The Livy Method Podcast - The Tweak This Week - Fall 2024 - Week 3

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Join Gina and Program Manager Kim as they break down and dig into the tweak we see in week 3 of The Livy Method. This is the live recording from October 2nd, 2024.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2024Topics covered:Intro and WelcomeWhat does mindfulness mean?Digging into the difference between full and satisfied.The 4 Steps of Mindful EatingPart of the process is learning to trust your body.The power of limiting distractions while you’re eating.How are we assessing portions this week? Maximizing this week to set yourself up for success next week. Preview of the Tweak Next Week: DownsizingTo learn more about the Livy Method, or to sign up for our Winter 2025 Program, visit www.ginalivy.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 from 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. summer runs, or playoff season meditations. Whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Welcome to The Tweak this week, the first of many.

This segment is all about diving deeper into the tweaks each week to give you a deeper level of understanding as to the rhyme and reason behind the tweaks to help share tips when making the changes that you need to make week to week. And hopefully we'll be answering some of the more frequently asked questions. My guest or co-host, I would say, for the next few weeks and months is the manager of our weight loss program, Kim. Hello. Hi, Kim. Hello, Tina. So Kim has been with us for a while. She obviously has also been on her own weight journey. If you would like to read more or learn more about Kim and her journey, her bio is in the Meet the Team guide. So you can go check it out over there if you want to read more about her. But here's the thing you need to know about Kim is that she has her pulse on everything

Libby Method. She's in the group. She's managing the group. She knows the questions that you have, the concerns that you have. She knows where you are at. She knows what you need to know. Whereas I, yes, have spent a lot of time in the group, but I spend a lot of time behind the scenes doing a bunch of other things. So I absolutely love our conversations week to week. As you know, I'm a big fan of the program. Me too, me too. Each week tends to be my favorite week. So we really hope that this helps to build confidence

and understanding and empower you to make the changes that you might be nervous to make each week. Because we know following the Libby Method, especially if you're a first-time member, can be different than any other program out there. So let's set the tone. Prep week was all about introducing the food plan, the changes. Week one, fine-tuning and adjusting. Last week, focused on consistency, maximizing. This week we're building on the conversation of mindfulness. Next week is our week of downsizing. So at the end of this conversation today, we're going to give you a sneak peek into next week's tweak as well. So how are people feeling about the tweak this week? So let's start with that.

Yeah, that's a great place to start. I think I'm always amazed at how little people actually comment or ask questions about this tweak because of course, from my experience in the program, I know how important this mindfulness portion is and I really feel like it gets glazed over and people don't realize how important it is until the end. So there's not a ton of questions that come up and there's not a lot of nervousness until people start digging in. And I feel like the mindfulness nervousness actually shows up more next week than it does this week. I think people are probably maybe already confident or not really thinking that this is a tweak? So this week is the setup for next week's tweaks, and so and so. So one week builds, like really builds into the next week, into the next week,

into the next week. So every week is the setup for the following week. So our week of mind, let's talk about mindfulness. So I've been thinking about this word mindfulness a lot. What does mindfulness even mean? To me, I think a simpler definition is bringing awareness to, bringing awareness to how your body has responded to the changes that you've made so far. Not just, not just physically, but mentally. Awareness is understanding how your body is reacting to the choices that you're making every day awareness to the thoughts and the feelings that you're having again not just about weight loss in general but with the choices that you're making each day and especially with portions so I know we're going to get into the importance of the four steps of mindful eating.

And that is, again, bringing awareness to how you are feeling physically and mentally before you eat, while you're eating, when you're done eating, and then 10, 15 minutes later, walking away. So this week is really important because we don't count and we don't weigh and we don't measure our food. And although yes, counting, weighing and measuring, that's an effective way to lose weight. It's not a sustainable way to be able to lose and maintain your weight. So we're always thinking bigger picture with the program. And so we want you to be able to be in tune to your body's needs. And once you've lost your weight, be able to trust when your body tells you when to eat, what to eat and how much to eat. Next week, and I know we're going to get into this, but when we actually start

messing, for lack of a better word, with our portions and downsizing, there's a lot of issues that are going to come up and really cause people to take a deep dive into how do they know when they're satisfied and they've had enough. And it can lead to highlighting issues on food waste issues. People didn't realize how uncomfortable they were leaving food on their plates or food scarcity issues and what, so just bring the awareness to where you are at right now with this program is super key. What am I missing in that? What would you say?

I would say that probably just a couple of things that come to my mind is when it comes to the mindfulness part of it, most people, I would say, are aware of when they feel full and are aware of when they feel hungry. Those are the two feelings that most people associate when they think about eating. There are so many things that you can feel in between when you're feeling hungry and when you're feeling full. And that's what we want to get into this week with the four steps of mindful eating. And that's why the importance of going through those steps repeatedly as many times as you can during your meals and snacks this week. You just reminded me of something you've said in our previous conversations, that sometimes people's sense of satisfaction or having enough is actually full. Yeah.

They say, how do I know when I'm full? Rather than how do I know when I'm satisfied? Or how do I know when I've had enough? And that's a realization that a lot of people start to have. Yes. And I think that's the reason why a lot of us are here in the first place is because that feeling of hungry, waiting until you're completely hungry before you eat, for some people who are distracted might mean going all day without eating and then not eating until they notice they're hungry. I know for me, that's a lot of it was not eating all day and then not eating until they notice they're hungry. I know for me, that's a lot of it was not eating all day

and then eating everything. And then also people mistaking that feeling of full of how they're supposed to feel after they eat being how much they ate all the time. So that, you know, either eating way beyond what your body needs or not eating enough are both things that contribute to weight gain or not being able to lose weight.

So really digging into those things, that's why this mindfulness is the key to weight loss, because becoming in tune with what your body needs is the important piece of the puzzle for you losing weight individually. I hear that. I love this comment from Val. I've spent my entire life of almost 70 years mindlessly eating, except when I berate myself or deny or restrict myself. I'm finally starting to hear and listen to another internal conversation. I'm just in the beginning stages of creating new habits and internal dialogue. Oh, I'm in love with that realization. That is mindfulness. That is being self-aware. Okay, let's dive into the four steps of mindful eating, right? So this is like, I think a lot of people, I think my struggle, what I think people

struggle with is really understanding that they are already born being in tune to this, and they feel so disconnected. It's so easy to get disconnected from yourself and especially your relationships with food when you have a history of dieting, trying not to eat all the things or, you know, being taught to finish everything on your plate. So you're eating past when you're satisfied and eating until you are full for so many reasons. Our relationship with food and our body's cues can get really messed up. So this is innate, this you are born with this, you know, this is something I can describe as not in your brain. It's more in your belly. And the two that you probably heard me say this before, but the two

examples I use is the buffet line. When you are adding food to your plates, we have Thanksgiving coming up, you get to a point where you just know it's too much food. It doesn't stop you from adding more, but you just know it's too much food. Or if you've ever gotten food poisoning or drank alcohol that made you really sick and just the thought of that food, like you'll never eat it again, or that alcohol especially, you'll never drink it again. That's your body's association to that food or to that alcohol. So you know, but it's nuanced. It's not in your head because sometimes you might be like, for example, you're triggered, like you're driving and you see Dairy Queen or you see a Big Mac and you're like, ooh, how would I feel? Okay, how would I feel if I ate that? Oh, I'd feel great. It's yummy. But then your belly is like, what? No, we don't want that.

So you also have to, there's a trust piece in here that trusting that your body knows what's best for you. So I think that can be very difficult for people. So the first set of questions is, am I even hungry? And if I was to eat all of this food on my plate, then you can do this while portioning out your food or if the server brings you food or someone just lays food down in front of you. Am I actually even hungry right now? Yes, you still have to eat if you're not hungry. And then how would I feel if I ate all of this portion? Now, if you're new at this, you might not get a big, strong message.

You might be like, I don't know. Right. But still keep asking. Again, get out of your head into your belly. Um, when you start to eat, okay, I've started to eat. What if I was to take a few more bites? How would I feel? What if I was to stop now? Like what if someone was to come and take my plate away from me? Would I be like, Whoa, keep what? Give me my food back. Or would I be like, Oh, Oh, you know what? I'm okay. Um, and then how did you know you were done? That's a big one. This is the, this is, this all started? I'm okay. And then how did you know you were done? That's a big one.

This all started because I would ask my clients, how do you know when you've had enough? They're like, what? I don't know. I just eat everything on my plate. When you really have to think about that, it can really mess with your head. How did you know? Was there physical signs? Did you sit back in your chair?

Did you take a deep breath? Did you put your utensils down? What's your cues to know that you've had enough rather than just waiting until you can't, you know, you got to unbutton your pants after. And then also how did you feel walking away? When you eat food, you shouldn't feel any physical effects when you walk away. You should just be able to walk away from your foods and be energized and keep going. How do you feel 10, 15 minutes later after your body starts to process and digest your food? What else do we want to say about those four and mindful eating? I would say one of the big things is try to, as many times as you can,

while you're doing this, try to eat distraction free. Because I think the more distracted you are, you know, eating while you're talking on the phone, while you're watching TV, even dinner conversations that you have, you kind of want to be mindful of how that sort of can distract you. But I would say you, we can't answer what your body's cue is when you're feeling satisfied either, because there's so many, like we have examples of like you might sigh I notice personally that food doesn't it doesn't taste the same when I get to the point of being satisfied it's like I really enjoyed the first few bites and that's why looking at it and thinking

like how do I feel about eating this like oh I'm so excited to eat this I can't wait I have a few bites and I'm like okay now I'm just eating it because I still, you know, I'm eating my dinner, not because it's like, oh, I want to eat this. And so checking in with yourself, even before you hit, you know, that midway meal, like, how does this taste? How does it feel? Is this what I wanted to eat? Why did I want it? And I think those outside influences can be both negative and positive, or I don't want to say negative and positive. That's sort of the wrong way to think it, but like healthy and unhealthy, maybe like the, the seeing McDonald's or something like that,

that can be triggering. But I noticed that there's some people in the group that are triggered by the scale and what the scale says in the morning is dictating what they think they should eat throughout the day. It's making some people who are maybe new to the program nervous about adding, am I adding too many healthy fats? So maybe they're scaling that back. Are my portions still too big? Am I scaling that back? And I think really clearing your mind of not just the distractions from like the TV and stuff like that, but the distractions in your head from old diet dialogue, from other people's opinion. If you're eating with somebody else, don't compare your portion to the person that you're

sitting with because they have a completely different body and completely different needs as you. So if you're digging into those questions and not looking outside yourself for the answers, but really, like you said, thinking about your belly and maybe in the grander scheme of things, your internal person, how do I feel about this portion? How does it make me feel? You know, not just in my belly, but like in my soul a little bit too. Like, do I feel like, like, wow, like I'm really hungry. So that portion looks like it's the right amount, but honestly I've eaten a portion that size before and it was way too much for me. So I kind of need to keep thinking about this while I'm eating. Like there's, you can really dig into this. And I think that's

something that where this tweak, regardless of whether you're a new member or returning member, you can always dig deeper with this tweak because we can't seem to get to know ourselves that, you know, a hundred percent. I was going to say like, that is deep. That is a deep, but this is, this is like, so one of the things you want to ask those four questions enough that they become so ingrained that you don't have to ask them. You just know. You know when you're hungry. You know how much to eat. Again, you can trust when to eat, what to eat, how much to eat. So this is about continually asking those questions. It might also, it occurs to me, feel a little obsessive, but this is what you're focused on right now. You've set aside this time and it's so much bigger than losing weight. It is about repairing that relationship with yourself, your relationship with food. It does really kind of help you be laser focused in the moment, right? On not just what you're eating and when and your

portion sizes, but really what's going on in your brain as well. It's so multi-layered. I love this. Okay. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest.

And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push, find your power. Peloton, visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Practice, practice, practice is my advice. I do want to, I just want to read, where's this post? I've always said to friends doing the program, listening to your stomach is so important. That said, having lost 80 pounds, I feel like my stomach wants more in

group five than it did in group one and two. So I would tend to bet, Lonnie, this has to do with the fact that your metabolism is so much higher. You are probably more active. You are more in tune. And also sometimes really loud hunger cues don't necessarily translate into needing more food. It's just your body being more clear about letting you know it's hungry. And so when it does come to portions, although the focus this week on portions is eating enough in the moment so that when you walk away 10, 15 minutes later, you're feeling satisfied and not stuffed. This is really important. Portions are always what they feel like and never what they look like at the end of the day. So one day you might be hungrier than you were the day before. So I call it the three egg, one egg rule. One day you might need three eggs to feel like you've had enough at breakfast. The next day you might only need one

egg to feel like you've had enough at breakfast. And the next day you might not be hungry at all and choose not to have breakfast. So this really allows you to get in tune to your fluctuating hunger levels. As we progress in the program, what you eat and when is going to change and evolve to help you get even more in tune to your body's needs. So what you're eating now, what this looks like could look radically different at the end of the program. So it's really about getting in tune to that. Okay.

I also want for the sake of time, because I want to leave time for talking about next week's tweak, which is downsizing. I want to just remind people of maximizing. So what do we want to keep in mind when it comes to that? That's going to be a constant ongoing theme throughout the rest of the program. Maximizing, of course, referring to all the other things besides the food, the water and supplements that you can do. So what do we want to just mention or remind people of there?

I think that this is the area as we come into the tweaks that come ahead, we start to, when we're focusing on those, it's really, I feel like it's human nature to move your focus from one thing to the next thing, which means we end up dropping the balls or dropping the focus on that. And the whole point of building on the tweaks each week is you start to, we take a week, we start to build this habit. We want to try to maintain what we were doing and then add on the new tweaks and the new things we learn rather than dropping everything. So maximizing is that one thing that from last week on through the program we want to keep doing. There's a lot of us even

on your team who actually, we've provided a PDF in the file section of this Facebook group with the maximizing 20 questions on it. And it's got all the sub questions. We, there's quite a few of us on the team that actually print that out every week and start checking off. And then we share with each other the areas that we recognize that we're not, that we're not, we're like, whoopsies, forgot about that one. So I highly recommend that just as a way, like most people aren't going to be able to check off every single box. You want to compare them against your last one. Am I doing better or have I dropped more balls? If I have,

what adjustments do I need to make? And this week is a prime week to talk about it because of the sleep and stress week that we're talking about these weeks. And these are probably two of the ones that I would say myself drops the ball on when I'm not maximizing. It's either water or sleep and stress for me. And you got to keep these things in mind. There's what you eat and when is such a small part of you reaching your weight loss goal. And this maximizing list and the idea of trying to make the most of the sleep you get, trying to manage your stress as best you can with the situation you're in is everything that you can do in that direction is taking you one step closer to your goals and being able to support your body. Well, this is how you make it individual to your needs. The Libby method works for everybody. If you are human and have a body, the program will work for you. But how do you make it individual to your needs is really understanding what you need to

focus on. And that's the maximizing again is sometimes we're not focused. We're so hyper focused on the food or whatever. This way we get this a lot. I'm doing everything. I'm eating all the foods. I'm drinking the water. Why isn't my scale moving? When their stress levels are through the roof, they're not sleeping at night. They're not moving their bodies. Like this is a really an area to continue to highlight. This may seem like a lot. And so if you think of layering, so it's like Kim said, dropping the balls, right? So it's kind of like you're picking up all these balls and you're juggling and you're juggling and you're juggling. And some days you are dropping some balls and other days you feel like you are a rock star juggler. And you're kind of,

what's happening is you're picking up all these balls and they're all working together to keep you moving forward, to level up your health and wellness, to adjust your body's needs, to help the body specifically focus on fat loss. And it's about how it all works together for you. It can be a lot because life does not make it easy for us to continue to focus on us. So maximizing absolutely not to stress you out, really just to look for areas of opportunities, things that you can do to make the process more individual. I love that you brought up the sleep series this week.

So Dr. Beverly David on Tuesday, Elena McGinn today, Dr. Linka tomorrow. I hope that you are listening. I think the most important thing you can do in this program to be proactive is listen to our guest segments. Even when you think the conversation is not

relevant to you, man, like I just, they're next level kind of conversations. Okay. I also noticed that you highlight consistency over perfection. So again, it's the little things. I love that excerpt today. If you haven't read it, it's from James Clear book. I put it back over on my desk. Atomic Habits. It's about how sometimes you think the things that you aren't doing aren't really adding up, but they are adding up and it just gets to a breaking point sometimes. And so if you haven't read it, it's about this concept of an ice cube. So you put an ice cube on a table and you turn up the heat by one degree, one degree, one degree, one degree. The ice cube's still an ice cube.

It's not melting. It really isn't until it hits its threshold that you actually start to see the results of turning up the heat. And it's kind of like our efforts sometimes. It can feel like we're doing all these things, all these things, all these things, and nothing really is happening

until they do actually add up and then they start to translate on that scale. So that is consistency, not any one thing that you're doing perfectly. Okay. For the sake of time, Kim, we have a few more minutes. Let's talk about our tweak next week. Downsizing. What do people need to know? So this is where we actually start messing with portions. It's our own way of counting, weighing, and measuring. There's so much to it. I'm so excited to get to it. We are not there yet. So don't jump the gun on this one. Make sure you're really indulged in mindfulness this week, but let's give people a heads up on next week.

Yeah. So next week's tweak downsizing. It's, it's the first big change. It's the thing that usually scares people the most. There's other tweaks that come that then become scary for people after that, but it's the first one that comes up it's really about getting your body's attention and taking what you learned in this week of mindfulness and taking those cues you're learning about your body's cues with through your mindfulness and then getting your body's attention by making it change. Ideally, we want to be feeding the body for the size body that we are going to get to. And as we're downsizing and losing weight, our needs are going to change. And if you just simply keep feeding yourself the same

amount of food over habit, you're really not adjusting to your body's needs. So downsizing, I was feel like is a little bit of ripping a bandaid off when it comes to adjusting, you know, working on digging into what portions you need, but also getting your body's attention. But it also brings up a lot of associations, food portions that you need and what you need to feel satisfied and how you notice that differently next week after this week. It's as much about that as it is about starting to deal with some of the things that you've used food to kind of dull over the time. Yeah. This is the one week of the program that will feel most like a diet. And I'd like to just get it out of the way and bring up those fields so we can start working through them. So just a heads up. And if you do want to read ahead about downsizing and what's involved, but don't freak yourself out yet. That post is available in the app. If you want to search that out, the tweak for next week, and then also in the book as well. So downsizing is nothing else changes with the food plan, but portion wise, you are going to ask the four mindful eating

questions and purposely leave yourself feeling slightly unsatisfied. So you are going to purposely leave yourself slightly unsatisfied. So the body is loving what you're doing. The problem is, is about week four of the program, your body's like, this is great. I'm super happy. You're probably feeling pretty good. But a happy, content body isn't necessarily motivated to release fat and make change. And this is where you're going to get that body's attention. Your body's going to be like, whoa, wait a minute. You normally give me this amount of food. And you're going to say, yes, I do. But we don't actually need that amount of food. So I'm still giving you all this nutrient rich food all day long, just slightly less. So of course, you're going to notice your body's going to be like, give me my food. You're going to be like, you're fine. Give me my food. You're

going to be good fun. Your body's going to say, fine. I have all this extra fat. I, you know, I don't need it. If I downsize the size of this body, then the amount of food that is coming in is going to suit me just fine. So towards the end of the week of downsizing, you'll actually start to notice, Hmm, I'm actually getting more satisfied on these smaller portions because guaranteed right now, everybody is eating way more than they need because they are eating what they are used to eating, not how much they actually need. So you can have faith that you are still going to eat all your nutrient-rich meals. You're just going to leave yourself feeling slightly unsatisfied, not starved, not deprived, just slightly unsatisfied. To Kim's point, it does bring up issues. It can bring up food waste issues. It can bring up fear

of feeling hungry issues. It can bring up old diet dialogue, especially if you feel like I'm so starved and I'm deprived, even though you're eating like six times a day, nutrient rich foods. So I'm sure you all have a lot of questions about that. We won't get into answering any of those right now, but our takeaway is just be open to it. It's way better than actually starving and depriving yourself like all those other diets that you've done. If you've done those, this will be a walk in the park. It's not about starving and depriving. It's just eating slightly less and then having your body adjust to that because right now your portion sizes are based on what your body is used to, not on what your body actually needs.

So it's a really interesting approach and it is meant to bring up all the feels. So if you are having feels about it when we introduce it next week, good, because that means that you got some stuff to work through. Anything else to add about downsizing next week? No, I would just say, just make note, I know it's only Wednesday. Please don't try to fast track and jump into this because you're going to find next week a lot easier if you actually put in the work this week on mindfulness and going through those four steps at as many of your meals and snacks as you possibly can. It'll set you up for success in not eating way too little or leaving yourself starving or not ending up full after you eat your meals if you kind of do the work this week.

Here's the thing I want to say, and thank you for saying that, Kim. If there was a faster, quicker, more effective way, I would let you know. I want you to lose as much weight as possible as quickly as possible. But sometimes that means putting in the work now to really set the stage, right? So I know it can be tempting to fall back into old diet stuff. They'd be tempting to jump ahead and not put the time in. Again, this is the one week that people circle back around later in their program. They're like, man, I wish I would have taken that week more seriously because I not only see how it's factoring into my weight loss journey, but in the end, how it continues to factor into your maintenance journey as well.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Kim. Good takeaways, good tidbits there. I hope that everyone who is joining us live, or if you're watching after the fact, this is helping to build confidence, to just go a little deeper into the tweak, to give you a better understanding of the rhyme and the reason. Of course, at any time, pop into our Facebook support group, ask all the questions that you need to be super clear on what you need to do. Have an amazing day, everyone.

Please join us tomorrow. Dr. Linka Trejo is going to talk about sleep or lack thereof and how it's affecting your body, the actual processing and digesting of your foods, especially your hormones. I know we touched on that with Dr. Beverly and Alana, but we're really going to get into that with her tomorrow. So have an amazing rest of your day. Kim, as always, thank you for joining me. Thank you.