The Liz Moody Podcast - My Healthy Weight Loss Journey: Science-Backed, Pragmatic Action Steps That Actually Worked

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In today’s episode, I’m giving you the key changes I made to my diet and routine to lose weight in a healthy way. The wellness world has thousands of conflicting messages on the best ways to eat f...ood and exercise for weight loss, so I wanted to share the tips my nutritionist gave me that have actually worked for me.  Tune in for advice on how to understand your eating habits, cut out stress eating, make movement a part of your routine, avoid the all-or-nothing mindset, and more. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. If you liked this episode and are interested in booking with my nutritionist Nicki Parlitsis, you can apply for 1:1 coaching with her here. For more from Nicki Parlitsis, find her on Instagram @nutrition.nicki or online at https://www.nutritionnicki.com/.  Check out the previous episodes of The Liz Moody Podcast discussed today: How to Lose Weight In A Healthy Way with Nicki Parlitsis The Real Science of Eating Well: Cutting Through Social Media Confusion to Find Your Best Diet with Michelle Shapiro The Science of Putting Together a Workout Routine to Hit Your Goals with Dr. Shannon Ritchey My full workout routine discussed in this episode can be found on my Substack: The exact weekly workout plan I do to feel strong, energized, and sane. The products I discussed in this episode: Freezable lunch or snack bags: https://amzn.to/4dUIGaj  SunFiber supplement: https://amzn.to/43LOPkq  This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: Seed: Go to seed.com/LIZMOODY and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month.  Birch: Go to BirchLiving.com/LIZMOODY for 20% off sitewide.  LMNT: Go to DrinkLMNT.com/LIZMOODY to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 336. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Today, we're going to talk about something that I honestly never thought I would be talking about on this podcast, my weight loss journey. As somebody who has struggled with disordered eating in the past, I'm going to be very sensitive with this conversation. And we are absolutely talking about weight loss in a healthy way. This is not a skinny talk situation. But if this episode is not for you, I totally get that and I will see you on Wednesday.
Starting point is 00:00:27 In this episode, I'm going to share what inspired my weight loss journey and all the little tactics and tricks that have worked for me. If you want a full episode on the science of weight loss, we have that too. I interviewed Nikki Parlius, the registered dietitian that I worked with on an episode called How to Lose Weight in a Healthy Way that I can link in the comments. That has broader stroke information like if calories matter and if we have a weight set point and that kind of stuff. And today is going to be more like very specific tactical things that I'm
Starting point is 00:00:57 I did that helped me on my journey. So first of all, why did I even go on this journey? It started last summer when I did this full blood panel. I got the results back and I sent them to my friend Michelle Shapiro, who is an RD. She's also a former podcast guest. And she was like, okay, here's the deal. She was very nice about this. But she was like, okay, here's the deal. Basically, I was showing early signs of a slide into metabolic disease. My LDL was high, as was my apolypo-protein B. My fasting glucose was high. My HBG-A-1C was borderline high, which was indicating that I was moving in the direction of prediabetes. So that was already like this wake-up call, this warning sign, this thing that I was grappling with. And then shortly after that, I did a speaking gig at Canyon Rant, which is this
Starting point is 00:01:43 really unique health resort in Tucson. I flew out to give a talk, and they invited me to try a number of their treatments, which includes both like traditional spa stuff, massages, facials, things like that, but also much more health-oriented stuff, like blood tests. and consult with exercise scientists and RDs and doctors. Zach and I both got Dexas scans, which measures your body fat, your visceral fat, and your bone density. And we did VO2 max tests, which look absolutely crazy. The footage of me doing this is so funny.
Starting point is 00:02:13 Basically, you strap this mask to your face, and then you run on a treadmill to measure your body's ability to utilize oxygen during exercise. VOT2 Max is really interesting because up until recently, it's been viewed as really something that's more for athletes. Like, if you're an extreme fitness person, you worry about your VO2 max. But now more and more science is pointing to it being one of the best predictors of longevity. And the Dexascan showed that I was very much carrying extra fat on my body. And my VO2 max was much lower than it should have been, ideally, optimally, for someone my age.
Starting point is 00:02:50 And basically the sum of the whole picture of the blood test, of the Dexas scan, of the VO2 Max test, was that my weight was impacting my health, and particularly my weight was impacting my heart health. All four of my grandparents died of something related to heart disease, and heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. It is actually wild that we talk about heart health so little, and we spend so much time talking about all these other elements of wellness when heart disease is the number one thing that is likely to kill us all. It should be a much, much higher priority. I don't know if I felt this at the time, but retrospectively, I can look back on these moments and realize that I did not feel good in my body anymore. Hikes particularly were feeling
Starting point is 00:03:35 harder than they used to because I essentially had this weighted vest of my own body weight strapped to me at all time. So of course, that made going up hills more difficult and less fun. One of my life mottos is that my body is for living, not looking, and living in my body was feeling less enjoyable than it used to. I think this happened during the pandemic. It's hard to pinpoint a time for this, but I started moving a lot less and I started stress eating a lot more, which I will get into more later. So that was my why. Now let's get into some of the mistakes that I was making and the changes that I made that made a difference. I came back from Canyon Ranch. I mean, this was a very complicated time in my life. It's also when Bella, my cat,
Starting point is 00:04:21 died and we were freezing our embryos. There's a lot going on at this time. But in January, I reached out to Nikki, who's an RD that specializes in weight loss. She is from Michelle's practice because I wanted to work with a professional on this for two main reasons. The first is I just really value in trust science and the expertise of professionals in their field. I really wanted to do this in a healthy way, in the right way, and I wanted to get as much guidance as I could in that direction. And the second reason, is what I was honestly kind of embarrassed about, which is I thought I knew my shit. I wrote two healthy cookbugs for God's sake. I interview experts on this podcast every single week. I have helped thousands of people change their lives and achieve their goals. A huge pressure that I feel
Starting point is 00:05:09 in this job is to practice what I preach. And at first, this whole experience made me feel like a fraud and like a failure. Like who was I to host this podcast to write these books if this was my lived experience with my own health. And then I realized it makes me better to do all of these things because I am human. I am a real human living in the real world, dealing with real challenges, and that gives me so much valuable information to help you even better. Okay, so let's get into that helping. Here are the things that have helped the most in my own journey in no particular order. First of all, I was sort of willfully misinterpreting what whole foods were. I had this idea that you can't overeat if you eat whole foods, which is completely
Starting point is 00:05:59 untrue. As Nikki said in our episode together, there are so many things that are messing with our hunger and satiety signals regularly like stress and eating on the go or eating in front of the TV. And I also was grouping chocolate chip cookies from the farmer's market in the same whole food category as carrots and broccoli. I had this idea that as long as something was made with high quality ingredients like good sourdough, your body would naturally regulate your hunger around it. And if you are truly eating like completely whole foods, maybe that is true. But much of what I was eating was bread and pasta and flowers. And even if they were quote unquote good ingredients, they are so easy to overeat.
Starting point is 00:06:45 I was casually taking in extra thousands of calories on a very regular basis and thinking because the foods were high quality, because they weren't ultra-processed foods, they weren't like Doritos in a bag. They weren't what I thought of as junk food. My body would self-regulate its hunger. I want to talk about calories for a second
Starting point is 00:07:02 because I was so, so adverse to counting calories and I never ended up doing like a My Fitness pal thing, but getting a general idea of how many calories, things have and realizing how skewed my own perception had been was really big for me. Like nuts. I would willy-nilly add nuts to everything or eat massive spoonfuls of peanut butter with apples and think that I was having a healthy snack. I had this idea that for nutritious food, more was more. Like if I made a smoothie in the morning, I would keep drinking it even if I was full because everything in it was good for me and I didn't want it to go to waste. And realizing that you can even overeat nutrition, and realizing that you can even overeat
Starting point is 00:07:41 nutritious foods, especially if you're over-indexing on the nuts, the sourdows, the grass-fed cheeses, the avocados, et cetera, versus the vegetables. You pretty much cannot overeat cauliflower. You will get way too full. You'll probably get really farty. Your body just will not let you do that. But sourdough bread with grass-fed butter, a chocolate smoothie filled with avocado, very easy to overeat. As Nikki said in our episode together, we can really quickly house like 50 almonds in the form of nut butter that we make a brownie with. And it is a lot, even if it's nutrient dense. There has never been a time in history before when it is so easy to consume huge amounts of calories, even from foods that we think of as nutritious, healthy foods. So a big
Starting point is 00:08:26 shift was developing more of a general awareness about calories and portion sizes, which, again, I really avoided for years because of the messaging of the wellness world and because I didn't want to slip into diet culture. I think those conversations are so important and they messed up my thinking around food in a different way. So now I still add nuts to my salad, but I'm not like heaping them on. I don't have many nut butters because that's just so many calories condensed into one little tiny bite. If I'm really going to enjoy it, sure, but I'm not just going to blindly be eating it because it's healthy. This is another big shift. I ask myself, I'm eating. If I'm eating for pleasure, I really enjoy the food. I savor it. I don't watch TV
Starting point is 00:09:13 while I'm eating it. And if I order something out that's for pleasure like I'm at a coffee shop and I get a macha and that macha doesn't really hit, I will not drink it. If I take a bite of cake for deserted a restaurant and I don't love it, I do not have another bite. I have a huge sweet tooth and before I would kind of mindlessly eat whatever sweets were in front of me. And now I'm like, if this is for pleasure, it better be pleasurable or I am not going to do it. And on the other side, if I'm eating for fuel, I've kind of taken some of the pressure off. I used to want every single bite that I put in my mouth to be the best thing ever. And I'd make these meals with a capital M, like all of these ingredients, all restaurant quality.
Starting point is 00:09:57 And I'm still not a fan at all of suffering through meals because healthy food can and should taste delicious. but I do not need to make a pasta dish with like 25 ingredients. I have been making my meals for fuel much, much simpler, which is both easier to prepare, a key, key thing. And I've also honestly been finding that simplicity really, really enjoyable. Again, it's just like taking the pressure off. My absolute hyperfixation meal recently, for instance, is I roast Japanese sweet potatoes at 400 degrees
Starting point is 00:10:31 until they are really squishy and caramelized, like for an hour, a really long time. And then in a pan, I sauteed grass-fed ground beef with a generous amount of salt until it's brown. And then I add a lot of garlic powder, onion powder, coconut aminos, red pepper flakes, and then a ton of chopped green onions. And I sauteed that for a few minutes. And I cut the sweet potatoes up into big cubes and I top it with the beef. It is so good. It hits so hard.
Starting point is 00:10:56 It gives me fuel. But it's not like a 10-step recipe with all these. these ingredients. I just gave you the entire recipe. I said the whole thing right there. And if something is meant to be fuel, I really look for it to fuel me. Does it have protein? Does it have fiber? Is it blood sugar friendly? Another trick that I learned from Nikki around this fuel versus pleasure thing that I have found immensely helpful is that most of the time when we are eating out, it is for pleasure, but the food that you eat out isn't often that fueling. So I eat a small fuel meal before I I go out. Like I will defrost a small portion of one of those beef and sweet potato stir fries that I just
Starting point is 00:11:36 mentioned or a small portion of like a dense bean salad or I'll eat some carrots with some hummus and I fuel first. So at the restaurant I can eat for a bit of fuel but mostly for pleasure and I'm not ravenous so I'm eating less of the pleasure food. So I will enjoy the pizza but I'm not starving. So I won't have like five slices. I'll have one or two slices. And again, if it's for pleasure, I am savoring the shit out of those slices. And you might have noticed that we have already started to highlight something that was absolutely key to my journey, which is planning ahead. I truly think this is the weight loss secret that not enough people are talking about. It is when you are hungry and you do not have options that you make the worst choices. For me, planning ahead means having ready prep meals
Starting point is 00:12:21 in my fridge and freezer as much of the time at all times, if I can possibly have it at all times. It means looking at my day ahead of time. How long am I going to be out for? Do I need to bring a snack or a lunch? If I have a dinner out, do I have a healthy snack on hand to eat beforehand? Or do I need to prep something? When am I going to fit my movement in? Truly looking at my day and my week and mapping it all out, like, okay, I'll have time to cook on this day.
Starting point is 00:12:45 I have this food on hand for this day. Has been an absolute game changer. If I am going to be out all day, I will bring a Coya protein shake or an IQ bar. IQ bars are shelf stable, which is handy and they are delicious. and the Coya protein shakes are a more recent discovery, but both Nikki and Michelle approved of their ingredients. They have a ton of fiber and a ton of protein. And I have found these in Walgreens and CVS is all over.
Starting point is 00:13:10 So if you are out and about and in a pinch, they are a really great healthy option to look for. I also got this lunch bag called a packet. I can link it in the show notes. You keep it in the freezer and it has ice packs built into it. So if I'm going to be out all day, I can grab one of my meal-prepped lunches and I can bring it with me and it stays food.
Starting point is 00:13:27 safe and good to go and then I have that ready on hand when I need it. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refuse to die. They sit there releasing inflammatory sickness. breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells, and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of
Starting point is 00:14:09 how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first, peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all.
Starting point is 00:14:56 and I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference and you're kind of like, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that like sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that, but it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age.
Starting point is 00:15:34 I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One Skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.co slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like, if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life.
Starting point is 00:16:08 And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years
Starting point is 00:16:30 well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unboxed it. It has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long.
Starting point is 00:17:16 It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing. and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep. And getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles. And we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains.
Starting point is 00:17:44 CNN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers. And Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Birch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch Kids natural mattress. Birch ships right to your door.
Starting point is 00:18:05 It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to birch living.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off. that is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody and you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single
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Starting point is 00:19:05 There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaling. Literally, you name it, they're on master class and it is such a good way to get off your phone but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps you entertained and interested. And you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world. best, all for just $10 a month when build annually, and you get unlimited access to every class
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Starting point is 00:20:11 Very early on, I said to Nikki, hey, I want to add in things. I do not want to count calories. I do not want to feel deprived. And she said, cool. You can add in as many veggies as you want. So at every single meal, I am adding in roasted broccoli. I am snacking on some carrots. And again, I am not precious about this.
Starting point is 00:20:29 I'm not making fancy meals. I'm not even trying to incorporate these components into my meals. I'm just roasting a whole head of broccoli, a whole head of cabbage. And I'm eating that on the side of whatever I am eating, even if it doesn't go together. I don't eat like the entire cabbage or the entire broccoli, but I roast it all together and then I have it ready in the fridge. That would be insane. That'd be like a lot of, that'd be a very farty situation. Nikki also had me add in something called sun fiber, which I take once or twice a day before meals.
Starting point is 00:20:57 I will link that in the show notes too. It just dissolves in water. You cannot taste it and it adds in more fiber. And that is meant to help with my cholesterol situation. A huge change that I made. And this one will probably be the most shocking to anyone who has been here for a while. But I switched to savory breakfast. I realized my green smoothies were packed with calories because of the nuts and the avocados.
Starting point is 00:21:20 and they weren't really satiating me, and having something sweet first thing in the morning really set me up to crave sweet all day long. And then my blood sugar would spike and then it would dip, and then I'd have this pre-lunch, jittery crash where I was starving. And I just really wasn't feeling good with the smoothies anymore. I have always designed my smoothies to be the absolute best version of a smoothie possible. They are so much better than any other recipes that I see than anything that I see out because they actually do have protein. They are lower in sugar. But I find I personally do much better having one later in the day, like an afternoon snack, or sometimes if I've eaten a lot during the day and I'm not that hungry at dinner, I'll even have one for dinner.
Starting point is 00:22:02 So one of the biggest changes that I have made on this journey is I have said, fuck it, to the idea of breakfast food. Truly, who decided what qualified as breakfast food? And why was that person obsessed with sugary carbs. I love a veggie scramble, but I cannot do that day after day after day. And I am not a morning person at all. So I really like to have my breakfast ready to go when I wake up. So now I just eat my meal prep for breakfast. I'll have like chicken veggie stir fry or I'll have my sweet potato beef bowls or I'll have dense bean salad. I want it to be savory and hearty and filling. And it has completely changed my energy levels throughout the day and my cravings. And sometimes if I want eggs, if I want like breakfast food, savory breakfast food, I'll have
Starting point is 00:22:50 it for dinner. And if I want sweet breakfast food like pancakes or French toast or cereal, sometimes I'll have that for dessert because those are dessert foods. I'm crazy. I don't know. I'm throwing all caution to the wind here. I'm doing crazy things. I've also cut out stress eating.
Starting point is 00:23:05 I asked Nikki early on if she could name one difference between the people that she has worked with in her practice who have successfully. successfully lost weight in a healthy way and those who did not. And she said that the people in the former group do not stress eat. And again, back to the fuel or pleasure notion. Stress eating does neither. And it was a big category of the food that I was consuming. So at the beginning of this process, I kept a note on my phone and I jotted down everything
Starting point is 00:23:32 that I ate and how I was feeling when I ate it. Nikki calls it a food and mood journal. And it quickly became clear that a lot of my eating. happened around 3 p.m. And it was just this grazing that was me avoiding work and feeling stressed and feeling tired. So I'd grab like a skinny dipped peanut butter cup and then I'd go back and I'd work for a little bit. And then I would make a piece of sourdough bread with grass fed butter. And then I would go back and work for a little bit. And then maybe I'd make a little fun drink. And suddenly I have eaten hundreds of calories and extra little snacks and I haven't really enjoyed
Starting point is 00:24:07 them or savored them, and guess what? They also haven't really made me less stressed. It felt actually impossible to not stress eat at the beginning of this journey because I'd be sitting there working and I would hyper fixate on like a cookie that I knew was in my freezer. But first of all, I just stopped keeping those snacks that I know I stress eat around. So I don't keep cookie dough in my freezer. I don't keep skinny dipped anything. They're almonds, there are peanut butter cups around. I don't keep cereal around. I am not depriving myself. I'm an adult.
Starting point is 00:24:42 I can go to the store and I can get these things if I am really desperate. But the number one rule of habits is to make the habits that you want easier and the habits that you do not want harder. And if the habit that I am trying to break is stress eating, why am I making it so easy for myself by having the foods that I am trying not to eat ready at hand? So I've stopped keeping the foods that I like to stress. rest seat around my house at all, and I'm trying to find better ways to deal with my stress in a root cause, like actually feeling better way. I am taking many, many more walks. I'm taking little
Starting point is 00:25:20 midday reading breaks, which feels so indulgent and princess-like, but honestly, it makes me so much more productive afterwards. Yesterday, I watched an episode of Sex in the City in the Middle of the Day, which felt decadent as all get out. I will say, especially if you are prone to bedtime time procrastination, i.e. scrolling at night because it's your only U-time all day. Sneaking in these little breaks throughout the day is such a good antidote. And now when I'm stressed, or even in general, I just don't crave foods in the same way as I used to. I've broken that chokehold they have on me. I've begun to mitigate my stress better. I feel so much better. It's something I never would have believed if you told past me that. But given enough time,
Starting point is 00:26:05 it really does shift. So I will say, be patient with yourself, especially if you're somebody who craves little treats, little snacks, things like that. But it has changed so radically in me in ways that I would not have even begun to believe before. I do still tend to want dessert, but I save it for after dinner because then at least I'm not getting that glucose spike. And the main thing that I've been trying to do with dessert is to make it high fiber. So it's naturally more filling. And also, again, the fiber is going to help with that blood sugar spike. My go-to, my absolute favorite thing is raspberries with chocolate chips. I just stick a little chocolate chip in the raspberry hole and it is so, so good. I think about it all day. I know I just said I like stopped hyperfixating
Starting point is 00:26:45 on things. I think about my raspberries a lot. I love them so much. And if I'm feeling snacky, like I'm watching a movie and I just want to sort of shovel food in my mouth, I'll do popcorn tossed with coconut aminos and syracia. It is a little sweet. It's a little spicy. It's a little salty. It has a ton of fiber and it is so, so good. In terms of movement, I have been trying to walk 10 to 15,000 steps a day, mostly so that I'm up and moving all day long, which has so many benefits outside of weight loss. There is not a magic number to go for here, but just trying to move all the time instead of being annoyed that I need to go grab something and like asking Zach to do it for me, being like, oh, it's an opportunity to move my body a little bit. This is
Starting point is 00:27:27 wonderful. I've also started incorporating ReHit, which we talked about on the episode with Dr. Shannon Richie from January because it's incredibly good for heart health and VO2 Max. It's basically three to four bursts of 30 second all-out effort with two to three minutes of recovery in between those bursts of effort. And I've also really prioritized weight training because I do not want my weight loss to be from muscle. I want it to be fat loss. I want to gain muscle. And strength training is the best way to do that. I have my full workout routine, including these specific exercises that I do in a substack post that I will link in the show notes. But in general, I walk every day. I do a full body 30 to 40 minute weight training routine four times a week. And then twice a week, I do rehit where I walk
Starting point is 00:28:12 for a few minutes and then I either weigh up the incline or I burst into a run. And either way, I'm going all out effort. Like, I cannot do this for any longer than 30 seconds. I do that for 30 seconds. and then I recover for a few minutes, and then I repeat three or four times in the session. Okay, I know that was a lot, so let's do a little recap of all of the changes that I've been making. I stopped confusing high-quality ingredients, like really good sourdows, really good grass-fed butters with healthy foods that I can just eat as much of as I want on any given day. I became more aware of calories, not counting them obsessively, but just understanding how easy it is to overeat even nutritious foods. I started differentiating between eating for fuel and eating for
Starting point is 00:28:57 pleasure and making both of those choices more intentional. I began planning ahead, which honestly might be the most underrated key to success. I cut out stress eating as much as I possibly could by tracking how my mood and my food were connected and making it harder to act on those stress cravings by not keeping the foods that I like to stress eat in my house. I leaned into savory, blood sugar-friendly meals, especially in the morning. I started making movement a daily priority. I got much more serious about my strength training and just my general workout routine, and I added in that re-hit, again, for my VO2 max to take care of my heart health. But more than anything, I have learned that it is not about being perfect. It is about being real with yourself.
Starting point is 00:29:45 It is about being compassionate. It is about being strategic. It's not about beating yourself up or making yourself smaller, making yourself take up less space. It's about valuing this body that we live our one life in and wanting it to feel as good as possible for as long as possible. You do not need to earn your worth with your weight. But if you want to, if part of your journey to feel better in your body and support your long-term health involves weight loss, you can do that in a way that is kind and empowering and rooted in science, not shame. For me, it has been so empowering to make these changes and to see and to feel a real difference in my body.
Starting point is 00:30:33 It is less about numbers on the scale and more about self-efficacy and empowerment, which Nikki and I talked a lot about in our episode together. I feel so empowered in my body. I feel like I'm treating it so much better, and that is translating, into the rest of my life. I'm going to have Nikki back on when I am back in New York in September, and we can answer any of your specific questions that you have left after listening to these two episodes. So make sure that you're following the podcast and stay tuned for that.
Starting point is 00:31:04 I will also link Nikki's info and our episode together in the show notes. Also, I want to be super clear that this was not sponsored in any way. I literally paid Nikki to work with her, but I found her incredibly helpful. And I also don't want to pretend that anything, any information. that I got from her is coming from me. I want to properly attribute, which is why you've heard so much about her in this episode. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with somebody that you think might benefit from it. There is so much bullshit. There is so much harmful information about weight loss circulating the internet these days that I am especially passionate about sharing
Starting point is 00:31:40 science grounded, reasonable, doable, actionable advice. Also, sharing the podcast is the best way to support it. It is the best way to make sure that we can continue to make high quality content for you and it is so, so appreciated. We are able to bring you this show completely for free because of the brands that you heard sponsoring this episode. I'm so, so picky about the brands that I work with. I turn down 99% of them. I turn down a zillion supplement companies. I stand behind every single recommendation that I make here. You can save money on amazing products while supporting the show by using the discount codes that we share. There's a full list of all of our active ones at Liz Moody.com slash codes. You can also come hang out on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. I'll be sharing
Starting point is 00:32:24 more of the food, the little, like, simple recipes that I've been making. I'll just share more of the daily parts of this journey. It's going to be the same sort of reasonable, science-grounded approach to all of this that you've heard on this podcast, that you heard on the podcast with Nikki, and that I just take two content to advice like this in general. Okay. I'm I love you. I appreciate you taking this journey with me. I appreciate you spending your time with me in this way. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician,
Starting point is 00:33:05 a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, stay strong as you get older. What do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level.
Starting point is 00:33:47 And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me. Starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more.
Starting point is 00:34:07 We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. we're trying to do harder workouts, and those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath, and that is exactly what their supplement, mitopure, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body,
Starting point is 00:34:38 your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitopure increase, muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine. It's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithaean A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support yourselves and how
Starting point is 00:35:15 you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley's spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20-minute meal and like get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect
Starting point is 00:36:01 portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great. That's sorted. But they also have meals that you can just heat up. They have ready-made breakfast, which is always such a tough time of day to get a healthy meal in. They have grab and go snacks. Everything is made from farm fresh produce with high quality proteins and you can select by dietary preferences, including Mediterranean diet, which is the top diet that doctors on this podcast recommend. Also things like gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sodium, anything that you need. The food is so good and it's so gourmet feeling like you feel like you're at a nice restaurant. We're talking like chicken Milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes.
Starting point is 00:36:41 My favorite recent meal was the creamy lemon chicken tray bake. I had one of those moments where I looked at my plate and I was like, wait, I made this. And so quickly, like so easily, it's just so little effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful. And honestly, that is everything. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. That is right.
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