

I have to work on this. I have to fix this. My focus needs to be here. I'm slacking here. Don't let that glimmer. fade of all of the things that you have done to get here. Because there's so much good if you can just look for it, even if it's just teeny tiny. So that was the message.

That's not take this all so seriously. We all know we have shit to work through and work on. And listen, we're all here working, whatever it might be. And you don't want that to be clouded. You know, you want to be able to see through that and see that there is so much good. And don't take ourselves too seriously or this journey to too seriously. we all know we're working hard we're all here to support each other we're all just trying to figure it out none of us have all of our shit together not you not me not anybody so that's just let's that's

that was really what i wanted that message to be on this wednesday to finish off the downsizing week just you know don't forget what you have done to get here your day's not going to be perfect but it's going to be the day that you had so you got to find you know find the little bit of joy in it Joy, man, I miss joy in my life. I miss joy, you know, when Odette and I were away, and I think this is sort of where the when am I going to get my shit together, and we were being in the moments. And, you know, it's easy to do when you're away at a beautiful resort the last couple weeks, but it wasn't that.

We were really being in tune and mindful of where we were at and what our body needed and all of that. And we were laughing. It was joyful. It's easy to be joyful when you don't have all the stress of life. compounding every single fucking day at the end of the day. But I remember Dr. Beverly is like, get curious. Like this should be an opportunity to get to learn yourself, learn about yourself and

have fun with it and celebrate the fact that you're here. And you've already done so much more than some people will ever be able to do in terms of being in tune to their body and understanding what they need so you can be as healthy as possible. I have a talk tonight that I'm doing at this Thrive Summit. And it's all about longevity. And where does weight loss fit into longevity? It's not the weight loss.

It's the maintenance. It's the habits that you've actually changed the shit that you've been able to work through. Like, it's pretty fucking amazing at the end of the day. And it is about finding joy. And, you know, this is a place. Yeah, we take your journey seriously. But the day to day is you have to look for those glimmers. You have to look for those glimmers.

You have to look for those glimmers. You have to look for that. You have to almost have to be intentional about joy. and that's a bit of a contrast to what we're doing when we're trying to like change habits and get to know ourselves and to focus all of the things and you think that you know and you tell yourself I'll just be happy when I'll just be you know when I accomplish this when I feel when I feel like my mindset has shifted I'll be happy when I feel like I've I've successfully maintained my weight I'll be happy when I have done this other thing I'll be happy but what about

until then. You might have days, months, years until then. So if, if you're waiting for that one thing, you know, you're going to be waiting a long time. So in that, in that glimmer, that joy is not going to just pop up for you. Nobody's going to be like, here's the thing that's going to, you know, make this the best day ever for you. So you have to try and find a little bit of that on your own. Just like you had to go through this weight loss process and lose this weight somewhat on your own. Yes, you had a group and a community and a plan and a program, but you had to do the work. So you still have to find that, find that joy, find that glimmer for yourself. There's some good comments here.

How there's like, I heard something recently about scheduling joy into your calendar. Yeah, I love that being intentional. I think that was Dr. Linka that said that in one of her lives. She said like the first thing she does in the morning or it's like the last thing she does at night because she would always come home and like, I listen to it on the place. She always come home to her husband and be like, ah, this day and this. day and that and she's like, nope, I have to find it myself. I have to find that thing that came

through today amongst all of that. I think she said she scheduled it in, either in the morning or in the evening. She might not be the only one, but I think that that stuck with me in those conversations. Yeah, Cynthia Lois, Kathy's saying to Cynthia Lois. Oh, yeah. It's right, because our guests know what they're talking about. I like Sue. Bottom line for me is I can't find joy if I have my head buried in a box or a bag and I'm numbed out, right? That's that avoidance. That's that that's avoidance. I remember my 30s telling myself when I'm 40, I'll be perfect. Now I'm 65 and I'm still waiting for perfection. Yeah. You probably felt almost the most perfect in your 30 as you look back and you're like, man, I had I had most of it together back then. I just didn't appreciate it. So

don't let that happen at 65. No. Yeah. Yeah. Kim is, uh, Kim saying that's why journaling is so important. Yeah. If you aren't feeling joy, just making a list of five things that you're grateful for can spark glimmer. I love that. And Anna, finally, how lucky are we that we can be together and have conversations such as these? Don't worry about how much time goes by and joy today. All of this is trying to be in the moment, you know, asking the four sets of mindful eating questions, trying to be in the moment, right? Like, not an easy thing to do for sure. So, Odette, we were winding down this week. I know you're not going to be here Monday, so I will fill in for you. I can hold down the fort for you on

Monday. We'll all be thinking about you, of course. You know, our last week of downsizing for people. Next week, we get into the tweak of splitting up meals and sacks, which I think is really fascinating. I love that. What do you, what do you want your takeaway to be today? I just want our members to, after this conversation, just remember that, you know, if your day doesn't go the way you want it to. You know, know on Monday we said that I think the homework was like just lean into this tweet just do it just do the downsizing and our members have been doing that so just as the week goes on we already know that you're doing it just lean into what is coming up for you um you know we've been talking we've been

talking coping and self-compassion and these are such heavy topics they can be if you don't want to face them if you have avoidance has been something to you there's something comes up for you between now and sunday um and you find yourself avoiding it or pushing aside you know maybe it's time to pull out one of those other tools, pull it on one of those other things that are going to help you get through it. And yeah, and just give it a just give it your all till Sunday is really what we want. Because next week, we're changing it up. I know it sounds like a lot, but and you know what, Halloween week is also next week. And I know members are starting to have feels about that. So don't even think about that yet. We're going to break it all down and you'll

be fine. We'll all be fine. I love a good spooky week around here. So yeah. I love Halloween. And if you want to have some candy, have some candy. Just don't have it every day for like two or three weeks afterwards, right? And see, it's an opportunity to see how you are around candy. We hear this a lot with our members who've been with us for a couple of years. It's about the triggers and the, like, all the stuff that keeps popping up every year. There's always something. And year over, year, over year, you'll get to realize, oh, I'm getting better at navigating this.

I'm getting better. We want you to enjoy Halloween. We want you to enjoy all the yummy bites of bits that come in life. remember that's the end game here that's the end game but enjoy in a way that you're in tune and you don't punish yourself afterwards and all of that okay odette thank you so much we will be all wrapping you in a big hug thinking about you and sending you love we appreciate you um and showing up for us when you got so much going on um thanks everyone who joined us live today it's always so great to see so much participation in the comments we love it we're we're growing we're growing

our numbers are increasing and our bond is getting tighter. I love it. Thanks, everyone. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of your day and great week. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week.