The Liz Moody Podcast - Your Trickiest Weight Loss Qs, Answered: Cravings, Hormone Issues, Plateaus, Workouts & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 You've tried to do everything right to lose weight. You've Googled. You've followed advice from people on Instagram. You've cut things out. You've added things in. You've pushed harder. You've tracked more closely. And it still doesn't work.

Starting point is 00:00:12 Maybe you're feeling really fatigued. Maybe your cravings feel louder than ever. Maybe your body just isn't responding the way that you think it should. If you have ever found yourself thinking, what am I missing? Or is there something wrong with me? You are not alone. I hear these questions constantly. In fact, thousands of you sent them in.

Starting point is 00:00:33 So, today's episode is different. I'm not giving you the same bullshit weight loss advice that you have heard over and over and over again. This is not an episode about how to get six-pack abs or a beach body. Everybody is a beach body. Instead, we are getting into the messy, nuanced questions that actually come up when you are trying to lose weight in a way that is healthy, that is shame-free, that is support.

Starting point is 00:00:57 supportive of feeling the way that you want to feel. We are talking about plateaus that seem to happen for no reason, cravings that feel out of control, hormones that complicate everything all of the time, workouts, the backfire, and how to pursue weight loss without destroying your relationship with food or yourself. And we're doing it with somebody that I trust deeply to hold all of that complexity, all of that nuance. Functional Register Dietitian Nikki Parlitzis, who has helped thousands of people lose weight in ways that actually last. She's actually my personal RD, and she has helped me lose 30 pounds in a sustainable way over the course of a year. After about a year and a half ago, I got some test results that really served as a wake-up call in my own life. Our bodies are for living,

Starting point is 00:01:45 not looking. Today's episode is going to help you create a body that feels amazing to live in. If you've ever felt confused or frustrated or ashamed for struggling with something that everybody online makes look so easy, this episode is for you because there are answers. And most of the time, the problem is not you. It is the oversimplified, bad advice that you've been given. Nikki, I am so excited about this episode. We had you on a few months ago, and that's when we went into how to know if weight loss was a good choice for you, how to lose weight in a healthy way. You shared a lot of plans and techniques. And it was kind of like a zoomed out view with a lot of specific action steps. I promised everybody listening that you would come back and we would get into

Starting point is 00:02:30 all the nitty gritty detail. So if you are listening and you want the big zoomed out view of how to know if you should lose weight, how to lose weight in a healthy way, go listen to that other episode. Today we're going to get into everything that gets in your way when you're trying to lose weight all of the nitty gritty questions that you guys all sent in. So let's just get right into it. These are all from audience members. What do we do when we hit a weight loss plateau? I am doing all of the right things, but progress has fully stopped. I hear this so frequently. So the first thing I want to say is it sounds like the person who submitted this question has made a bunch of progress up to this point. So first thing is celebrate what you've done up to this point to get there because that's not easy work. So celebrate that.

Starting point is 00:03:12 The amount that we will need to eat to maintain our body weight will change, unfortunately, as our body weight changes. So more mass requires more energy. So let's say, for example, you weighed 200 pounds, maybe it took a certain amount of calories to maintain that weight. So then you put yourself into a deficit by eating less. And then you were able to lose, let's say, maybe 10 pounds. But your body at 190 pounds now requires a different amount of energy than your body at 200 pounds did. So you might now be able to maintain on the same amount of calories, let's say, that you were once able to lose on. So we might have to make additional shifts when you reach that point.

Starting point is 00:03:51 So the further we get, the more nitty-gritty that we have to get in terms of the changes that you're making. Now, I will also say what markers of progress are you using to measure? So, for example, maybe the scale weight is not changing, but if you're incorporating strength training into your journey, your body can be entering a recomposition phase. Maybe your weight is staying the same, but your waist circumference is getting smaller. So I really always encourage people to use more than one marker of progress, and that can also include lab work. So maybe your blood glucose markers are improving or your cholesterol is improving. Instead of just looking at the scale weight, take a look at all of these other markers. And if nothing is moving, then we might have to do a deeper dive.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Are you snacking in between meals or are you maybe going out to eat like three or four times a week? And you were able to do that in the first part of your journey. But now we have to get a little more specific as you start to reach small or amounts of weight loss toward the end of your weight loss journey. Okay, that really annoys me because I feel like you want the weight loss part to be the harder part and then the more maintenance mode, the more like, oh, I've got this. You want that to be when you can start to let your hands off the reins a little bit. So here's the thing. Usually when we say we're doing all of the right things, there's usually little pieces here and there. And when I'm talking pieces, I mean

Starting point is 00:05:15 like minuscule. Like even if there's an extra 200 calories that are coming in from random bites, that can be the difference between losing a half a pound a week and not losing anything at all. I had a client recently who, you know, she was like, I'm being so consistent. Like I'm eight out of ten consistency. I don't know what's going on. But we noticed that when she was cleaning up her family's plates and that was happening three times a day, she was eating the leftovers on her kid's plate or grabbing a couple crackers while she was cooking dinner. And even though everything else was consistent, we didn't know that was happening until we started tracking every single bite that's coming into your mouth, writing it down. And when we added all of those up, it ended up being

Starting point is 00:05:55 like an extra snack that was being added into her day. So we might need to get a little more specific. If you weren't already tracking, maybe now you start tracking to build awareness. If you were already tracking by journaling, maybe we take one to two weeks to just. see how many calories are coming in. And then if you're maintaining your weight, we know that that's your maintenance. What if you need to cut some more calories to get rid of this plateau? But you feel like if you do that, you're going to be hungry. One of the things that I love about you, you're my RD that I've worked with on this. We talked about that a lot in the previous episode, but you're really about health. And we're going to get into the health markers in a second. And you're

Starting point is 00:06:31 really not like pushing a narrative that our body should look a certain way. You're really about you should feel as good as possible. So what? if to cut those calories, you're feeling hungry all the time? The lower we go in terms of our overall intake, the less wiggle room we have. So what I mean by that is, let's say we're entering a weight loss journey. We might now, instead of grabbing a cookie anytime we think about a cookie, we might now just have to get more intentional about when we're having that cookie and how we're eating it. So when we're looking at trying to lose weight or eat less without intentionally eating less, if that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:07:11 We want to prioritize the things that are going to really fill us up more. We're going to make sure every single one of your meals has fiber in it. Protein's another one that's incredibly satiating. So we really want to make sure all of your meals and snacks are going to have protein. If you're hungry a lot of the time when you're trying to lose weight, something needs to change. Usually that is not necessary in order to enter a weight loss journey. So the first thing is satiety.

Starting point is 00:07:37 So we want to make sure you're eating protein and fiber. Now, the other piece is how much are we actually moving? Because if we're getting an average of like two or three thousand steps a day, we probably need to decrease our intake by a decent amount in order to reach that deficit. However, if we can say, you know what, I'm not even going to touch the amount of food. I don't want to drop my food down anymore. And I'm getting six to seven thousand steps a day. Maybe I need to get a walking pad at home to bump my steps up by an extra.

Starting point is 00:08:07 two to three thousand a day. There's different ends of the equation that we can work with. And so if you're feeling hungry all the time, the first thing is I want to look at how satiating your meals are. I also might want to look at your lab work. Like what's your blood sugar doing? Is there like an actual clinical reason why you're hungry all the time? Is there something going on hormonally? What I've heard from clients is they'll say, you know, I'm starting to try to lose weight, but I'm hungry all the time. So what we try to get into is, okay, what does the hunger feel like when you're going into breakfast or lunch? Most people will say it's a quiet hunger.

Starting point is 00:08:44 It comes on slowly. It's isolated to my stomach. I might feel a little lightheaded. Maybe my stomach's growling. I feel like I'm ready for a meal. When we talk about the type of hunger that might take place in the evening, let's say, after dinner or in between lunch and dinner, after you had just eaten, like one to two hours after a meal, we knew the meal was balanced.

Starting point is 00:09:04 there's no reason why you should be hungry. Oftentimes, we're using the word hunger when we really mean appetite or craving. So I'm having a craving that's in my head. And if we actually try to figure out where in your body are you feeling this, it might not be in your stomach. It might not be the same feeling you get before breakfast or lunch. It now feels more of like a really urgent feeling. It's a quick, almost like a dopamine-seeking type of feeling. So in that sense, maybe our body's a body.

Starting point is 00:09:34 body actually doesn't physically need food. We need whether it could be comfort, it could be joy. And now we have to brainstorm ways to give your body those things that are not food related if weight loss is one of your goals. Because we might not have the room to be adding food in when our body doesn't physically need that food. It feels much harder to add in comfort and joy versus a donut. 100%. And I always notice if food is the main source of joy in your life, it will be very difficult to lose weight. And your quality of life might decrease then, of course. Like, if we're decreasing the amount of times that you're having dessert or the portions of these foods that bring you joy, if that's the main source of joy in your life, that's going to be a really,

Starting point is 00:10:21 really hard journey to be on. So what we have to do is figure out, is there something in my life currently that brings me joy? Is it a person? Is it an activity? Is there something that I engage in at the end of my day that feels really nice and comforting, it can be like a weighted blanket. Like it doesn't have to be a big thing. If those things aren't in place, sometimes I'll have people look back to their childhood. I had a client who played the piano when she was young and she hasn't done that in a while. And so then we'll actually start to bring that in in the evening. And so for like 20 minutes after putting the kids to bed, maybe we're doing an adult coloring book or we're doing a puzzle or we're drawing.

Starting point is 00:10:56 it's not going to feel like as strong of a hit as the cookie does feel. Like it's not going to be that intense. But over time, it will feel more fulfilling than the cookie will feel because our sleep might improve, our energy improves. And then we actually start to lose weight as well. I imagine it's also better to do something that's long-term satisfying your dopamine receptors instead of just we're all riding this roller coaster all day. We have a ton of episodes about satisfying real ways to find joy that I can link for

Starting point is 00:11:25 anybody listening, but getting off that dopamine roller coaster is going to benefit all parts of our life, not just food cravings. One of the most helpful things, and this actually also goes for anyone who finds themselves binge eating or stress eating or emotional eating, introducing a pause. Sometimes if it's really hard to do with food, by the way, I will have people start doing it when they get a craving for social media because sometimes that feels more accessible than food. Food feels a little more charged emotionally. In our current society where we have a lot of convenience and access to things. Your phone is right there. The food is right there. When we get an urge to eat or an urge to pick up our phone, we typically do that thing. We engage in that urge

Starting point is 00:12:06 right away. So what we can start to do is slowly introduce a pause in between. Sometimes I'll have clients set a timer. So let's say we're going to set a timer for 10 minutes. And whatever is accessible for you. If two minutes is the only thing that feels doable, start there. We'll set a timer and we're going to say, when this timer goes off, I can have this food. I'm allowed to have this food when the timer goes off. If we say I'm not going to have this food, it's like when someone says, don't think of a pink elephant. The only thing you think of is a pink elephant. So we're giving your body safety by saying this is, this will be there when the timer goes off. Now, in the interim, we're trying to see what comes up in your body. Is there a feeling that's entering your body or

Starting point is 00:12:50 physical or emotional, that you're trying to kind of squash down with the food. I almost think of it. I thought about this in my own journey where I almost felt like the food was pushing emotions and feelings physically down when I was eating it, you know, like suppressing them. And so when the food wasn't there, just two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, we start to notice stuff come up. Maybe it's an emotional feeling of overwhelm or stress. A common one I find is moms who are doing everything for everyone all day and now 8 p.m. is the first time that it's just you and you want this one moment to yourself, moment of joy or just focusing on your own self. Or it might be a physical sensation. The most common one I hear is like an energy that's almost kind of like building up in your chest or your throat

Starting point is 00:13:36 area, like an anxiety. So we don't know what we don't know. So if we go from the urge to fulfilling that urge, we don't know what's happening in between. The longer we can go in between, to build a relationship with our body where we can actually listen to it, ask, what are you trying to tell me? When we know what our body's trying to tell us, then we know what we can do about it. So if you're seeking comfort, maybe we need like a weighted blanket or a calling a friend or a hug. If we're feeling overwhelmed, maybe we need to fold the laundry or start one thing that's going to organize our space around us. Whatever that is, then we can start to find the non-food activity that's going to help satisfy that craving. And it might be a craving for social

Starting point is 00:14:23 media. Like I said, you can start there. When we start to get comfortable in the 10 minutes, in the 20 minutes, in the 30 minutes, we start to get comfortable in discomfort. And that's going to be a life skill and tool that's going to help us in every area of our life, but especially when it comes to weight loss and dopamine-seeking behaviors. Oh, that is such a good tip. I've never heard that for it and I love it so much. And just to be clear, so at the beginning, that 10 minutes is going to feel like torture, right? Because we're not comfortable yet, but we can rest assured that it will feel more and more palatable. And it's one of those things where we're just kind of getting curious. So we're just saying, when the timer goes off, if it feels scary to not have the food, which is a very

Starting point is 00:15:06 real thing, we're saying, no doubt in my mind, that 10 minute timer goes off and I will sit down with that cookie and enjoy that cookie. In the meantime, it's almost like sitting down with a friend for coffee. Like, what do you have to tell me? I'm really interested in what you have to say. And we're just kind of letting yourself have that moment with you because we don't do that often. We're very, very distracted. And most of my clients are empathetic, people pleasers. They're there for everyone else. And they don't turn toward themselves in the same way that they turn toward the other people around them. I also think that so many people and I know so many listeners are just go, go, go all day. And we just don't have time or make time to sit and check in with ourselves

Starting point is 00:15:46 on that way. So it's a really beautiful practice, not only for breaking through a weight loss plateau or dealing with cravings, but just to get to know yourself. Look, I'm never going to make everything that I wear organic. But your sheets, your pillows, your comforter are literally touching your skin for eight hours every single night. That is a third of your life right there with one simple swap. And if your betting is worn out, it's trapping heat or it's made with questionable materials, your sleep is going to suffer. And so will everything that depends on it. You want a bed, you deserve a bed that you are excited to get into every single night so that

Starting point is 00:16:22 you can get the sleep that you need to feel your best. That's why I love bowl and branch so much. Their signature organic cotton sheets are incredibly soft. You notice that the first night and they are so breathable, which is a godsend if you sleep hot like I do. But what massively impresses me is that in an end, era where everyone is greenwashing everything, Bowlin Branch takes the safety and the quality of their products so seriously. They're got certified, meaning the organic integrity is verified at

Starting point is 00:16:52 every single step of production, not just the raw material. They're Okotech certified, which I always look for. It means that everything has been tested and cleared for harmful substances from the yarn all the way to the finished product. And they are fair trade certified. So the people actually making your sheets are being paid and treated fairly. Most people start with the signature sheet set, and honestly, once you feel them, you're going to want to do the entire bed. They feel like a fancy hotel, but maybe even better. It's made travel actually worse for me, fair warning, because my own bed at home is

Starting point is 00:17:25 like nicer than the nicest hotels. It just feels so good. I get so excited to get into it every single night. It's time to upgrade your sleep with Bowlen Branch. Get 15% off your first order, plus free shipping at bollandbranch.com slash Liz Moody with code Liz Moody. That's Bullen Branch, B-O-L-L-B-L-B-Range.com slash Liz Moody. Use code Liz Moody to unlock 15% off.

Starting point is 00:17:47 Exclusions apply. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so you mentioned getting some lab work as a sign of success, and you also mentioned getting some lab work to see if there's other stuff going on that might be impeding a weight loss journey. First, let's start with what lab work would maybe mean that we're having success, even if we don't feel like we are on the scale. I have a client who the scale was not moving at all, and it was incredibly frustrating.

Starting point is 00:18:13 And for anyone on this journey, you know if you feel like you're trying so hard and you're putting in all this effort and nothing is changing, that voice in your head will constantly say, why am I doing this? Screw it. I don't care anymore. What's the point? We might look at scale weight. We might look at body measurements. However, there's certain things that might be happening internally that are helping your metabolism. that are helping your mitochondria that are going to help support weight loss down the line.

Starting point is 00:18:42 Maybe we really need to get your body back on track before we actually see the movement in the scale. So maybe your insulin response is improving. Maybe your A1C is coming down and your blood sugar is getting more regulated. Maybe your cholesterol, APOB, your lipid markers are improving. Or maybe your nutrient stores are building back up. So maybe your B vitamins, your vitamin D, you're replenishing your nutrients. Those things will only be more helpful down the line. For white loss, but also just like for staying alive. 100%, which is most people want to lose weight because they want to improve their quality of life, right?

Starting point is 00:19:21 But health is going to be a huge thing that impacts our quality of life. We could be whatever our goal weight is and have no energy to even go out and buy the clothes that we now want to wear. So what's the point? Yeah. Now, there might be things going on that are making. it a little bit harder. This varies greatly person to person. Let's say, for example, you have a thyroid condition, or you don't know you have a thyroid condition, but common symptoms might be dry skin, constipation, hair loss, cold intolerance. And so we kind of just want to see what's happening

Starting point is 00:19:54 with your thyroid. Thyroid is going to be the main driver of your metabolic rate. So it's kind of like the thermostat in your body. When you have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's, so a sluggish thyroid, basically, your metabolic rate slows down a little bit. Now, it's not by thousands of calories, which a lot of people think that it is. It can be anywhere between like 100, 150 calories a day, lower metabolic rate up to like 400 calories a day less, which is very significant. In order to measure how your thyroid is functioning, most doctors will just run a TSA. which is your thyroid stimulating hormone or a free T4 or both. I like a full thyroid panel.

Starting point is 00:20:39 So it's going to be Tsh, free T3, free T4, sometimes reverse T3. And then I also want to see what your antibodies are doing. The difference between Hashimoto's and just like a regular hypothyroid is that there's this autoimmune component to it. Very common if like your mom has hypothyroid and your grandma does, there might be Hashimoto's somewhere in there genetically. So we want to see if there's. a thyroid condition, and then we want to see if it's autoimmune related. Now, if there is an issue with your thyroid, it doesn't mean you can't lose weight, but it does mean that we need to support your thyroid while we are engaging in weight loss, or if it's pretty significant.

Starting point is 00:21:19 We might need to just focus on maintenance for now, build up some of those nutrients, really support your thyroid. Maybe we're bringing in some selenium. If it's not Hashimoto's, maybe we're bringing in some iodine, like iodized salt. If you have Hashimoto's, that's not something that we want to bring in, maybe a little bit of anositol, some zinc from pumpkin seeds. So there might be some foods or supplements that we might bring in to help support your thyroid, eating enough. So eating at maintenance for a period of time to support your overall body. And then we can engage in a weight loss journey after maybe like a month or two of really kind of working on that. So that might be one thing. Interestingly, research doesn't particularly show that PCOS directly affects metabolic rate like

Starting point is 00:22:03 a thyroid condition would. However, it's really going to impact our insulin response. And when we have insulin resistance, it shifts our distribution of fat in our body and makes it also harder to build muscle. So we're more likely to store fat than build muscle. So you might notice this if there's more belly fat, so fat around the visceral organs, more food cravings, which is, of course, obviously, going to make weight loss harder, fatigue as well. And then there's also one thing I've just noticed from clients is that sometimes if there's, you know, hair growth or acne or things that are visual or sometimes even belly fat, that it definitely is taking a hit to some people's self-esteem as well. And food is comforting. So it's

Starting point is 00:22:52 It sounds counterintuitive and it feels so confusing when you're in the moment. But sometimes low self-esteem, even if it is related to weight and physical appearance, will drive us toward foods as comfort. That makes complete sense to me. It's one of the first things that we use as comfort in our lives. Like, I didn't have a great childhood. It was one of my main sources of comfort in my childhood. So that makes complete sense to me.

Starting point is 00:23:17 What do you do with your clients with PCOS? I will always look at everyone on a case-by-case basis. But the first thing I'd also really want to look at is blood sugar regulation. So we're always going to be looking at this on a weight loss journey, but we're just going to go really, really hard with it when it's someone with PCOS. Anastatol is a really helpful supplement for those with PCOS and blood sugar regulation. And we might bring in something like either an apple cider vinegar or I like organic olivia's glucose bitters because they're also based in apple cider vinegar.

Starting point is 00:23:48 that can also help our blood sugar response with meals, particularly higher carb meals as well. Even just five to ten minutes of movement after a meal can help blood sugar response. So the actual contraction of the muscle is pulling glucose or sugar out of the bloodstream and the muscle is using the glucose for energy. So if you go on a walk or even if you're like doing body weight squats or jumping jacks or something after your meal, you're actually helping bring down your blood sugar. So that's one thing, spreading out your movement throughout the day. Building muscle is also going to be really important in these populations too because of that blood sugar regulation.

Starting point is 00:24:27 Depending on where you're starting, maybe like two to three days of strength training a week and really focusing on protein intake as well, fiber is also going to be incredibly crucial. But if you notice a lot of the things that I'm saying for these populations that there might be some type of hormonal conditions are kind of very, very similar. to the general weight loss recommendations also. We just might need to add a couple supplements here and there, focus a little bit harder. Maybe someone with blood sugar dysregulation is going to be much more diligent about walking after meals, whereas someone who doesn't have that issue might do something like an hour-long walk once a day, and that just works better for them. Well, one of our listener questions was, how can I tell if hormones are getting in the way

Starting point is 00:25:11 of my weight loss journey? Are there tests I can ask for? Are there symptoms to look out for? So we talked a little bit about the PCOS, but are there other ways to be? to tell if hormones are getting in the way of the weight loss journey? Yeah, one of the most important, some people call it as like the fifth vital sign, your period. So what's happening with your menstrual cycle?

Starting point is 00:25:29 Typically speaking, if you have menstrual irregularities or super heavy periods, there might be something going on there. I do need to caveat, though. We only really are testing these things or giving them weight when there isn't something influencing your hormones. If someone's on an IUD, like a hormonal IUD or the copper one, people have really heavy periods. Very heavy periods. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:25:53 So if there's some type of contraception in place, then it's going to skew the results. But if I have a client who's not on anything, we might then take a look at lab work-wise. We might want to look at your estradiol, your progesterone, your testosterone. Those things might also be out of place in a way that is impacting your way. weight loss journey. So we definitely want to look at that. Now, vitamin D is a vitamin, but it acts kind of, it's mostly like a hormone kind of. So we also notice that in people who are overweight, that vitamin D tends to be deficient when weight is higher. We don't know if it's like a correlation or not, but that's something that I always will make sure is in place as well.

Starting point is 00:26:38 Same thing with B vitamins. So especially if you feel like you have low energy or if you're having menstrual irregularities, we want to also see what is your B vitamin status as well. Almost everyone in my weight loss clients, I will want to know what's your A1C, what's your fasting insulin, what's your fasting glucose. Another one that we don't think about very often, but does impact our thyroid and also our fatigue, which keep in mind, if we are fatigued, we're not going to have as much energy to exercise, but we're really not going to have that non-exercise activity thermogenesis that contributes much more than programmed exercise to our output. Which is like walking, moving throughout the debt. So this is iron status, especially with

Starting point is 00:27:25 women. So if we have low iron or anemia, we're going to have really low energy. So in that person, I might want to look at your hemoglobin, hematicrit, what's your iron panel, what's your ferretem, which is your stored iron. And that's also going to impact your thyroid function as well. These are that even if they're not directly impacting your metabolism, they can indirectly impact the habits and the changes that we're making in a weight loss journey. I don't want to get too far in the episode before I address a question that I got from a lot of listeners, which is how do you put enough food rules in place to lose weight, counting calories, things like that without creating an unhealthy relationship between you and food? A lot of people said these types of things

Starting point is 00:28:07 brought them back to a place of ED, which I know a lot of people, including myself, have suffered from. Mm-hmm. And myself as well. So part of the reason why I love working with clients in the way that I do in weight loss is because of my history with eating disorder. And I was always told that I would never be able to intentionally pursue weight loss, having had a history of eating disorder. And it just felt inherently wrong. Like, why can't I want to lose weight even though I have had this relationship with food? And so, What I work on with clients a lot is how do we help the body release weight by intentionally focusing on the behaviors that make that possible? So, for example, if we know that scientifically, let's say, eating less calories helps the body or causes the body to lose weight, I know with myself, if I focus all of my energy on eating less calories, it will never happen because all I want to do is eat. That's the only thing I want to think about. So what we can, can think about is, first of all, what are my anchors? This is my favorite thing to start with with

Starting point is 00:29:16 clients. We'll talk about when you feel your absolute best, this has nothing to do with weight. When you feel your absolute best, you have the most energy, you're focused, you're present, what's going on in your life? What are your anchors, the things that keep you grounded? So when things push you or sway you, you have two feet planted on the ground. For most of my clients, there's some overlap with the anchors. So this might be I need to get eight hours of quality sleep. Or I know I need to keep my water bottle on me so I can hydrate throughout the day. And we might notice indirectly that helps you engage in cravings less because you're less dehydrated and, you know, you're not seeking food as a hydration source also. Another anchor might be, it could be something

Starting point is 00:30:03 like setting boundaries in your life. Like we know that overwhelm and stress lead to comfort seeking. which leads to eating more. So if we don't have boundaries in place, if we're not taking a lunch break or we're having nine hours of back-to-back meetings and then cooking dinner for the whole family for 45 minutes, it's going to be next to impossible

Starting point is 00:30:25 to try to reduce binge eating in that way or just seeking food in the evening. So boundaries might be one of your anchors. It's also very important to think about what verbiage are we using. So if we're going to think of something as a food rule. I don't know about you, but to me, it sounds like a teacher in a classroom, like telling me what I have to do or like my parents saying, like, these are your food rules,

Starting point is 00:30:48 you know? That doesn't feel too good. So what we want to do is find a word, and it might be different for you, but find a word that feels safe. So that might be a flexible framework or structured flexibility, whatever it is, a structure, a framework, a template, whatever. And then now can we look at this template. So maybe we're just saying right off the bat, I'm going to focus on having fiber in every one of my meals and snacks. I'm going to do that for two weeks. Once that feels like a habit, then I'm going to add one extra thing. So now maybe I want half my plate to be vegetables. What that does is it might crowd out something that's a little more higher calorie on your plate. but the focus is not less calories. The focus is adding all of these beautiful dynamic vegetables

Starting point is 00:31:38 that are crowding that out. Now, it's also very important to see when I do these things, how do I feel? Because even if you're losing weight and you feel like crap, I don't want you to be doing whatever you're doing. Something needs to change. When we feel good doing something, we're way more likely to continue doing it. Motivation does not come first. It comes second. So we are motivated to do the things that make us feel good. So if this journey feels like it's a rule or it feels like it's taking you back to this time in your life that didn't feel good, the focus needs to be feeling good. That also might be setting an intention. So maybe when I go out to eat, oh man, every time I go out to a restaurant, I feel bogged down after. I feel full. I have low energy.

Starting point is 00:32:29 I just want to lay down. Okay. So maybe. Maybe. scientifically, we're eating a little bit more than we need to be physiologically in that dinner. But maybe now we just shift that and we say, you know what, I want to go into dinner with the intention of feeling energetic afterward. So maybe when I finish breakfast, I eat to a certain level of satisfaction. So maybe I am about 80% full when I finish breakfast because I know I have to get through the day. So my intention when I go out to dinner is to eat to the same level of fullness that I have when I finished breakfast. And then I can come home and have more energy for the evening. We're shifting the perspective that we're looking at this with. Even though at the end of the day, we are eating

Starting point is 00:33:11 less by doing it, we're just kind of changing our approach and using different words and not focusing on portions and caloric restriction in that way. I also, and maybe this is because I started this journey after I got a series of blood test results that showed that my heart health was not where I wanted my heart health to be and all for my grandparents died of some form of heart disease. But I view it as just like a way I can take care of myself. And when I was in my eating disorder, I was not taking care of myself in that way. And when I was having these really bad heart markers, that's another different way that I wasn't taking care of myself. So I'm viewing this in this moment as learning a different set of tools and a compassionate.

Starting point is 00:33:53 language to take care of myself. And the moment that it doesn't feel like it's taking care of myself anymore, it's no longer what I'm trying to achieve, if that makes sense. One of the biggest things indicators that I'll use to assess if we're nearing that while I'm working with a client is, is there any fear that's coming up? So if there starts to be a fear around if I eat more than X servings of carbs in this meal, I'm scared. The feeling of fear shows us that, you know, something might be up here. So then we, instead of ending the journey altogether, what I'll do in that moment is explore the fear. So sometimes fear is a director, so it kind of tells us where to go. But sometimes we also have to kind of take a look at where is this fear coming from? And what I

Starting point is 00:34:42 notice when we do that is that there might be this thought of, oh my God, well, if I have more than two servings of carbs in this meal, I'm so scared that I won't lose weight. Then we might take that session to explore why that's not true. So we're kind of fact-checking that fear and introducing some more science in there to help calm that fear. And we can kind of do these small check-ins here and there with ourselves to say, where is the fear? Maybe we're writing it down. What do we think is going to happen? And also, if we're engaging in these behaviors because of any type of self-hatred, so I want to lose weight because I don't like myself, right? that's assuming that when we lose the weight, we will miraculously start to like ourselves.

Starting point is 00:35:30 It happens in the reverse. So we need to then maybe stop the intentional weight loss for a second. And maybe we're just focusing on some journal activities to build confidence. I will sometimes stop talking about food with a client for like a month or two months at a time. And we will just focus on that self-esteem, confidence, writing down things that you're proud of that you did that day. finding something that was felt challenging. Maybe you used to dance and you haven't danced in a while. And now you take a dance class and it was really, really scary, but you did it. And you're proud of yourself for it. Those types of things build up confidence and self-esteem. And then when we go into intentional weight loss again after that, it might feel very different because then it's easier to

Starting point is 00:36:14 look at how am I doing this in a self-supportive way versus constantly being bogged down by that self-hatred feeling. You've helped hundreds, maybe thousands of women lose weight. Do you think it's true that if you don't love yourself at a higher weight, you won't love yourself at a lower weight? I think it's nuanced. We can't ignore that there is some validity to some people feeling more confident at a lower weight. Now, there are many people who feel just as confident at a higher weight, lower weight, whatever. Most of what I see comes down to how many voices in our head do we have that we're competing with on a daily basis. What I mean by that is my clients who have rockin self-esteem at any way, they just love themselves no matter what. A lot of times it comes down to how they were

Starting point is 00:37:07 raised and how did the women that they were surrounded by in their childhood talk about themselves and talk about them. And so that just feels. like so ingrained in their brain chemistry, you know, like that's just such a default thought process of like, I'm fabulous. But for those of us who didn't have that, it's going to be a little bit harder. We can't look down on ourselves for saying, like, I want to lose weight because I think it'll make me feel better because you might. You might feel better for sure. But we also can't have that be the only thing that we're seeking. We have to feel like there's things in our life that we're proud of and that we are confident in at any weight regardless of what we're looking like.

Starting point is 00:37:47 It's so hard because I say all the time to my audience, your weight is not your worth. Your weight is not your worth. Society treats women especially, like our weight is our worth. So it's no matter how much you have that narrative, it can be hard to combat when if you look a certain way, you're treated a certain way. One thing I also do want to mention is because of the societal situation that's extremely unfortunate and very frustrating. Sometimes there are things that get in the way, but we have to intentionally focus on them. So one of them being, sometimes it's harder to find clothing that you feel confident in or that looks the way that you like the style that you want if you're in a larger body.

Starting point is 00:38:30 So one of the first things that we also need to do is find a wardrobe that you like. That makes you feel really good. If you're waking up and putting on an outfit that you hate every day, it's going to be really, really hard to engage in these behaviors and try to respect your body when you hate your outfit. And if you're telling yourself, like, when I get to this way, that's when I get to have cute clothes. That's when I get to feel good because you're really, you are reinforcing that notion that you deserve certain things when you're at certain weights versus for being the person that you are. This might be different for anyone, but it might mean that while you are on this journey and you're learning to love yourself at any size, maybe you are doing your makeup differently in the morning. Maybe you're blowing your hair out in the morning because that makes you feel really confident. I'm listing aesthetic things because sometimes there is something to the aesthetic component of it if that's important to you. Maybe it's finding an outfit that you really like in the size that you are currently, not a goal outfit, but an outfit that fits you right now. But then we also have the non-aesthetic things that also are helping us build confidence. But because weight loss is an aesthetic thing and a lot of people who want to lose

Starting point is 00:39:37 weight are prioritizing that as one of their priorities. We might need to find ways to help you feel good in your body before that weight actually changes if that's something that you're pursuing. One of the first things that I noticed was how much easier hiking up hills felt like. And one of my life mantras is your body is for a living, not looking. And I do also think in addition to the aesthetic thing, which I think you're very mindful in not making people feel shame about that. Because I do think a lot of the like healthy weight loss conversation can make people feel

Starting point is 00:40:06 shame about anything to do with looks. But in addition to that, I do think noticing moments in which you're living in your body in a slightly different way can be really helpful. I remember when I had gained some weight after college and it was a weight that was much higher than I was used to sitting in. And it just felt not me. It just didn't feel like I was myself, basically. And what was interesting was when I started a strength training journey around that time, I started, folks. I started, focusing on how much I was progressing in the gym. And that hour in the gym started to help me feel strong physically and mentally. And what's interesting was my weight didn't change. I actually gained a little bit weight when I was doing that. But I felt more confident in that

Starting point is 00:40:55 body that was the exact same size because there were other markers that were contributing to my confidence. Yeah. So that having, and it could be strength training for you, it could be something else, but having something like that that you're pursuing is really important. Strength training is really nice because you could be like I lifted 50 pounds last week and now I'm lifting 55. Like there's the concrete numbers of strength training I found really helpful because you know you're making progress as you're seeing the weights that you're lifting go up. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline

Starting point is 00:41:40 comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common household cleaners. Branch basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free, and made safe certified,

Starting point is 00:42:12 meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals. And best of all, you literally use one product, but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are.

Starting point is 00:42:34 Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them.

Starting point is 00:42:56 So I'm protecting them too. Branch Basics is now available at Target, Target.com, Amazon, and branchbasics.com, so it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branchbasics.com and use code Liz Moody. All right. Speaking of hormones, lots and lots of questions about perimenopause and menopause.

Starting point is 00:43:32 One listener wrote, I am 42 and in perimenopause, I cannot get rid of my belly pooch and it is getting me down. What can people do if they are experiencing perimenopause, if they are postmenopausal, and that's impacting their weight loss journey? This is so common. And it's so real, by the way, because for so long, I think that, you know, there were certain communities, whether it was medical or otherwise, that were like, no, they're. This is just nothing, it's not real.

Starting point is 00:43:59 Yeah, no. You're anxious, you're tired. You have too many kids that's going on. There are very real hormonal shifts that are happening around this time. So we cannot ignore that. And it will be harder. It's not impossible, but it will be harder. So the first thing is we have to introduce patients and grace here

Starting point is 00:44:17 because it's not going to be the exact same way that it was when you were 25. For example, we have a drop in estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. own. And those things are impacting our ability to lose weight, but also where we're storing our body fat. And that's, I think, where a lot of this frustration around the belly pooch thing comes in because it's like, maybe I'm the exact same weight, but my body's looking so differently. So, for example, estrogen comes down. Now, estrogen gives us some energy, so we might have more fatigue when estrogen drops. It also helps us preserve muscle mass. and we know that muscle mass is one of the biggest contributors to our resting metabolic rate.

Starting point is 00:45:01 The drop in testosterone is also, of course, going to impact our ability to maintain and build muscle at this time. Starting age 30, we lose about 8% of our muscle mass every decade. And that can translate into a decrease in our metabolic rate of 50 to 100 calories per decade. So if you're thinking 30 to 60 to 70, that's a huge difference. if we're not intentionally focusing on building and maintaining muscle mass. So in this population, strength training is going to be a non-negotiable. This is something where, you know, maybe in other populations we'll start with walking and be a little bit gentler. If someone's entering perimenopause, strength training is going to be essential.

Starting point is 00:45:46 Protein is also going to be important. So protein needs go up. Typically, if I have a client, I'm maybe thinking about protein as like 0.8. grams per pound. We want to focus on like 25 to 30 grams per meal. If someone is in this season of their life, we might want to go up to 0.9, potentially one gram per pound of gold body weight. Protein's going to be essential. The strength training is also going to be essential. And when I say strength training, I mean really focusing on pushing yourself in the gym. So that means like your last two to three reps of each set, you're really struggling. You're kind of like really pushing through there.

Starting point is 00:46:22 This is something I learned we did a science of exercise podcast and I didn't understand before that that if you're not unsure whether you'll kind of be able to do a few more reps at the end, you're not actually getting to the point where you're breaking down your muscle in order to rebuild it. I can link that episode of people want to listen to it, but it completely changed the way that I strength train. I'm not just like going to be like, okay, if I do eight reps at this weight, I'm like waiting for that almost like shaky feeling in my muscles at the end. And like you said before, tracking the weight that you're using is really helpful because we want to incremental. increase that. Estrogen also determines where we're distributing our fat. So for example, most women, when they're younger, they have more fat in their hips and their thighs. And a lot of times that's, you know, because of estrogen. It's also genetics. When we have a drop in estrogen, that shifts to our belly and our visceral organs. Is this way dudes have more belly fat because they have less estrogen? It can be because of the hormonal shifts. It's changing where you're pushing that body fat. Interesting. It's also going to reduce our insulin sensitivity.

Starting point is 00:47:22 which then also shifts toward belly fat storage and decrease in muscle mass. Okay. So all of these things are happening. We also have a drop in progesterone, which is like our calming hormone. So then we might have more stress. We might have more overwhelmed feeling and that might drive us toward more cravings or even lower non-exercise activity as well. One thing that can be really helpful here is even like some magnesium glistenate,

Starting point is 00:47:50 something that's very like soothing and calming. One thing also is that estrogen buffers cortisol. So when we have a drop in estrogen, we also have more propensity for cortisol dysregulation. Now, I am not a medical doctor. I cannot make any recommendation like this. It's out of my scope, but I will say based on my client experience, I have seen that my clients who are considering a hormone replacement therapy journey have some, you know, more success with the weight loss piece of this. Again, always speak to your doctor about this. I will say strength training, protein.

Starting point is 00:48:25 Even introducing something like creatine that's going to help you build more muscle mass or help you push harder in the gym can be helpful here too. And because we just have a lower metabolic rate around that time, if we do have less muscle mass, we just have less wiggle room. We might just have to be a little bit more intentional than we were in our 20s about, am I grabbing bites between meals, or can I get some extra steps here and there? or do I need to get a walking pad to really, you know, bump my steps up a little bit more. I don't want you to go super hard.

Starting point is 00:48:54 We're not just like throwing in interval training in there and dropping our calories to 800 a day. But take a look at, are there things that are low-hanging fruit that I can focus on that can help a general weight loss journey? And then are there things that maybe I can talk about with my doctor or strength training that can help me hormonally and blood sugar-wise as well? I've read, I think this is for perimenopausal and menopausal women, but it might be just for women generally that doing certain types of cardio can be really bad for weight loss. Like running, I think, like running for a long time versus like more sprint cardio. Do you know anything about that? So one thing that I find, it's not with everyone, but it is with most of my clients that I see that when it comes to running or intense cardio, especially for longer duration. I see that it drives appetite up disproportionately to the amount of calories that you're actually

Starting point is 00:49:50 burning. So, for example, we might notice that while you're running, you know, let's throwing out a number there, maybe you're burning like 250 calories on this run. But then after you get back, you end up eating could be 250, 300, 400, 400 calories back after your run because your appetite is so much higher. I see this also sometimes with really intense strength training too, especially if we don't have like a cool down or wind down period after working out. Our cortisol, our stress hormone, blood sugar, blood pressure, all this stuff is being impacted by the workout. So of course our

Starting point is 00:50:32 stress hormone is going up. We're stressing out the body on purpose. Now, the problem is sometimes this isn't everyone. I know this was true for myself on my journey. With intense, exercise. If we come home and our stress hormones are higher and you are just someone who is more likely to crave food when you're feeling stressed and you need to kind of like soothe and calm down, I find that that sometimes can be where binges happen or sometimes where we feel like we're either eating past fullness or we're like, I can't figure out when I'm full. Yeah, I almost sometimes feel like I'm like in a state of emergency and then I'm I overeat to calm the emergency signals in my body.

Starting point is 00:51:16 Yeah. So it's so, so common. One thing I will always make sure someone's doing is eating before they work out. So not eating before you work out can definitely make that harder afterward. So even just having something small but quick carbs. So there's a time and a place for everything. I know we always talk about fiber-filled carbs. If you're right about to go into running or strength training, we want those carbs to be used

Starting point is 00:51:41 pretty immediately. So maybe we're doing something like a banana or a granola bar or some oatmeal or something that's kind of like very carbly. We want to have that right before we go into the workout. If you're waking up at the crack of dawn and you're like, I can't eat a thing. Sometimes like coconut water can be nice because it's just naturally high in sugar and electrolytes. I do my coias before my morning workouts. Something quick. Yeah, it's really nice. Yeah. And then after your workout, the drive for food can drop a little bit, but it can still be there. So if this is happening to you, one thing that I like to do is always implement a cool down after your workout. This could be ideally at the gym when you don't have access to the food. It's harder when you get home and you want to go to the kitchen. But

Starting point is 00:52:24 let's say you're, you just finish your workout and now we're doing some stretching or mobility work. And maybe when we're stretching, we're really focusing on our breath. So maybe we're doing some box breathing or some 4-7-8 breathing while you're stretching. That can help to kind of calm the body, remind your body and your brain like, okay, workouts over. We're entering our life again. Everything's cool. We're safe. That can be very beneficial. The other thing that can be helpful is having a planned snack or meal for when you get home. It's still hard to this day, and this is my job, getting home from an intense workout and just like opening this cabinet, that cabinet, the fridge, it's so easy to just keep grabbing stuff. So if you know when I come home,

Starting point is 00:53:08 I have this meal ready to go, either in my head it's planned or it's already, you know, set for me in the fridge, that can be also really helpful. And then we finish that. We can remind also your brain. I know that I had a nutrient dense meal. I had my protein in there. I had my carbs. I had my fats, my veggies. I'm good. So if I still have the drive for food, can I differentiate? Is it the physical hunger? Is it the mental hunger? And can I just go do something else for like 20, 30 minutes? If I still want the food, I can come back and have it later. In your mind, are there better or worse types of workouts for weight loss? My first note is let's track how you're feeling after the workout. If you feel like you are someone where running or intense exercise leads you to have, you know,

Starting point is 00:53:56 a very, very large appetite afterward, maybe in the beginning, stages of your weight loss journey, we're pulling back on those things. If you would have asked me this two years ago, I would have had a very, very different answer because I would have said, you know, we really need to build muscle. We're going to do some intense strength training. And then that's going to help your weight loss journey. However, I've found that if we are not losing weight in the beginning stages of the weight loss journey, motivation dips, self-esteem drops. We start to get really frustrated. This is what I love about you, by the way. There's the science and what the research shows and all of that, but you have that, which you understand

Starting point is 00:54:30 incredibly well, and I love that you bring that to the table, and you couple that with all of this incredible work you do with clients. You see in real life what results people are getting, what they're running into. It makes your perspective so different. And again, everyone's journey is different, but these are really common things that we see. Like, we're all human. There's that saying, like, on social media, like, I didn't realize how ununique I was. Like, we're all so similar. Yeah. So in the beginning stages, I really just like to focus on walking. So this might just be, like seeing where you're at in steps and then going up by like a thousand or two thousand steps a day. 1,000 steps is about like a 10 minute walk.

Starting point is 00:55:10 So if you can get an extra 10 minute walk or two five minute walks, let's just go up on steps to start out. One note about that is we're looking at average steps for the week. So if you have a day where you are in the car running errands with your kids all day long and you can't get any steps in, don't get down on yourself. If there's a weekend day where you can go meet a friend for an hour long walk, that'll get your whole week's steps up. So don't worry about that. Now, the second thing is when it comes to either strength or programmed exercise

Starting point is 00:55:39 and you're kind of at the point where you're ready to incorporate this in your journey for either weight loss or heart health or whatever reason that you're incorporating it, the best exercise is the one that you're going to do consistently. I had a client who loved pole dancing. It was like her favorite thing. She was like, I can't run. I can't like hike. I don't like any of that stuff.

Starting point is 00:55:57 But when I do that, I feel like my heart rate goes up. I'm really working on my cardio fitness, and that's the thing that I love doing. That was her workout class. If you love strength training, then that's your thing. I will say the one caveat with strength is I really do like people to incorporate it at least one to two times a week. So we have to find a way to make it something that you like. If there's a strength class that you can do, not like orange theory or something that

Starting point is 00:56:26 just includes weights that's more interval focused, but something that's like a real like strength focus class where you're lifting heavy for like eight to 15 reps. You're actually resting in between sets. Maybe it's that you hate strength training, but you find a friend that you do it with. I think going to front, especially because you're always like resting between sets. So it's such good chit chat time, especially if you're an introvert. If you have to sit me across from somebody at dinner for two hours, I get a little nervous. But like chit chatting between sets is my ideal.

Starting point is 00:56:53 I'll go to the gym with my sister or I'll save my favorite podcast. This is Temptation Bundling. and you only listen to the podcast that you really want to listen to when you're at the gym or when you're doing whatever have you. 100%. So you're listening to the Liz Moody podcast while you're doing your string training. You kind of have to find the thing that you are actually going to do and you can't, you can't hate whatever you're doing because you're not going to do it. I've heard chatter online that Orange Theory raises cortisol levels to the point where it makes weight loss harder, not easier. Is there truth to that? I will say, I have had one client that I can remember that was able to. to continue their weight loss journey while doing Orange Theory.

Starting point is 00:57:32 It is my least favorite exercise class that exists. Wait, tell me why. What's going on there? Every single one of my clients who does Orange Theory, they are starving for the whole rest of the day. There's also a big disconnect that I find that it's because the instructor is kind of like pushing, pushing the whole time. There's just a level of like disconnect that you're having with your body and trying to figure

Starting point is 00:57:56 out like, when do, when does my body like to rest? Like, how can I actually push myself on my own? And then a lot of times people think that their strength training, but it's really like a muscular endurance, like a cardio for your muscle, not, we're not progressively overloading in an orange theory class. It's really, really hard, at least just from anecdotal experiences from my clients. I will almost always have them hold off on the Orange Theory or at least just come down to like one or two days a week. and then we will always just journal how was your hunger and fullness on that day? How was your stress level? How was your sleep?

Starting point is 00:58:30 And there's just a big correlation with poor sleep. Most people are also going at like a four or five a. And then I'd honestly rather them get an extra hour and a half of sleep and then get 30 minute walk in in the morning. This is a question I hear from people all of the time. Is it better to wake up early and get the workout in and get a little bit less sleep? Or is it better to get a little bit more sleep and not get your workout in? Almost always, I see it's better to get the extra sleep. And I will usually try to have a compromise.

Starting point is 00:59:01 So, for example, if someone's waking up an hour and a half to two hours earlier than they need to because of this workout class, what we will do is we will have them sleep an extra hour and then maybe go for a 30-minute walk. Or we say if you're working out five days a week and you're not getting sleep all of those times, maybe we cut that type of workout down to, like two or three days a week, and then we walk the other days. Would you say that if you're not getting quality sleep, that could be a huge thing that's getting in the way of your weight loss journey? 100%. If you are noticing yourself, stress eating, emotional eating, the first question I will ask is, how was your sleep the night before? When we don't get enough sleep, we have, our cortisol is dysregulated. So again, like we said before, our comfort-seeking behaviors

Starting point is 00:59:48 go up. When we're not getting enough sleep, our mood is down. So we might be also seeking dopamine through food. If this is happening on a prolonged basis and we have, you know, chronically elevated cortisol, that's where we can also see issues with insulin sensitivity, you know, going down. So more insulin resistance and that body fat shifting toward the belly area. So even at the same weight, we are shifting our body composition. I will also say this kind of of goes with the exercise piece of things. When you're actively exercising, so you're tearing the muscle apart so that it can rebuild, the actual beneficial effect of the exercise, most of it is happening in the recovery period. So if you are such a workout queen, like your workouts are so

Starting point is 01:00:37 important to you, but you're not sleeping, you're not actually getting out of your workout what you think you are. So we need to figure out how can we maximize both, because you're not, just like protein is essential for muscle growth, your sleep's going to be essential, too. When we don't have enough sleep, leptin, our fullness hormone, goes down and grelin, our hunger hormone, goes up. So we actually aren't as able to tap into those, you know, intuitive hunger fullness cues because we actually are being driven to eat more than our body needs because our hormones are out of whack. The other thing, too, is we have more propensity for carbs because carbs are giving us quick energy. So if we can't get enough sleep, but we still have to get through all these meetings and care for our kids and do all the things we have to do, we're going to keep eating carbs throughout the day to keep us awake.

Starting point is 01:01:31 I see this with grad students, people who work late, lawyers, like people who work long hours. No, like, I love this as a scientific explanation for why I crave a bagel after nights that I haven't slept well. Yeah. That's so interesting. Okay. The best workout is the one that you'll actually do. But anecdotally, you've worked with all these clients, what are the top workouts that the successful ones have in common? I would say walking, hands down.

Starting point is 01:01:56 So walking would be getting your steps in, increasing your step count for sure. Some type of strength training, depending on where you are right now, starting with one, going up to like two, three, four strength workouts a week. I would say two to three is okay. Really, really simple. Like my ideal recommendation for someone would be getting like 8 to 10,000 steps a day and then strength training two to three times a week, really pushing yourself progressive overload. And then, you know, getting one to two days of cardio in for heart health. I saw that you're an Evala partner. I am not, but I had a client come to me that she was using it. And based on her recommendation and what she was saying about it, and this is like not sponsored at all, I have. I started recommending it to all my other clients. Oh. Because it's like stretching and mobility and kind of like the wind down period, shorter workouts. So, you know, sometimes it's like thinking about a 45 to 60 minute workout when you have a whole life.

Starting point is 01:02:55 Oh, it's impossible. Yeah. Also, Evelow, which they didn't sponsor me saying this either, they have that cool down period at the end of every single workout. So you are bringing your body into a state of low stress restoration cortisol calm. If you do want to try it and you're listening to use code Liz Moody, you'll get to try it versus. certain amount of time for free. But yeah, I love them. They're amazing. What about Pilates? So I've come around on Pilates a little bit, I do have to say, because I have noticed with people, they are able to do a workout without having a ton of, like, stress activation like they would

Starting point is 01:03:28 in a higher intensity workout. It's not my favorite, if that's your only strength workout long term. But it count as like a strength workout. I would put it in the resistance training category. And Nikki, you're a personal trader too, right? So this isn't like, like just your RD self-weighing and all of this. Like you are a certified personal trainer as well. Okay. If I have a client who notices that workouts are a trigger for eating more or feeling like they can't access their fullness cues and we do want to kind of come down on them and focus mostly

Starting point is 01:03:57 on walking. A transition that we might take is doing some walking and then maybe adding in Pilates as some resistance training. And then we'll get into some strength training. I have had people who are like, I love Pilates and I want to keep it in. So maybe we do like one to two, one to three days of Pilates and then one to two heavier strength days incorporated in to really work on that muscle growth. But you can't do Pilates four times a week and say that that's your strength training. People will have varying answers on this. I personally don't. In my opinion, it's not enough stimulus on the muscle in terms of actual load.

Starting point is 01:04:34 You're doing like 20, 25 reps of something. So it is focusing a lot on endurance. I do really want to see like one to two days. of really heavy load to stimulate, you know, that muscle synthesis, for sure. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to 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

Starting point is 01:05:17 every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. 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. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements.

Starting point is 01:05:48 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, mitochondure, 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

Starting point is 01:06:13 entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitochondria increased 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 urolithin A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, Eurolithine, 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 you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your

Starting point is 01:06:57 Ritopure Gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. 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 am 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 signals, 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

Starting point is 01:07:40 of 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.

Starting point is 01:08:20 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. 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, 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 glower. 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

Starting point is 01:09:00 moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One Skin has four peer reviewed clinical studies and 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 a 15.5.com. percent off at oneskin.co with code 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

Starting point is 01:09:42 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 get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great, that's sorted.

Starting point is 01:10:08 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. 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

Starting point is 01:10:36 restaurant. We're talking like chicken milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes. 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.

Starting point is 01:11:12 That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. meals. A lot of people said that counting calories brought them back to an ED frame of mind. Can you lose weight without counting calories? Totally. So if I have a client, this happens very frequently, by the way, if I have a client who comes to me and they're like, listen, I have a history with calorie counting, I don't want to touch it. Like, I don't want to talk about it. We're not mentioning calories. Great. So what we do is we still want to track awareness that's coming in, but we're

Starting point is 01:11:56 not doing it from a caloric or any number standpoint. We are looking at behavioral patterns. We're almost like Jane Goodall, like evaluating the chimpanzees. Like we're kind of like in the woods, like what are the behaviors of all these animals? We are getting so curious about like, what do I do? Like, what do I do on a daily basis? Like you said, we're so distracted. We have no idea what we do. So what we'll start out with is we just want to see what your patterns are. We don't know what we need to change if we don't even know what's happening. So we might start with one to two weeks. Usually I'll start with two weeks of you're not intentionally changing a thing.

Starting point is 01:12:38 All we're doing is we're writing down everything that's coming into your body and what time and how much. I have had clients who we don't write down portions because that also feels triggering and that's so valid. So for someone who if you're listening and that feels triggering to even write down your portions, let's not do that. So let's just write down like what time am I eating? When are my meals? We might see that maybe you're skipping breakfast and then maybe we're having something at, you know, we're having lunch at one and then we're noticing that we're eating at three, four, four, 30, and five. Now we can see, okay, what happens if we have breakfast? Do we notice that we have less of those cravings in, you know, a very frequent basis in the afternoon? We're not looking at any numbers. We're not even looking at portions. We're just seeing all. We're just seeing all. We're just seeing. Are there behaviors that are coming in where I'm eating outside of meal times or I'm not having regular meal times? It helps with blood sugar regulation. It helps with stress hormones. It also just helps with meal satisfaction.

Starting point is 01:13:39 So when we sit down at the table and we're engaging in the meal and we're very present with that meal, we like it more. We also are more satisfied. We also might notice how hungry am I and how full am I. So if every time you're having dinner or every time you're going out to eat, you notice that you're kind of stuffed, like you feel like pressure in your belly and you have to unbutton your pants. If that's happening, then maybe that's a place that we start. So maybe we see, okay, is there a way I can maybe pause halfway through the meal, assess where am I at?

Starting point is 01:14:13 I use like a hunger fullness scale. So zero to 10, five being neutral, zero being I'm ravenous, 10 being I'm so stuffed. where are we at from five to ten on fullness, halfway through the meal, three quarters of the way through the meal. Maybe we've never done this before and we just put our fork down and kind of like sit and hang out for a little bit and then take another bite if we're hungry still. So there's all of these different behaviors that, you know, on the back end, we're kind of hiding this from our brain, but they are indirectly helping us eat less. That's so not even our focus. We're just looking at what are my behaviors, how do I shift my behaviors, and then that can also really help with weight loss.

Starting point is 01:14:53 And can you do that the whole way down, like never count a calorie in the entire journey? Sometimes that's all I do with clients. Like that's all we need to do. Sometimes when we start to get down to the nitty gritty, especially I'll say like the last five, 10 pounds, we really are going to get specific with it. And so in this sense, then maybe we really do, and maybe even like 20 pounds, we do need to start to look at portions. But we have to reframe it. So we have to say, like, there is the only rule with your food journal is judgment is not allowed in the journal. It's a judgment free zone.

Starting point is 01:15:30 If judgment enters the journal, then we either stop journaling or we have to reflect on it afterward and get curious with that voice in our head. So why is this random voice in my head saying that because I ate a cup and a half, of rice instead of a half a cup of rice. Now I'm a failure and a bad person because that's, that's just not true. So we have to now like sit down with that voice, listen to it, understand where it's coming from, it's trying to help. It wants you to lose weight and it thinks that this is helpful. But we have to bring compassion into this journey. The biggest, biggest barrier that I see with weight loss in terms of, especially if there's a day that you like feel like you deviated is letting that one moment spiral.

Starting point is 01:16:14 into another two, three meals, another two, three days or weeks or months of doing that same thing because you feel like you failed. Almost always one meal, not going to make a difference. Do you find the trick, this is what you did with me when I was completely noncompliant for tracking meals or calories or anything like that, but you were like, okay, so you're going to have like your protein as your fist and like kind of sizing out what your portion should be without out having to count things specifically or be that in the weeds about it? Do you think that's helpful for people who have struggled with EDs in the past? I think it can be.

Starting point is 01:16:49 So my first recommendation would be to start with the pattern recognition. If you feel like you are ready to kind of look at, all right, like, how many portions am I having? Again, first thing, we're not saying off the bat, I need to have X amount of portions. We're just saying, how many am I having? What's coming in? So an easy way to do that is you can use, like, cut measurements. If you don't want to do that, you can also just use like your fist or your palm. So we can say like one fist is usually about a cup.

Starting point is 01:17:18 And we're just saying like how many fist sizes or half fist sizes am I having of a carb or vegetables for proteins, like how many palm sizes am I having. Then what we can do without even thinking about servings or calories is look at if I'm maintaining my weight, it means I'm eating exactly the amount that my body needs. So in order for me to lose weight, if I don't want to think, about calories or, you know, specifics in terms of portions. Maybe I see, oh, interesting, I have about two fists of rice with my dinner bowl. So let me try to have one fist of rice and then add some extra veggies to keep me a little bit more satiated. Just those small shifts can also make a

Starting point is 01:18:02 difference, especially fats too. I'm Italian. So this is like very, like you're just tossing olive oil in the pan and sauteing some veggies. Let me just measure how much olive oil I'm using. I'm not even going to have a target. I just want to see how much is coming in. Then we take that number and then we drop it down. And then that can help slowly reduce intake over time. Do weighted vests help with weight loss? It's going to increase the amount of energy that you're expending on that walk because it's making it harder. So yeah, you'll probably burn a couple extra calories on that walk. But I don't think it's going to replace any of the other food choices that you're going to make. It actually can be really beneficial, though, for osteopenia.

Starting point is 01:18:41 That's why I wear it. Yeah. Yeah, I found out I had osteopenia, which I was, like, appalled by, but that's why I wear it. Yeah. So just even, like, we stress out the muscle in order to have that adapt and grow, we can stress out the bone to have that adapt and grow. Is diet soda better for weight loss? This will really depend on what are you doing now.

Starting point is 01:18:59 So, for example, if someone's having two cans of Coke a day or ginger ale or Sprite, whatever you're having. Dr. Pepper was always my thing. So if you're having two cans of soda a day, full sugar soda, you're getting per can, you're getting an extra 40 grams of sugar and you're getting an extra 140 calories. So right there, that's like 280 calories. It takes 250 calories deficit per day to lose about a half a pound a week. So right there, if we're taking your two cans of Coke and then we're shifting them to diet Coke, which doesn't have the sugar, that shift right there with no other changes, you could lose like a half a pound a week. If you're having full sugar,

Starting point is 01:19:38 like regular soda, switching to diet is one of the first things that I would do, 100%. You know in the health community, though, people are like, diet soda is like a cigarette. Totally. I wouldn't be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's have like two Diet Coke a day till the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as a bridge, for sure. I want to go probably Coke to Diet Coke. Then I'll have you maybe dilute your Diet Coke. We'll do half a can of Diet Coke, half a can of Seltzer, and then we'll come down on the amount of that that we're having. The one thing I will say, because the diet soda, it's still kind of hyping up your sweet palate, basically. So now when you have something like a plate of berries, it doesn't taste that sweet because you're used to your diet Coke. So it is

Starting point is 01:20:19 something that I do definitely want to decrease down the line. We also don't know with aspartame, like what these long-term effects are. So I really wouldn't want to include it long-term, but I would never tell someone who's having Coke to, like, not switch to Diet Coke if they're on a weight loss, like, for sure, have that be the next step that you're doing. Now, depending on the sweetener, aspiratame hasn't been shown to do this as much, but saccharin and sucralose, so the brand names that you might know is sucralose is Splenda, saccharin low. Those can impact your gut microbiome.

Starting point is 01:20:54 So, and a lot of people will notice this immediately, like some people have sucralose. and they get like diarrhea. Some people don't feel a difference at all. So those are the things that I kind of might want to decrease in your diet, just from like an overall health standpoint and insulin response. But I will say that monk fruit and stevia are really gentle on the gut, really good long term. So if you do want something that is a sugar alternative and you wanted to have something

Starting point is 01:21:25 that had stevia or monk fruit go for that. But just from like a power, palate standpoint, I will have people just kind of trial reducing even the amount of those artificial sweeteners that you're having because it just increases your drive for sweet. So you might just be more inclined to grab that dessert or to grab that snack because you're so used to having this really sweet coffee or this sweet soda. Again, everything is relative. So I don't want someone who's not drinking any soda, just pick up a Diet Coke.

Starting point is 01:21:56 That would never be my recommendation. But if you are drinking regular soda, we know without a doubt hands down that 40 grams of sugar that's flooding into your bloodstream right away is causing massive problems. It's definitely going to cause weight gain as well. So we know for certain that that's an issue. So I will right off the bat want to do anything I can to help you crowd that out of your diet with something else. And if Diet Coke is the thing to help you do that, then that's the next place that I'll go. But, okay, so you mentioned these, like, Stevie and Monk fruit. I do one Poppy a day. Is

Starting point is 01:22:35 Ollie Poppy Poppy even better than Diet Coke? Totally. Yeah. Okay. I will say that my clients who are doing, if they come to me and they're having, like, regular Coke or something, like, sometimes they, it's, like not sweet enough for them. So they will go to the Diet Coke. But some people will go right to, like, poppy or olipop. People love it. It has prebiotic, you know. I think they're self-limiting because I can only have one can a day lest I get too farty. I was going to say that's the other, that's the only other piece. And also if you do have like any type of altered microbiome, like something like CBO or you just have like a large amount of bacteria in the gut that's causing issues, that amount of prebiotic fiber at once can be really uncomfortable. So just keep that in mind. If it's uncomforty, like,

Starting point is 01:23:21 notice that, listen to your body. If that's the case, then maybe we're doing something that's like no prebiotics and not carbonated or something like that. My favorite favorite thing is getting a good flavored vinegar and then putting that in sparkling water. So there's like a company called Sideyard Shrubs, I think, that's in from Ohio, but you can order them online and order them online. And they're like fermented apple cider vinegar with farm flavors like plum and stuff like that. You put that in sparkling water and it's so good. I love that also because if you, are even doing that in like a little bit of water, like before a meal, you're getting that apple cider vinegar, beneficial impact on your blood sugar. Are there better or worse types of

Starting point is 01:24:00 protein powder for weight loss? Most are going to be good. I love a way protein isolate. It's just like the best for muscle protein synthesis. Even in someone who's lactose intolerant, it's very well tolerated because it's just the isolated protein. There's no lactose in it. I find that it also is very satisfying in terms of, you know, a type of protein. If you are, you know, someone who doesn't eat way, you can do like a pea protein or something. But I will say that I have seen issues if a client's wearing like a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, I've had seen issues with certain types of protein powders that are higher carb. There's some protein powders that have like a banana powder or like a fruit powder in it. If you look at the back, you could just see like

Starting point is 01:24:45 how many carbs are in this. A white protein isolate will be like 20 grams of straight protein, which is why I like it. If you're using a protein powder that has, you know, like added fruits or it's like, you know, just also keep in mind, is it a meal replacement? Sometimes that's the case too. I have noticed that someone was trying to lose weight and they were, you know, making a smoothie with a protein powder that happened to have all that extra stuff in it. And then we're adding fruit into the smoothie. And so we notice an issue with blood sugar was spiking. And then also calories were just higher than she wanted them to be. So we just switched to a plane. you know, weight protein powder. Are you a fan of intermittent fasting for weight loss? No, not particularly.

Starting point is 01:25:25 I just have never really seen it to be beneficial, particularly in women. When we skip breakfast, our body still needs energy for the day. So we still need glucose because our brain, our body runs on glucose. But now we're not getting it in our diet. So our body has all of these glycogen stores in our liver and in our muscles. And it's like, oh, okay, we're not getting it. And it's like, oh, okay, we're not getting any food, we kind of have to release this glycogen on our own and make our own food, basically. The hormone that tells your body to do that is cortisol. So now what's happening is you're having a spike in cortisol that's kind of like feeding your body, basically. You might also be drinking coffee on an empty stomach too. So now it's a stimulant. So that's kind

Starting point is 01:26:11 of amplifying it. Coffee is also an appetite suppressant. So now not only did you not have breakfast, but cortisol and caffeine are blunting your appetite. So you think you're chilling. You think you're good. It's like 11 a.m. 12 p.m. You're like, I'm good. I'm fine. One p.m. rolls around. Maybe you're having like a decent size lunch and you still think you're okay. But now maybe you're snacking throughout the whole afternoon. And then maybe you're stressed so much that now you're crashing. And there's usually like an energy dip around like two to three p.m. And then maybe dinner rolls around and you feel like all bets are off at dinner. I don't even care. after dinner, I find myself munching again until like 9 p.m. If any of those things are happening to you

Starting point is 01:26:53 and you're skipping breakfast intentionally or unintentionally, whether it's in the context of intermittent fasting or not, I would encourage you to just start having a couple bites of something with protein and fiber with your coffee. If you're really averse to it, you can try to make like a blended coffee, throw some protein powder in your coffee or something. I had a client who was doing some protein powder in her coffee, like a half a scoop and two bites of a piece. And two bites of a Like that's where we started and already started to feel better. So we just want to get your body some of that extra nutrition. We want to give your body the glucose from the carb or the fiber.

Starting point is 01:27:27 And then we want to give your body the protein that helps to kind of stabilize and level that out all before or with you're having the stimulant, which is your coffee. I heard this from a surprising amount of people who felt like there was enough research that showed that sustained weight loss is a myth. And that essentially if you lose weight, you're just going to gain it back anyway. So they were like, why even bother? So this is a very common thing that has been like circulated in the past, I want to say maybe like three to five years by people who are really anti-intentional weight loss. And of course, that would be disheartening because if it's impossible to sustain the weight loss, then why are we going to do it to ourselves?

Starting point is 01:28:12 Now, that data is based on old studies. first of all, they were very small studies. And second of all, they were looking at fad or extreme diets that were like short-term or extreme caloric restriction or removing like complete food groups. And none of that's going to be sustainable. So of course people weren't able to sustain that weight loss. Now, there's something called the National Weight Control Registry that follows over 10,000 people who are able to sustain at least 30 pounds of weight loss for over a year. And it looks at like, what are these people doing and how are they able to do this? On average, the participants in the registry were able to maintain an average of 70 pounds of weight loss for five and a half years.

Starting point is 01:28:56 This tells us that it is possible. We just have to do it in a way that's small, incremental lifestyle changes that are becoming habits over time. What's interesting is that among all of those participants, almost all of those participants, almost all of them ate breakfast, almost all of them either intentionally exercised or had some movement on a daily basis. Almost all of them just watched less TV than the average American, which I thought was really interesting. Almost all of them monitored their weight on a weekly basis. But if that's something that feels really difficult for you, I like to even just include like a reflection. So a self-reflection at the end of your day or at the end of your week and seeing what felt really good today.

Starting point is 01:29:42 what didn't feel so good today, what do I want to continue to do tomorrow, and what do I want to do differently tomorrow? It's all about just kind of like checking in with yourself. It's like if you don't ever open your credit card statement or your bank account, which like sometimes we go through periods of that. But if you never open it up, you don't know what's going on. Now, when we're thinking about small incremental changes over time, it feels really overwhelming because there's some people who are like, am I going to have to do this forever? Like, I don't want to have to think about this all the time. So there's a concept called conscious competence and unconscious competence. So basically it pertains to a skill or activity that you learn how to do.

Starting point is 01:30:21 So it's like driving a car. When you're a teenager and you have your permit, you're gripping the steering wheel, you're terrified, you're looking in every mirror, you're looking at every car on the road, you're looking at the lines on the road, and you're just trying to get by, okay? Now, you might be driving for 10 years. You're doing all those things. you just don't even know you're doing them. So conscious competence is you're consciously doing this skill.

Starting point is 01:30:47 Then you do it enough and you get to the point of unconscious competence where you're still doing the skill. You just don't clock that you're doing it and it's all happening behind the scenes. That's my goal with my clients who are losing weight. So we want to do one or two goals every week or every two weeks and that's it. I have a client who comes to me and is like they're so motivated. like they are high achievers, they're perfectionists, they're so ready. And they're like, no, no, no, I'm good. I could do like four or five goals going into the next one to two weeks. I have now gotten

Starting point is 01:31:21 to the point where I will not let them do that. Because by week three or four, almost every single time, they're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm burnt out. I'm over it. So we are doing one or two small goals. It could be the breakfast. It could be not grazing. So just not eating outside of your three to four or five meal events for the day. It could be pausing. halfway through the meal and noticing what your fullness level is, whatever your goal or intention is for that next week, that's it. That's all we're focusing on. Once that becomes really doable and it feels like, oh, okay, second nature, I'm getting this. Then we add the next thing. Once you reach the point of unconscious competence, you're layering in other things. And that's why it takes longer. So it might be

Starting point is 01:32:04 maybe six months instead of two months or it might be a year instead of four months. But when something switches to the unconscious competence category, you're no longer like white knuckling it thinking about it every single day. That is so heartening. Are there any other little hurdles that you notice with a lot of your clients or just like little tricks that you could share as people are honing in on what their healthy weight loss journey looks like? Convenience is one of the most important things for my clients. They have busy jobs, busy families. We don't want to be cooking for 45 minutes. It's just, and it's not my thing either. Like my, you'll see my Instagram pages is really not a lot of recipes, and if there is, it takes five minutes. Like, I can't cook. So what we want to do

Starting point is 01:32:45 is have things that are really, really quick, easy, and convenient. Because if it's going to get hard and then you're going to order Thai food, then what's the point? And not to say that we can't have Thai food on a weight loss journey because you can. But we want to know that you can get home from work and throw something together in like 10 minutes. So we're going to use the freezer. We're going to use like steamer bags of veggies, stuff that you can cook quick, easy. We're going to maybe microwave a sweet potato, like throw that in the microwave. We're going to maybe get some egg white bites from Costco or we're going to make our own and keep them in the freezer, like in a muffin tin. Maybe we're grabbing a rotisserie chicken. Can we have stuff that's reheatable, whether or not you make it

Starting point is 01:33:27 on your own? I hear from clients all the time who are like, no, I want to be super healthy. I want to homemake everything. I want it to be made by myself. And then we'll say, okay, well, when are you doing this? because I can give you recipes, but are we going to do it? And then if you're not, let's just find a way to make it easy. So maybe we're doing coia shakes. Maybe we're getting some hard-boiled eggs, dry roasted atomame bean snacks, fava bean snacks, those types of things. We're going to buy pre-chopped vegetables.

Starting point is 01:33:55 So we're not getting the knife out. I'm going to buy some peppers that are already chopped. I'm going to buy some carrot sticks that are already done. Or maybe I'm going to eat baby cucumbers that I could just munch on like that. We need to make this as easy as possible. there is no shame in that. If anything, my clients who use that stuff on a regular basis are more likely to lose weight and keep it off because it's just easy. So there's no barrier. Which goes with every bit of research on habit formation that we have that we want to make the habits

Starting point is 01:34:20 that we want to have as easy as possible and we want to make the habits that we don't want to have as hard as possible. I do have to shout out if you go to our substack, we have, I think it's like eight recipes that I use to lose weight and they're very, very, very simple recipes. So that's at lizmoody.com. and we can also put that in the notes, but make it as easy as possible. Nikki, I could talk to you forever, but can you tell everybody who wants to continue talking to where they can find you? Of course.

Starting point is 01:34:47 You can find me at Nutrition Nikki on Instagram. It's nutrition. Nikki, N-I-C-I. And then my website is nutritionnicki.com. N-C-K-I. I see clients through Michelle Shapiro Nutrition as well. And then I have some stuff on my Instagram. You can book a discovery call with me.

Starting point is 01:35:05 And if you're looking for something that's a little bit more tangible, I do have an eight-week workout guide called Just Start Somewhere. Michelle and I have that together. It's just an eight-week, you know, let's work our way into fitness. Let's work our way into nutrition and just start somewhere. And I have to shout out. We have our previous episode together where we get into all like the big picture weight loss stuff so we can link that if anybody wants to go and watch that. Then I also did a solo episode that was about my personal weight loss journey and everything that I did that I worked with you on. I also have to explicitly say, you know, in no way, paid me to be here. And I'm a paying client

Starting point is 01:35:38 of yours. Because I feel like I hype you up so much that sometimes people are like, is this like a secret sponsor? And I'm like, no, it's not. I am a paying client of Niki's. I just found her and through Michelle and I loved working with you. And I so appreciate everything you've shared with me and everything you've shared with the community. And I always appreciate you having me on as well. And I, your followers are like the best also, by the way. They're so cool. They are. Unfortunately, that is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would so appreciate if you would share it with somebody that you think would love it too.

Starting point is 01:36:09 It is my goal to get as much life-changing information out to as many people as possible. And you sharing episodes with people is 100% the thing that makes that happen. I would also love to hear from you in the comments, any thoughts or questions or opinions that you have on this episode. And remember, you can get our free 21-day plan. for nutrition, movement, and mental health at Liz Moody.com slash January. We are in the middle of our full January transformation series where all month long, we're breaking down the science of real sustainable change to make 2026 your best year yet.

Starting point is 01:36:44 I know it's a big promise, but we are going to make it happen. So make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, wherever you like to listen. You'll instantly be able to see all of the other episodes of the transformation series, and then new ones will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on information that could completely transform your life. You can find every single discount code

Starting point is 01:37:06 that you heard in this episode and tons more at lizmoody.com slash codes. It is the best way to save money on amazing vetted products. Truly, our brand partners make the best products in the world. That is why they're our beloved brand partners. And it's the best way to support the show and keep it completely free for you

Starting point is 01:37:22 and we so appreciate it. Okay, I love you, 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.

Starting point is 01:37:35 It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.

The Liz Moody Podcast - Your Trickiest Weight Loss Qs, Answered: Cravings, Hormone Issues, Plateaus, Workouts & More

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.