The Livy Method Podcast - Maintenance & Mindfulness: Mindset Mondays - December 1, 2025

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Maintenance Mindset Mondays is all about cracking open the conversation about what REAL maintenance looks like – beyond the scale and deep into personal transformation. Join Gina and Odette as they dive into the week’s focus, share insights on all things maintenance, and answer your questions. Whether you’re new or experienced, there’s something for everyone!In this final Mindset Monday of this round of the 91-day Maintenance Program, Gina and Odette reflect on the bittersweet feeling of nearing the end, and why it’s actually just the beginning. They break down the three stages of The Livy Method, highlight the importance of solidifying your weight, and normalize the time it takes to mentally adjust after reaching your goal. From celebrating how far members have come to reminding them it’s okay to stay in the maintenance structure for as long as they need, this episode is a reassuring nudge to trust the process, honour your journey, and keep showing up for yourself in this next phase of LIVing lighter.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.

Hi. Hi. You look so great in red. Red is such a like a change color. It's like this time of year. It inspires me to just not wear black. I've been wearing a lot of black lately. Yeah. You know, too, when you get up, like today, it's really cold here today. Like, one of the colder days we've had, and I let my dog get this morning. And I was like, I don't like this. So I'm like, I'm going to put on a red sweater and feel better because I just wanted to get back in my cozy bed and not deal with a cold.

Right? Now you have me thinking of my pajamas. I ordered some new pajamas from Amazon. They're going to be delivered the next couple days. I can't wait. I went through my closet yesterday. really I put all my clothes away that were sitting at the end of my bed for like the last three months and had me pulling things out and so yeah anyways hi hi do you want to talk today I'm procrastinating

because it's the last Monday and I don't want it to end I know I feel like we have so much to talk about some of it is super exciting well all of it's really exciting and I think we're going to answer a lot of questions today so I think people are going to be really feeling good about you know wrapping up week 12 i think it's this time in the program you know we felt this in the weight loss program too we're like oh my goodness it's like week 12 and we're sad that it's over but also super excited because you think back to like remember week 10 and we talked about this remember week two we talked about this and i saw sue say this and now sue is saying this and you know i think it's such an excited yes it's bittersweet because it's coming to an end but it's super exciting when you

go back and see how much we have talked about yeah much we'll have a lot of there's been a lot of great conversations and I'm not just saying you and I because members obviously commenting and sharing creates that conversation right and yeah there's judy hard to believe it's the last week and cam last week where the time go I know right hi Mary hi Katz hi everyone joining us live what what do you want to get into um I want to get into um the stages of the levy method because I think we're at the point now where people are like where where do I go from here? What do I do? What are my next steps? And there's so many right next steps. It doesn't have to be just one. So I just want to go over those three stages quickly. So as we know,

number one is losing your weight. That's where, you know, we've all done that. Now we're here in maintenance. And then stage two is like this stage that's got kind of two different components to it. So the first one is solidifying. And that is really putting the time into the maintenance program, doing that maintenance program day in and day out, solidifying your weight loss, solidifying your mindset, and it doesn't have to be just one round either. Like we say it's a 91 day program, but if you don't feel like you're ready to move out of this structure of the maintenance program, you don't have to. You can stay, you can do another round of it.

Not just physically, but also mentally. Yes. And this is where you'll have a whole year, you lose your weight, and then you'll have a whole year of being triggered, holidays, vacay, celebratory days, memorial days, right? So learning how to navigate all of that, really understanding who you are now and being able to truly trust when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. And I know I've said this many times throughout the program, it takes about two years for someone to adjust to their new weight, just physically. And that's when you are just like haphazardly living your life, like you've done another diet. Here, it's

all about intentionally helping the body adjust to your new weight. So all the things that you work through by doing a round after round of the maintenance program. So yeah, do it for as long as you need. Right. Because I think we can go through this and we think, you know, I want to have this already. I get it already. I feel good already. But then, you know, sometimes we just don't have that capacity to move outside of the program. Like we still want to work through our issues and associations and we want to do that and if we're like it maybe for some it can be a little bit easier but by doing that with the maintenance program so even if it's unique because we're going to lay out those tweaks for you each week we're going to tell you what we're focusing on each

week so that you know you can really just put all of your your power into that all of your mind space into that instead of like oh I have to trust my decisions already I have to you know make everything so personal to me I have to try and figure it out if you don't feel like you're there yet then use the maintenance program again you know let us guide you and direct you until you have that confidence to be able to move on. Okay. So lose your weight. Yeah.

Maintain your weight. Right. Well, active maintenance and be able to live your life. Yeah. And how does that look different? And then, well, I think we move into this little, this place. So once we've done the maintenance program a few times, this is where you want to move away from the structure of the tweaks and the food plan and what we're doing.

And this is where we move into this like maintaining. is what we call this maintenance mode, where you're really just using personalizing the plan. You've moved away from the structure of the program. You're using personalizing the plan. You're starting to test things out a little bit. Oh, what happens when I have this or what happens when that? Or, okay, is this the point where I really need to check myself before I wreck myself? And you're not using those tweaks to guide you.

You're not using the weekly program to guide you. You're really making it personal and really testing things out, working through what your life is going to look like. feel like beyond the structure of a program. But you know, you still have, that is still your foundation. You still have the group here. You can still pop in and look for support and ask questions. I'm not sure. Am I, is this right?

Am I going in the right direction? And that's what, you know, we're just kind of testing things out, dipping our toes into living away from structure, living away from a program. Well, I think this sort of stems from a comment that I saw on the notes that O'Dette sent me from Jess. I've done a couple rounds of maintenance now and feeling great. I want to try a round of maintenance using personalizing the plan. Do you have any suggestions on resources I could use while doing a round with those guidelines?

So I love this idea. So you do a couple of the structured maintenance programs. Now you're going to move on to personalize the plan. You might not be ready to get to a point where you are wake up, look, good, feel good, just go about your day and trust. Where you might want to personalize the plan checking in at every single meal and snack time. in assessing your situation, still being mindful. And this is where absolutely you can utilize the maintenance program, still listen to the check

in every day, right? This is where you can listen to some of the guest experts. You can listen to some of the conversations that we are having, where you can get to a point where you are ready to just put it behind you and be like, let me just live my life, right? there's that sort of transitioning transition stage where you're you know you're learning to trust and be like okay i'm here now right yeah yeah and i think that this poses the question too is like well how do i know how do i know when i'm ready to move on and there's no line in the sand there's no rush there's no pressure i think it just because it's this natural feeling like oh yeah i'm i'm

i'm here i'm making these decisions i'm not second guessing as much i am you know i'm really feeling comfortable with those with my patterns and my fluctuations i get this i get this is who i am i'm not trying to still figure it out and that's going to be your natural progression to lawn to just living the living way you're just you're you're you're just going to know and it's easy for us to say oh you're just going to know like don't worry it's no big deal but when you've never felt that you're like what are they talking about they have no idea but it's true you and we know that here's jude i feel like yeah like july she says i feel like i feel like there's i feel like there's a stage that is more like a gradual release still personalized the plan but regular checking in with

the mental aspect yeah you'll just know when you're like okay like I'm good yeah I'm good I think I know I've not I think I've got this I know I've got this and that was one of the things that Ruth Kane when she studied people who've been able to maintain their weight for two years or more they were like no I'm done and she was like well how do you know you're not going to gain it back and they're like because I know how to not gain it back because I'm not going to let that happen because I'm going to be so self-aware about the choices that I'm making that it's not going to happen like that kind of confidence in being like no I know I know how to not gain weight I know how to be able to maintain and sustain my weight I know how to enjoy life and indulge

without then having to trash myself and berate myself and punish myself afterwards and really good on back on track that's that calm Right. It's not just calm trying not to eat foods. It's calm in choosing to eat foods that, you know, maybe cause your body to react, choosing to go away on vacation and indulging to a point where your weight is up. And then just getting back to helping your body feel your best, right? That's that that's those those tools. And I guess you do as many rounds of the maintenance program until you feel like you have those tools. Right. So there is solidifying your weight, which just takes time. That's you got to put the time in. without challenging your body. And this can be different because if you if you did like, and again, I mean, learn this from Ruth, someone who's done more rounds of the weight loss program have an easier time and maintenance than someone who's just done one or two rounds with the program. And why?

Because they've spent more time working through all of those things. But you want to give your body at least three months adjusting to your new weight without challenging it. And I would even, you know, beg to difference. It takes a lot longer than that as well. And the more time you can give it, honestly, the better. And everyone's a little different, right? Where's your mind going?

I don't know what's going on. If you, you know, what someone's learning doing two rounds of the two years of the living method, you know, six rounds of the program, it's a lot different than someone who may have just lost their weight in one round, but, you know, hasn't put the same amount of time working on other things. Mm-hmm. I think that's true. give yourself time and that's why we say there's no rush there's no pressure you know like give yourself

the time and that you know that's littleifying it can be a real um it's a real physical thing just that's solidifying give your body regardless of what your mind is doing just like you said give your body that time to settle to feel calm and then once your body's like you know in this groove and you're feeling good and you can you can you can tell like oh my digestion's working better oh i feel hydrated Oh, my body is working really well at this level. You're going to allow yourself to go a little bit deeper with those other conversations, the trust, the fear, the self-regulation, all of that. Because your body's just going to be, your body's always on your side,

but you're really going to feel that your body's on your side. I like, it is, truly, right? That's what you want to feel. It's the feeling. Here, Sue, I had commented in the earlier post that I realized I need to stabilize for a while. I had joined the maintenance program quite a while ago, but shortcutted it. I ended up slowly gaining back 10 of the 50 plus I had lost. It took almost a year, but it came back on one pound at a time.

This is the first time I've actually completed the maintenance program. I love it. And now, no, I need to work on the mind stuff quite a bit more. It's not quite automatic. And I need to cement the good habits and protocols that I know really work. And like, and good for you for realizing it just, it takes time and practice to rewire your mind. And then also, like, if we talk about reasons why you gain your weight back, not putting time into maintenance. And usually that's a problem because then you too quickly go back into old habits, living in a way that got you here in the first place, right?

Situational change. Right. So something traumatic happens in your life. You change your job. You move your house. Your stress levels change. You don't adapt to that. And what happens, you go back into old habits and coping mechanisms, not being mindful.

Now, why is mindful, you know, why is that a problem? Because if you're not being mindful, chances are you're going back and dipping into old habits, right? And so that really it's just when something happens to you, you now know how to cope better. When you're stressed, you now know how to cope better. When you choose to indulge, you know that helping your body get back on track is better than starving and punishing yourself and not eating, which just reinforces the fact that your body needs that fat in the first place. So that's what it's all about right and that mental part the issues the associations the beliefs believe you can lose all your weight and then believe you're not worthy and sabotage yourself back to your old weight right past traumas

things that can pop up so there there is a lot to it i wish it was as simple as just you know you know you lost your weight and you're good to go but we know it's a lot more but all so doable and necessary and the problem is nobody talks about this. Nobody is talking about this except for us. And nobody talks about it. And you know what? I would go to say nobody celebrates it either. Nobody's pushing it.

Nobody's saying like, we have a weight loss program. But so what? We're going to help you maintain it forever. Not just like, oh yeah, keep it off forever. Oh, yeah, keep it off forever. No one is celebrating that part. No one's shouting it from the rooftop and saying, okay, you're going to lose your weight.

But guess what? you're really going to maintain it. It's going to be hard. And some days are going to like challenge you more than others. But let's celebrate that. Like let's not just celebrate the before and after. Let's celebrate the after after and the after after after. The after and everything that comes after. Like yes, the before and after. But then then what? Let's celebrate that part. Yeah, you got there. But now let's celebrate this maintenance part. This doable part. Weight loss is doable. Maintenance is doable. is doable well it is about being accountable like you don't gain weight back and not notice what's going on in your life right and this isn't blaming someone for gaining weight back it was like

what was going on in your life right what was where there triggers were their stresses what was happening what was your coping mechanisms like it's not being accountable meaning like it's your fault and you got a whatever it's it's that awareness piece you know whenever I had any naysayers or people have done the program, they're mad at me for whatever reason. They're like, yeah, I gained all my weight back. Like, she promises finally in forever and that's just bullshit. And I'm like, what part of it? First of all, I'm not promising finally in forever.

What I'm doing here is sharing the tools and the skills that I've learned about maintaining my 100 and almost 50 pound weight loss for over 30 years, right? And what is that finally in forever? That's knowing how to maintain and sustain your weight, knowing what your triggers are, knowing how you cope, knowing how to adapt a situational change, knowing when you're going back into old habits that no longer serve you, right? Like that's what this is about. This is about making real changes that support the life you want to live.

You want to live your life a certain way. There are things you're going to need to do, right? And the last thing we want to do is spend any time, any more time at all, stressing over food, not feeling comfortable in our bodies. that is not how we want to spend the rest of our lives, right? So I think that if we're going to take anything away from that and, you know, these next few weeks and what we've accomplished here, it's just that, it is that celebration. It's that.

Let's get back to that. My point is you work really frigging hard. Yeah. You should be proud and it is a lot. And look what you've done. Like it's awesome. Yeah. And not every, like you said, not every day is sunshine and rainbows.

you're going to have those days and they're going to come and like spoiler alert 10 years from now you're still going to have shitty days like you know even when you are living the life that you want the life that you've built the life that you have you know taken so so much time to create and me you're still going to have those crappy days and I think it's just that hope that that and that celebration and that trust and knowing that this is doable this can happen it doesn't have to be your old your old story and knowing how to take it doesn't have to be your old story for sure or anyone else's story and knowing how to take care of yourself we all want to live long healthy happy lives what does that mean and the same same things you did to lose your weight same things

to maintain your weight same things to live your best life like truly you are really making changes and not just how you show up every day but in your thoughts would affect your feelings which affect your choices which affect how you're living your life every day you know like it's it's so much more maintenance we always say the you know the living method is so much more than just a diet but the maintenance program it's so much more than just maintaining your weight like it's it's it's what you are learning and doing and working through to be able to truly sustain the life you want to live not just your weight it's not about sustaining your weight it's about sustaining the life you want to live yeah and and i think it's also about um really loving who you are at the

this place you know like it's really about just about getting to know yourself and being honest with that and and getting getting loving loving your flaws because we all have them I mean I would never admit that to my husband but you know we all have flaws and we all um you know we're never going to be perfect but I think it's just a matter of looking at where you are and who you are now and loving this person look at me I didn't think I had to deal with fear I didn't think I had trust issues. I didn't think I had all of these things, but I do have them. And I'm not perfect. And that's okay because look at how far I've come. Look at what I know now that I didn't know before. And maintaining your weight is just going to be that side effect because you're going

to want to foster that and grow that and nurture that part of it all. Well, I remember it was like last year, I think last year at this time or maybe in the new year last year, I was watching that Jamie Kernelima Worthy. She was doing this whole, she wrote a book called Worthy and I remember I was on my treadmill and I was kind of watching it to see how she did the whole live online process because I want to do like a fun like online lead up to the start of our program. So I was just checking it out for see logistically how she did it. And you know, I think I'm successful and I'm confident and I, you know, got all these things. And when they started talking about worthy, I was like, I do not feel worthy because I thought I thought, I thought.

thought because I was successful, right, because I was happy, because I did X, Y, Z that I had to feel worthy, didn't really associate a successful person with feeling unworthy. And that was a, I mean, that was me maintaining my weight for over 30 had nothing to do with my weight and, you know, not trying to learn the things that I wanted to learn. I'm always wanting to learn and to grow you involve and how did I make it to 52 years old and not feel worthy or not even see that that was an issue, you know, that I was dealing with. And this comes, you said something that kind of triggered me there. This is like learning to love yourself. And that is really hard with diet culture because you can absolutely love yourself, but it is work. You have to have

self-awareness. You have to work on your relationship with self. You have to work on your relationship with other people like accepting and loving yourself and then also understanding you can still want to make change right like I love myself exactly as I am but maybe I don't like my this and maybe I don't like that and maybe I want to change this and I want to change that but to my core I still love I love myself right and that's the part that's complicated you can love yourself and still not like some things about you and you can love yourself and still want to make change and that's like that's a hard thing to grasp and I think you have to um learning to love yourself through what you might perceive or your mistakes or your setbacks or your failures and loving

yourself through that and saying oh man I'm really mess this up not I'm a loser and I'm a mess up or you know like I've I'm a fuck up if you want to go that far no like I just that's not like that's not who I am that's just what I did in this moment yeah when you have those setbacks and when you have those those blips or or like I said what you perceive as a failure or a slip it's loving yourself through that not telling yourself you're not that person anymore oh I messed up I must not be that person anymore no I still am still in there I just you know this is going to happen to me It's going to happen to you. It's going to happen to me.

It's going to happen to somebody who has that perception of being perfect. That's going to happen to everybody. It's being able to love yourself through those moments too and love what you've done. Remember what you've done. Take you through those setbacks. I was on the lot this morning. I was talking how I heard this guy speak and it reminded me of like things that are what we perceived to be bad in the moment or we didn't make the right choice or whatever happens. End up if we can look back at our lives.

there's so many moments that in the moment we wished hadn't happened or we wish we made a different choice, but really factored into where we are at now. And he tells a story of like someone who, anyway, I won't get into the story, but the guy's model was like, well, is it good, is it bad? I don't know yet. Right. Was it the right choice? Was it wrong choice? I don't know yet. Right. We never really know. And, you know, I think, again, the setback is a set up, you know, to success um you don't you don't really know what you're learning and why until you're able to reflect on oh shit well you know i guess i needed to learn that um or you know i'm so glad that that happened because if it hadn't happened that i wouldn't be doing this so i wouldn't be with this

person or i wouldn't you know like i'm just thinking all those crappy guys i dated after my marriage ended and thank god none of that none of them worked out and some of them i were really upset about you know why why what's wrong with me why and thank you God, they never worked out because then I would never be with Tony, never would have met Tony and been where I am. And so many times in our lives, stuff like that happened. So what's the message in this for me? What, what's the takeaway?

What am I learning here? And you can apply all of this to your weight loss and maintenance journey. Whenever you feel ways about if you failed or you didn't run success, you weren't perfect, okay, then what, you know, like what's the message? What's the takeaway in this frame? What do I, in coming back in January, what's my plan? what's my plan when I reflect back on these last 91 days do I do I feel confident do I feel like I can move on do I need to come back do I feel ways about that what are some of the things I need

to work on next time do you make comments no I'm writing I just wrote down what you said when I reflect back and you know what's my plan you know how are there's what how are the last 91 days and what's my plan going forward yeah um I know you want to mention the survey to people, if you can please, I know you probably filled out lots of surveys, but we have a new maintenance specific survey. If you guys can fill out the maintenance program, as you know, we are just getting started. We learn so much from you, whether, you know, you've done it once or 10 times or how long you've been here. You're new. Been here for a while.

If that is something you could please take time to do, fill out that survey, tell us what you love. Tell us what you hate it. Tell us what you'd like to see more of. Tell us what you'd like to see changed. We actually listen. We do care. And this whole maintenance program has been created out of member feedback. The whole thing, we took the first two years of feedback and Ruth's surveys and research to

create the thing we wanted to do it right. So if you could take time to fill that out, that would be great. And that's going to say this survey is a little bit different than the last one we did, because the last one we really were asking about the maintenance program and how their group was set up and was it easy to navigate, was it intuitive, did you feel comfortable here in the group? And also a bit about your member experience, where this is more about your actual experience. We want to know, you know, how has this program helped you feel more confident? Or maybe it hasn't helped you feel more confident. Let us know about that. How is, you know,

how has the engagement been? Or, you know, are your questions getting answered? We really want to know about your experience and how we can level up this program for you and for other, you know, new members that are coming in. So it's some of the same questions, but also some new questions. We really want to get into that into your whole experience. Yeah. Someone's asking if we'll get to see the results of the survey. So the survey results take a lot. So Ruth and her team at the University of Ottawa go through all that. We do have the results of all of our surveys. We're actually looking for a place on our website to put those and add that information. So we're just gathering all of that from her. But I'm sure that we can go through that. Maybe we do that and we review those. Well, I know Odette

has Ruth on. And so maybe when we have her on in January, she can share some of the results of the survey. We can do a post or a summary as soon as we have those. I can't see. why we couldn't pop, pop them in the group and share them. Yep. And it's not like the survey's not so much, like, it's not how much weight have you lost, how long have you kept it off. It's not bad. It's really about your experience.

So we can share those things for sure. Yeah. It's all anonymous too, right? A lot of it's anonymous. So it's not like we're giving anybody's personal information. So we can share that. But it does help us. It does help us move forward and evolve the program and make it, you know, better for all our current

members and like I said, new members coming in too. What do they need to know? Like, what do you know now? and what do they need to know? How do we have them understand that? And how do we relay that in a way that is, you know, easy to learn, easy to understand and comfortable? How do we, you know, we want people to feel like they're comfortable here getting all this information. We do.

What do you want to say before we go? So, well, we're taking that holiday pause. This is our last week before we get into that holiday pause. So, you know, we asked in the summer, just before the summer to write your summer story. And I think I want members to, their homework is to write their holiday story. What do you want this holiday season to look like for you? You know, is this just going to be a, you know, a few weeks of learning opportunities and knowing what it's going to feel like to not be part of a program and not to be part of an active community?

Like once you're gone living your life, you know, that's what your holiday story can be like. You know, we talked about self-regulation a lot a few weeks ago and not self-regulation. about being restriction and control, but just about what happens when your plan doesn't go as you planned it. You know, remember that conversation about self-regulation and be ready for those days or times when you have the best laid plans over the holiday season and it just doesn't happen.

How are you going to handle that? How are you going to work through that? What's your approach to that? So I think write that holiday story, whether it's in your head or on a piece of paper or wherever it might be, write that holiday story for yourself. Yeah, because you're not just maintaining your weight. You're not maintaining your weight.

You're like, what are you learning through the holiday season, not that it has to be work, for you to really move past all of that, whether it's your, you know, your aunt that drives you crazy with all of her inappropriate comments, that, you know, person who's always criticizing you, the food pusher in your life, who's always trying to get you to eat the pie yet never has a piece themselves. Like, really like look at it from a different perspective, you know, understanding how you got there and how much you've changed and where you're at now and how you want to show up through the whole. holidays how you want to feel throughout the holidays like and that can be like I feel like I want to indulge I want to drink all the candy cane martinis and I want to have all of this not but I'm also going to drink my water and go for a walk every day and I'm going to do you know like make a plan for yourself how you want to show up how you want to feel um you know this this is think of it as designing how would you design your life through the holidays you're designing the life you want to live what is that what are the holidays like what's your holiday story what does that

look like yeah you know and it's not about perfection either and being you know the picture of perfection it's not that it's not that at all okay that's all i want to talk about so we're good i think we have everybody set up i know if people are feeling um ways about the week coming to an end i mean we're all here right up until sunday so ask the questions share whatever you want to share um because we're here right until Sunday. So I want to make sure you feel good, going into the holiday season, whatever that, whatever that means for you. Yeah.

We're going to be back on Wednesday, right? Yeah. Wednesday, 12 o'clock. And you don't know yet, but I'm going to get you to join me on Thursday in the weight loss program. Yes, I am. I am. Live, yeah. We've had some great guests over the last three months.

Great idea to go back and maybe listen to some of those. You have access to all of them over on the Living, over on the Living method podcast. Some great conversations. I'm adding in some new podcast as well. well if you want to check those out if you're looking for something to get caught up on over the holidays and also we'll be around on social media let's talk about that on wednesday what next yeah what next steps are after the week they have a lot of homework already so don't worry about that so wednesday sounds good all right thanks everyone who's joined us uh live for listening

after the fact have a great day we'll see you next time bye thanks a day Bye.