You do have to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight, and there are nuances. You could have a slower metabolism based on your dieting history, based on the amount of lean muscle you have on your body, based on how much you sleep at night, because that can really affect metabolic rate.
Today, I'm chatting with someone I get to work with here at Uplift for Her, Jenn Pinnell. Jenn is our weight loss health coach, and if you've ever felt like you're doing all the right things, counting macros, trying to eat intuitively, and you're still not seeing results, then this conversation is a don't miss for you. Jenn takes a really lovely approach to weight loss with a whole body, whole lifestyle. We talk about why some of the common strategies aren't working for so many and what you can actually do to support your body in a way that's sustainable and realistic to see the results you're looking for. Jenn is a certified health and nutrition coach, an NASM personal trainer, and also trained in mindset coaching. She's been doing this work for over six years and really gets the connection between physical and mental health, our nervous system, incorporating all of the different aspects, and she walks the walk. She is a wife, a mom of nine, and she totally understands how hard it can be to prioritize our own health when our life is full and what to do about it. Her mission is to help women, especially moms, feel strong and confident and energized in their bodies without burning out or obsessing about food. I really think you're gonna love this conversation.
You know, at the end of the day, we all have, you know, we all have different lives and we all live different lifestyles. We all have different beliefs around food and values around food. And I firmly believe that in most cases, most people can adopt, you know, some new things at work, but they can hold on to their values at the same time.
Well, Jenn, thank you so much for being here. It's always fun to have you on and talk, and we've had one or two episodes together? Two?
This is my second.
Okay. This is your second. Well, we need to do more. So thanks for coming.
Thanks for having me.
Well, we are talking about weight loss. I feel like there needs to be a sound effect like, you know, like, we're talking about weight loss, and I I love talking about it because I do think it's something that's in the back of so many of our brains, very often in the front of so many of our brains. On the other hand, it's something that I don't love talking about because I think we kind of miss the point a little bit when we talk too much about weight loss. You know, we want to be happy, and we want to be healthy, and we want our bodies to function. But all of that being said, at the end of the day, women, especially, very frequently, just wanna lose weight. And they want those other things, but actually, they just wanna lose weight.
Right? So let's just call it what it is, and we're talking about how to lose weight. Now, especially from the patients that I see in, a lot of people struggle with, I think, a couple main things. One of them is weight loss resistance where I'm trying to do all the things and it's not working. And then you have other people who are like, I can't even do the things to see if it would work.
Like, I just can't even get the lifestyle in place. So maybe start by telling us a little bit more about your background and your experience to be the expert weight loss coach that you are now because you borrow from a couple different tools and a couple different skill sets that you have, mindset and and coaching, etcetera. Tell us how your training has gone and how you ended up in weight loss coaching. Well, I think it came about out of passion to begin with, to be honest. I've had five babies.
So after every one of my kids, it was I wanted to lose the weight. I'll be honest. It was I wanted to feel good. And so I started with that and a passion for exercise and, mostly nutrition. I mean, I really dove into the book Body for Life when I was, like, 17.
Yeah. That was probably my first, actual experience with a program per se. So about the time, you know, after having my babies, there was a an extra push, and I just started researching a lot of nutrition certifications and went down a a road of finding one that was really reputable and and just did it for fun. I was a mom. I wasn't, like, trying to do anything special, but that led me into more exercise because I actually really love exercise.
I I I love all aspects of movement. And so then I did an, personal training certification. As a mom, honestly, it was just for fun. I was just trying to gain knowledge. And then I ended up getting a divorce.
And at the time, I was really wanting to put those tools into practice, and I knew I needed to get a job. And I just dove in, and I just started to really experiment working on clients. Like, really working experiment working on people that I knew. My friends and family, you know, started to come and hire me. And it was really, really neat.
Seven years later, I've been doing this. I've helped over I probably a thousand people with their weight loss journeys, men and women, when their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. I mean, I've worked with a lot of different people. And over the years, it began as more weight loss. You know, people come in, they wanna lose weight.
It was very weight loss focused. And then I would say probably the last five years, I got a certification in a mindset course. And I really, I really thrive off of working in in the brain. I think it's so fascinating. And in terms of weight loss, there's just so many nuances, and we have so many patterns that we adopt from early childhood into, you know, college.
And then we get married and we adopt somebody else's, you know, habits. And and it's really my approach really comes from taking each individual as, like, a science experiment because we all have different backgrounds. You know, we're all trying to lose weight in different ways. It's like, you know, when they patients come into you and they there's a lot of different nuances with health even. And so working between the exercise, the nutrition, and the mindset, that whole that whole piece, I feel like there's certain people that come to me and they need more of the nutrition.
They need more education there, and I need to know there are some people who just need more of a push because they can't get themselves to move as much. And then there's others that I work with, and we actually do a lot more mindset work before we even work on the weight loss. They think they're coming to me and we're gonna lose, you know, 50 pounds in six months. And I say, this is probably gonna take a lot longer than you think. But and then we start working on the mind and the brain and and that part is it's just really fascinating to me.
And so important and so slow sometimes, you know, because we're we are trying to unravel our old coping skills and our old belief systems, so it can be really slow there. I I really want this episode, this conversation to be really helpful for people because weight loss is such a frustrating thing. We all want to look our best, and we wanna feel our best, and we want our labs to be healthy. And I I don't find anything wrong with any of those. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to look a certain way and, you know, trying to feel good in our body.
And so because of that, we'll just really dive into it. So when women are coming to see you, what are the things that they've tried that haven't worked? Have you seen that they've come with a series of things that that you see over and over? Like, I tried that. It didn't work.
What are the things that that are not working? I would say that a lot of women come and let's say they've tried tracking macros. Right? They're that's a common one that I see a lot of is people said, I've tried tracking macros. And I try to explain to people that, you know, macro tracking is not anything new.
It's not like a new diet or anything. It's basically the percentage of macros that we put on our plate. And it's a matter of understanding your body well enough to know which food falls into which category. Yeah. Majority of people aren't getting enough of certain nutrients, and it's developing and tweaking those nutrients.
And I think what's not working is and this is just this is not every single person that comes into my office, but it's a perception of the the actual plate or the perception of the macro tracking. And so I would say a lot of people try it for a week or they try it for two weeks. And what they're not seeing is the progress they wanna see right away, and so then they're impatient and they give up. My approach to I I I work with a lot of people on macro tracking and and understanding that balance. And one thing I like to say is instead of having exact numbers, let's have a range.
Let's have a range because our body varies from day to day on what its needs are. And some days, you know, you might eat at the lower range of your macros, and some days, you might eat a little on the higher end of your macros. The idea is to actually have some consistency. And to answer your question, I think that would be the answer is that I don't believe that people are consistent enough trying something to actually see it work. However, I have compassion because I know that a lot of you women out there are trying.
And your perception of the effort that you're putting in is, you know, I I I don't wanna discount that and I don't like saying, you know, you're not doing it right or you're being dishonest. But in some ways, your lack of awareness and your lack of honesty with yourself, whether that comes from the emotional side of eating or just the fact that you believe that you're doing better than you are. Usually, when they somebody hires somebody like me and, you know, and then I they're they're having somebody see it from an outsider's view and there's somebody's watching, it's a little different. You're you tend to be a little bit more on your best behavior because you know somebody's watching, and then you start to see the results. And I will get people, you know, say that I've tried this for years, and this is amazing.
Or it's working now, and I don't know why it's working. Tell me why it's working. And I'll just say, well, a, you're consistently hitting the numbers or you're consistently working towards that number. I'm a progressive coach, so I don't take let's say, for instance, you're out there and you're not very good at getting your protein in. And that's something it's all the buzz, but it's very important.
Honestly, it's one of the most important things in my health journey is is getting protein in. And, but if I get a client who comes in and is eating 40 grams of protein per day, I'm not gonna suddenly look at you and say, now today, tomorrow, you need a 130. What I'm gonna do is help you sort of progressively bump that number up and show you how that what that looks like. And also, along the way, explain to you what you're gonna start to feel because you're eating more protein. You're gonna feel more satiety.
You're You're not gonna maybe feel as many sugar cravings as you normally do. Same with fiber. It's kind of the same with other all the balance of nutrients. I don't focus as much on carbohydrates and I do on fats. Technically speaking, if a client's hitting their fiber goal, then their the car the carbohydrates that are they're eating are usually pretty decent carbohydrates.
Did that answer your question? Well, it certainly got us started. I think it's a really great start. I think we started with what's getting in the way, and I think that what you said was sort of this a little bit of a lack of awareness sometimes, a lack of it's tricky to say without making it sound bad, but a little bit of a lack of reality. I see this in my clinic too where people will say, like, I wanna lose weight.
Why do you wanna lose like, what's what's what have you tried? What's not working? They say, well, I eat pretty healthy. I don't understand why the weight's not coming off. I eat pretty healthy.
And that's tricky. Right? I wanna be on your side, and I wanna say, you do eat pretty healthy. Pat you on the back. Good job.
I'd love that for you. But if your labs are showing that you have insulin resistance or prediabetes and you're not losing weight, then we gotta do something. You know? I'll preface too and say that you and I work together at Uplift for Her. And one of the things that I really like to do is I like patients to come work with me first, in some cases, where we can deal with inflammation and we can deal with hormones and we can deal with, some of the those basics like thyroid, at least check them.
But very quickly, then I like them to go back to you and get the health foundations in place of sleep and stress and nourishment and movement and all of those things. And I I wanna say I'm leaving that part out of the conversation intentionally because it's just a different conversation. But there is inflammation. There is hormonal abnormalities. There there are other things from a medical perspective that I like to address those first because if not, it makes it really hard to lose weight even if you're counting macros and stuff.
But so for a patient, they've they've presumably been working with a doctor, their thyroid is doing okay, their hormones are where they need to be, they're working on hormone replacement therapy or whatever. Then they come to you. Tell us about the different tools that you use. So you mentioned macros. You mentioned mindset.
What other tools are you bringing in to help women really lose weight sustainably? The the pillars that you talked about in your clinic, you know, sleep, stress, you know, nourishment, movement, all of those things, those those pillars are extremely important. When you look at the foundational pieces so when you look at tools, you know, I'm I'm addressing first of all, let's say hydration. You know, I'm addressing how much hydration and increasing progressively through hydration. If If we go back to tools, stress management.
I would say we were talking about that a little bit before we started and how I believe most people's perception of their stress is very different than what it actually is on their physical bodies. And so I work a lot on mindfulness, on slowing things down, about becoming more present with our food, whether it looks like, you know, putting your fork down and chewing your food and, you know, really creating that awareness that we're talking about. You can track your food all day, but if if you're not if you're not understanding your hunger cues or you're not understanding your body's needs, and so I try to implement a lot more mindfulness. And that comes from having those conversations about checking in on that biofeedback in every single one of my sessions is like, hey, how how was your hunger? You know, how have you have you been experiencing?
And a lot of people don't really understand hunger cues in in terms of real actual hunger or hunger that may come from, you know, a lot of high stress or hunger from maybe like lack of sleep because lack of sleep can throw off those hormones that are regulating your hunger. A lot of people are dehydrated and they really are dehydrated that they believe that they're hungry and so they're overeating. So really implementing those conversations and having, you know, real conversations around that. And then, you can't put any one person in a box. Yeah.
The same tools that work for one of my clients will not work for another client. So I like to offer suggestions. I have some clients who use a lot of meditation and, you know, mindfulness in that way and slowing down. And I have clients who journal because they like to express pen to paper. I, like, talk a lot about going for walks as a form of not only regulating blood sugar, but also to de stress.
So those types of tools are really just the foundation, and I would say that they're just basic lifestyle tips and things that I know that as women out there, you don't want one more box to check. I believe that, you know, you know, the world right now is telling you to eat more fiber, more protein, drink more water, get more sleep, manage your stress, like, all the things. So I get it. But once you work on maybe one of those habits or those tools at a time, you know, and you get better at them and they become more integrated as part of you as a human. Your identity starts to become, like, I don't want to stray too far away from drinking water.
I might go one or two days and have a couple busy days and I'm dehydrated. And I might go, well, I'm really dehydrated. I think today, I'm back on, I need to drink my water. Not because I should drink my water, but because I am attached to the idea that my body feels better when I do these things. Yeah.
Such a nuanced shift there. But to do something because your doctor tells you to do it or because you read it somewhere that it's important is different than kind of embracing, like, I feel my best or this is what's best for me. You know, I believe this is what's best for me. Maybe let's go back a step and talk about macros because I think that that's definitely something that a lot of people have some familiarity with, but but I do find some people who don't know what it is. So what does that even mean?
When we say counting macros, what does that mean? The three different macros are protein, carbohydrates, and your fats. Yeah. And so when you say tracking or counting macros, it's basically, kind of like I said in the beginning, it's balancing out your plate. So if we're looking at a plate and we're saying, we want you to get 30% of your food from protein.
Okay? And maybe 30 to 40% of that from carbohydrates and vice versa with your fats. You're filling with your fats. Right? I actually wanna address because when you said, you know, your perception of when you have a patient come in and they say, well, I'm eating really healthy.
And that comes from let's say you wake up in the morning and you have a piece of toast with an egg or maybe maybe an egg and two eggs. Right? Which could be potentially, you know, you're getting your protein in. There's some carbohydrates. Maybe you even add some blueberries or something on the side.
Right there, you're getting, roughly 12 to 13 grams of protein and maybe a little bit in your bread, a couple grams in there from your bread. So in your mind, you're thinking, oh, I'm getting protein in. And that's good. You are getting some protein in. But if I'm having a client that I'm drag I'm really trying to get maybe 20 to twenty five first thing in the morning to help stabilize blood sugar through the day or to help them hit a higher protein goal, I want to help them understand that let's do a little bit more protein on your plate.
What does that look like? I'm an egg white fan. I know a lot of you out there probably hate the egg whites, but I like to do my whole eggs with bunch of egg whites because that's an easy way for me to get more protein in. I might side it with some blueberries and maybe like a half an of an avocado or something to keep me more satiated and filled, and it gives me more fiber. So, basically, when you're looking at your plate and you're becoming more aware, even if you're not tracking, you could just write all your food down even for a week.
And you could say you could just take a step back and look at it and say, do you eat, you know, 70% of your food? Does it come from high carbohydrate foods? And you eat about, you know, maybe 20% from fat, and you get about 10% from your protein. So what I try to do is help people see because a lot of people don't really know or understand how to maneuver those numbers and change those because, you know, we grew up eating a lot of snacks. Mhmm.
I did. Mhmm. I ate a lot of cereal, a lot of granola bars, you know. And so seeing that and coming from where you are, it does take a little bit of progress over time. Yeah.
And as you see those macros change and you do flip to more, like, satiating filling carbs and some healthy fats and some proteins and you start to recognize how your body feels, especially when you, I don't have any beliefs as far as, like, processed foods or, you know, cutting whole food groups out. I I don't preach any, you know if a client wants to do that, that's great. I do think minimizing certain things in your diet and really building on, you know I know you're all about adding about adding more of the good stuff is a better place for your mind to be than saying I can't have. Yeah. I think that that usually backfires and doesn't work for most people.
I think there are some Internet debates about, like, it's not just calories in calories out. And then at the end of the day, it is just calories in calories out. It is, like, at the end of the day, there has to be a caloric deficit. How do you talk to that question when people say, like, I have been in a calorie deficit and it is not working? It must be my metabolism.
It must be something else. How do you address that with people, and and what are your thoughts about that? Well, I would first do some detective work to see how much they were actually in a calorie deficit, maybe talking them through what they were eating. That comes down again to the perception. You do have to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight.
And there are nuances. You could have a slower metabolism based on your dieting history, based on the amount of lean muscle you have on your body, based on how much you sleep at night because that can really affect metabolic rate. And so I do have a lot of compassion for people who have probably been, you know, underfeeding themselves for a long time because they're trying to lose weight and they think that they're in a calorie deficit because their calories are low, but their metabolism actually has down regulated and met them there. And so a lot of times with them, I try to explain that in order to increase metabolic rate, we actually need to increase your food. And one of the things that, you know, a lot of fear comes around that, well, Jen, you're gonna increase my food.
Yeah. Not only am I gonna increase food, but I'm going to try to feed you more satiating, filling foods. Protein is has a thermic effect of feeding, and that's a big word. And what it means is that it requires more energy for our body to break that down. And so it doesn't work the same way in our body that carbs and fats do.
We need all three macronutrients. We do need all three of them, but they just each serve different purposes. And not a whole heck of a lot of us actually crave protein. And that's why, you know, focusing on trying to get more of it is important because we naturally gravitate towards things that are fast, and those tend to be high carbohydrate processed foods. So, yes, you do need to be in a calorie deficit, but there are some nuances.
And that's why being a little detective, extracting some of the emotion, I know is hard for most people to do with weight loss. But when we see food and it's less dramatic and we can see it for what it is and really be honest about what we're doing and what's working and what's not is really helpful in determining whether or not you're in that caloric deficit. You can start to pay attention to your hunger cues. Hunger is actually a good sign of metabolism. And so I tell clients all the time, like, if we're feeding you and you're starving to death, then we're probably either not feeding you the right foods or we'll probably underfeeding you.
Now, if you have a little bit of hunger, this is where I work with a lot of clients on the mindset. Okay? Hunger's a good sign that you're going to lose weight. So going to bed, you know, a tiny bit hungry, feeling like I'm a little less satisfied than maybe I want to be, but celebrating because that means that you're probably in a deficit. Waking up in the middle of the night might mean you're a little bit too low of a deficit, meaning your blood sugar is probably doing something in the middle of the night.
But understanding those cues and talking about them with a little less emotion and drama and more of just, you know, honesty is really gonna help you understand whether or not a, you've been consistent long enough in a calorie deficit to lose weight and b, if you actually are in one to begin with. And I think this is why this is why so many people struggle with macros is if you're starting your weight loss journey day one with macro counting, I think tell me what you think about this, but I think that's a huge mistake. If you've undernourished yourself either by being in a prolonged calorie deficit, you know, you're the person that's skipping breakfast, eating a tiny lunch, and eating, you know, a little bit of chicken at dinner so that you can get in a calorie deficit, and then you're going and working out really hard. And you've been doing that for years, or you're the person who's maybe having plenty of calories but is undernourished. You know?
You don't get enough protein. You don't get enough fiber. You don't get enough vitamins. So you're living off of kind of empty calories. If you just take those people and start counting macros with what they're used to eating, I think they're gonna have cravings.
I think they're gonna be not sleeping. I think they're gonna be stressed. And that the the calorie deficit in that way then, I think, just worsens all of those other symptoms of fatigue and irritability and trouble sleeping and and worsening stress. What are your what is your take on that? Well, you're suggesting we work on nourishment first.
Right. It's almost with extracting weight loss as like your goal to begin with. And this is really hard for people. People don't come to me. I have to take them straight into like a program.
Right. But that sometimes means balancing out those meals first to begin with. Because if you're if you're not if you're snacking all day long and you're never eating a nourishing meal, your body's deprived. It needs nourishment. It needs you to take the time and energy into preparing at least three meals a day that that that feel you and so that you are feeling more energetic.
Yeah. So I agree with you. I think taking you know, going from, you know, not eating much to just trying to track your macros. If you're doing it for the sole purpose of making sure that you're getting enough food, then that can be really helpful. It can be like, I I wanna make sure that I'm getting enough protein in or I'm making making sure that I'm actually getting x a minimum amount of, you know Exactly.
Of calories in a day, then I think that your point is like on point for sure. So if someone is now getting to the point of wanting to really get serious about losing weight, you know, maybe they've already kind of tracked what they ate a little bit, they've boosted a little bit, they started eating a little bit more, and they come to you and they say, okay. Now I'm I'm ready to lose weight. How, how do you get started with macros specifically? So we've said there are some other things with stress and mindfulness and intuitive eating, but if they're just getting to the point of macros, how do they even figure out what is a deficit for them and, and how to get started with that?
Because I've been doing this for so long, when I look at somebody's journal, when they they journal their food before they come in, I can get an idea of kinda where a good range. I talked about ranges. I will start with a good range. So let's say for instance, you know, you come in and I'm like, let's do 15 to 1,700 calories to begin with. So are you looking at what they're already eating and just starting there?
I have them bring in a journal and I wanna look at what you're already eating. And I have to bridge the gap between the foods that they're eating and this the the schedule that they're on. Yeah. And we have to progress them to, like, the next step. Yes.
And what I know is that it doesn't happen overnight. Usually, I start and that we uncover a lot of, you know, mindset blocks and things around their inability to feed themselves during the day. And so, you know, the they people wanna plan when they come in, so we provide them with a plan. And and I will set some goals. I set very specific basic foundational goals on how much water to drink.
And then I actually ask them, like, what do you wanna focus on? What do you feel like? And some of them will say, I really wanna get a good night's sleep. So we'll work on a nighttime routine where maybe they put their phones in their room of you know, across the room or they do a little meditation before bed or they make sure that they have screen time, like, turning off the TV at a certain time and winding down so that that's an important thing in conjunction with what we're doing. And each client has different things that they need to work on.
Right? So we'll take those macros, but then I will tell them ask them a few questions. Like, let's really pay attention to your hunger, your digestion, and your energy. Those three things really matter. I wanna talk about them this next week.
And then based on our plan, depending on what the next week looks like, you know, we'll say how did it go? And that's kind of it unfolds from there. Yeah. Because, a, I start to see whether or not they have a hard time being consistent. That usually comes with, like, women, I apologize, but I know your lives.
I actually live it. I have a very busy life and you're I had kids games this week or, you know, we were out. We were I was at practices all week long and so I just didn't get my dinners in. And we talk about easier options that we can do on weeknights, and we we unfold some of the the nuances that come with I think a lot of people's perception of healthy eating comes with, like, these elaborate meals. Yep.
And I'd have to say that sometimes those are really fun. Mhmm. I'm a mom of I have five kids and I have four step kids. And if I meal prep, do you wanna know how long meal prep lasts? Yeah.
Like, not even a day. Yeah. So I have a lot of tricks and tools that I can offer to clients, whether if it's a little bit quicker options of things that they can buy from the store, just to help them feel more successful. Yeah. However, I will reiterate, and this is one thing that I have found, is that women are have a lack lack and a love for cooking nowadays.
And I think, personally, I think we need to come back to understanding that that food that we make is part of our self care. Mhmm. Now we are so good at nails and massages and self care and seeing that as self care. And I firmly I have a passion for this. Like, it really runs deep in me.
Self care is sleep to me. Self care is making a really yummy, nourishing, healthy, balanced meal that that just tastes delicious, but also feels satisfying. And it's moving my body every single day. That is what I believe self care is. So as far as where we progress off of that initial macro, it just goes in a 100 different places.
Sometimes I will pull poopy back from tracking it all. If I see psychological, like, you know, I don't I want I tell people every day mental health is almost more important to me than the the them losing weight. Like, I want that to be. So if I see somebody tracking and it's really starting to play with their brain or they have a lot of history with tracking their food and it I can work around that. Like, we can try and work and focus on other things and talk.
Sometimes the weight loss comes a little bit later or slower because we have to do some work on the mind. But eventually, it I I promise if you stick with it long enough, like, it will happen. Mhmm. Well, I think it's just such a good case for hiring a coach. I'm such a big fan of coaching because I think it's it's it's complicated.
It's complex. And it's complex partially because of our culture as women and our culture of busyness. And you and I were talking about this beforehand that if the only food we had available to us was, like, grass fed beef and pasture raised chicken and sweet potatoes and blueberries, we wouldn't need to count macros. Right? You would just eat food and you would be fine.
Mhmm. I don't think there were a lot of people who struggled with weight when the only thing we had available to us was paleo. Right? Was like animal and and what grows in your garden. Mhmm.
But that's not the world that we live in. Now you can. You can do that. And and that's what I tell patients, like, listen, if you don't wanna count, you don't wanna think about food, you don't wanna understand nutrition, you want nothing to do with it, you can do that, but then you can only eat these foods. And then you don't ever have to think about it, but then you can you can only eat these really nourishing foods.
And there are lots of people who do that and love it and and great. But if you're the type of person who wants to have birthday cake on a special occasion or wants to go out for ice cream in the summer with your kids, you just have to know how much of that. You know, saying like, I don't want to restrict. Well, that's complicated. And it's not that you can't do it, but you do have to understand how it fits into the body.
And so going back, that's why I'm such a big fan of coaching because I think it's just a lot to expect to DIY, you know, to go online and see an influencer online who gives you suggested macro counts or gives you a meal plan of perfect macros, and you just follow their meal plan and expect it to work. It's it's hard for that to be sustainable. There really, sadly, is a little bit of a learning curve that comes or a lot of a learning curve that comes with understanding all of this this nuance. So that was a little bit of a sidebar, but, I just think it's a lot to ask of ourselves to expect to do it without external feedback from a coach. Well, I believe that we're a really we don't have an educational problem.
We don't have a learning problem. We have an application problem. Yeah. And I believe that that is why hiring a coach or why when people hire me, that application is put to the test. Yeah.
And I think a lot of people I tell people when they walk through my doors or when we get on a call that my goal for them is to learn and understand and develop a better relationship with their own body within the confinements of all of the crazy health information out there. Yeah. Because, you know, at the end of the day, we all have, you know, we all have different lives and we all live different lifestyles. We all have different beliefs around food and values around food. And I firmly believe that in most cases, most people can adopt, you know, some new some new things at work, but they can hold on to their values at the same time.
Yep. Yeah. I think that's so great. Hey. It's Malorie.
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Now back to the show. So how do you help women down this road then and still keep well, how do you nurture that healthy relationship with food, and how do you keep people from going into an unhealthy pattern here as we're counting macros? I see a lot of patients who are like, I did macros. It worked. I lost weight, and it made me crazy.
Like, I was thinking about everything. I was weighing everything all the time. I would I don't like that my kids are watching me weigh out and portion my food. How do you address that? It's a really good question.
It's it's tricky. When I'm talking to people, I have a really good understanding of when that's about to happen. Yeah. Because I've been doing this for so long. And when I see it, I pull back immediately.
Yeah. Because, like I said, I really believe that the mental component and the relationship with food at the end of the day is really, really important. I had a client who I was working with, and she was so gung ho to lose weight. She started. She knows how to track macro.
She did all the right things. She lost 20 pounds. We did great. I was like, woo hoo. She and then and then once one day, it just, I think, she had hit a weight that she was excited about and just decided to celebrate.
Well, it started to unwind, and she started to actually go backwards. And there was a lot all of a sudden, she was extreme binging. And we uncovered a lot of history behind, like, that pendulum of lose weight, gain weight, lose weight, gain weight. We spent probably nine months discussing just the just the trying to unlearn some of the food rules and unlearn. We didn't track any food.
We didn't work on weight loss. We worked on understanding and, and having a better relationship with food for nine months. She hung in there with me Mhmm. For for a long time. I was just on the phone with her today.
I've almost been working with her for two years. But she is 40 down, and she has she'll she'll like, I kind of get teary eyed because the work that she was able to do, she's sitting in a place now where I think she never would have been if she would have continued on that cycle. Yeah. So it's it's intuition, I think, because I've been doing it for so long and I have a lot of experience. But I and I am kind of an energy filler, so I can sense somebody's energy around, you know, that they're when they start to become tense and anxious around the the the plan that we have.
And I'm like, hey. Let's pivot. Yeah. Let's work on some other things. Let's work on on chewing slower, and let's work on maybe a little bit more of the movement and trying to improve in that area.
And let's but then let's talk about you know, one of the things and I don't say this because I have, yeah, other areas of my life that I struggle, but I have a really good relationship with food and a mindset. And that alone, helping other people adopt that and feed off of my mindset. You know, anytime you hire a mentor and they're better at something maybe than you are, you're eager to learn and pull from that. Now, I don't believe everybody is, like, gonna love egg whites when they leave me. I have a lot of people that still are, like, gag, Jenn.
That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is is that that's why coaching. That's why you like coaching is because you can hire you can talk to somebody about something that you're not that great at, but that you you actually respect and and want to learn more and you feed off of that and you start to actually unlearn those things and relearn them a different way. You know, you actually mentioned, you know, tracking your food in front of kids. And I have a lot of women who think, Well, I don't wanna make a separate dinner.
That is something that I have. And you can agree or disagree with me. K? But in my house, I make I make food. And sometimes my kids I don't wanna eat later night, I made calzones.
My kids love calzones. I occasionally really like a calzone. I didn't want a calzone, so I made me a big salad. I did put pepperonis and mozzarella. I used some of the same ingredients, and then my kids looked at me and they're like, well, we want some.
And I was like, okay. I will feed you. I I shared what I was eating. But at the same time, my daughter will sometimes ask me, well, mom, you know, you sometimes eat different. I go, first of all, my needs are a little bit different than your needs.
And I'm in this phase in my life where I really I'm I'm really careful about what I eat, and I but I also want to feed you guys things that you like and things that, you know, you guys need energy for. But I'm always happy to make the things for you that I make for me. I just don't always think that that's what you want. Yeah. And so when when when those types of things, you kinda go, oh, you're giving yourself permission to be like, you know, maybe it's okay sometimes if if I rearrange my food.
I don't really like making two meals for myself, but I liked if I make tacos, sometimes I'll make a taco salad. I'll mail do a little more lettuce for me, or I'll rearrange the ingredients to kind of fit a little bit more into what I wanna eat. But I want my kids to know that, like, a, health is important to me, but it's also not my whole life. It's not my personality. And I want them to know I do that for me because I wanna feel healthy and strong, and I wanna feel good about myself.
And that's important to me. And if if they're watching me and they're seeing that, then I'm hoping at some point in their life, they even ask they either ask me about it or, you know, maybe they will never like it. And that's fine with me, honestly. I just know that they know that they have that they have that opportunity if they want it. Yeah.
And so those types of mindset things sometimes, I think adopting and, you know, talking to a coach or something going, oh, maybe the way I've been thinking about that thing is a little different than maybe I can be thinking about it. Yeah. And I love that you say that because as you are I love that example because you made them their food. They wanted it. They're happy.
And they're seeing you eat something different. And if you had not exposed them to those healthy foods, then they would be perfectly happy with the calzone and not any the wiser. Right? My point being, it's we have this opportunity as moms to keep putting healthy food in front of them. We don't have to make a huge deal about, like, make sure you eat every bite of that vegetable, make sure you clear your plate.
Right? But just exposing them to these healthy foods over and over I had my niece over yesterday and she we had taco salad. And she tried tomatoes and was like and I she's my sister's daughter, so I know her daughter puts tomatoes on her plate all the time. But she tried it for whatever reason, new house, and she goes, I didn't know I like tomatoes. I like tomatoes now.
Right? Like, just that idea of continuing to put it in front of them, I think is so so important as a mom. And I also think that it is just such a a slight mindset shift for us to say, you know, if we are weighing food or we're being cautious about food, we can say, like, oh, I wanna make sure I'm not eating too much. Or we can say, I wanna make sure I'm eating enough. I wanna make sure I'm getting enough of the good things that I'm supposed to be eating.
So I'm I'm trying to really focus on the health of my body. So I'm gonna make sure that I get enough of these good things, see what I have on my plate. And this is one of the things that comes up in around my table with my kids that we try to do is say, like, oh, how many colors do you have on your plate? Did you know that that those carrots are really good for your eyes and for your immune system and for your we call it your pooper, like, for your gut. Right?
Like, did you know that that they won't eat zucchini? Best efforts, but they will not eat zucchini. But, you know, did you know that broccoli is super good for your immune system so you don't get sick? Like, it's just a simple mindset shift from like, oh, I don't wanna focus on food for my kids. I don't want them to get fixated on food versus I want them to know about food.
I want them to know what good things can come from food and what good things we can do for food. So along those lines, will you share with us because I think a lot of people do struggle with that relationship with food. What does that look like for you having what you feel like is a really healthy relationship with food? What does that even look like? Because I think some of us some people listening may feel kinda clueless, like, I can't even fathom a healthy relationship with food.
I am a person who wants to feel good. Yeah. I love feeling good. I love feeling good energy. I love I just got home from a trip to Italy.
This is a really good example. And I had gelato, and I had pizza, and I had pasta, and I enjoyed myself. But there were moments on the trip that I really miss protein. I really miss feeling satiated and filled. Yeah.
And I have a relationship with my body that understands that when I feed my body, you know, nourishing, good, satiating meals, I function better. My mood is better. I haven't lost a pound of weight in probably thirteen years. I wouldn't say I've focused on weight loss for a really long time. I've sat in maintenance for that long.
And I don't eat healthy because I wanna lose weight. I eat healthy because I wanna feel light. And feeling light comes with not feeling really bloated, not feeling overly full. I don't really love the I know there are people out there who really love to feel overly full. And there are times when I like to push myself to that point on the trip, I did.
And there were times that I'm like, after a meal or two of feeling overly full, I I'm I wanna feel light again. I wanna feel like my digestion's working well. I think I just understand and know that how my body feels at its best. And I know now that when it doesn't feel at its best, it comes with the it comes with the consequences of not getting enough sleep. It comes with even the stress, you know, the like, having too much on my plate and having a lot of stress on my plate is something that I'm really I'm really aware of.
And knowing that there are certain areas of my life that I have to learn to let go of. I I have learned that b there's a coach of mine that I love, and she says it's okay to be a b student. Mhmm. You know? Most of us are trying to get a's and constantly, and so we're, you know, perfectionists.
Yeah. And a lot of times, we're not even attempting to do something because we wanna be perfectionists. Yeah. So when it comes to food, I would say I I have an eighty twenty. I have a very good relationship with food.
I love chips and salsa. I love ice cream. But I believe that those things are joyful, and I feel joy when I eat them because I don't eat them every day. I don't have ice cream every single day. I eat it maybe once every seven every once a week or maybe every ten days or something.
I incorporate the things that I love, but that actually is the way I feel joy in them. I look forward to them rather than having them be a staple in my life. I actually have a lot of fun with food. I think there's a lot of creativity. I'm not a very creative person, but in the last few years, I've really found my way in the kitchen, and I found different ways because, you know, when somebody's like, well, how do give me some new ideas for protein.
I'm like, I can't give you new ideas. I can give you new ways to prepare it. But it's the same things over and over again. And we live in an information age. You can hop on social media, and there's a lot of creators out there that have real and I get like, those kinds of things excite me.
I would say my mindset is is when I see certain foods or I'm gonna give you a good example. Like, if I see something, an advertisement on TV or something, and my husband will be like, woah. And I'll be like, I just honestly got bloated and swelled seeing the food. Like, I just know what that will do to my body. And so my choices come from a place of how I want to feel versus what sounds good all the time, you know, what tastes amazing all the time.
I think my taste buds have changed. So I'm probably kinda weird. But I am able to, as I coach, understand that most people don't eat and think that way. And so bridging that gap and and understanding that, you know, meeting people where they are is what I like to say and and really just trying to help them, you know, adopt maybe one or two of the pieces. I have a client that I work with from the clinic that, you know, she loves it when I say we talk about feeling light.
She likes that feeling way more than, like, losing weight. She just wants to feel light. Because I'll be honest with you, sometimes you guys get started on the lifestyle, the foundational pieces, and you start to feel better. You do. And it has nothing to do with weight loss and recognizing that feeling that maybe, you know, maybe you could lose 10 pounds.
Maybe that 10 but maybe that 10 pounds just means accepting it a little bit, being a little bit, you know, more flexible with your food. But but following through and doing the things that that make your body feel really good. Yeah. I think it's really interesting. I prescribe weight loss medications, the GLP one agonists, and, tirzepatide and semaglutide and inappropriate circumstances.
And and I think I do it in a in a smart way, not in a like, everyone gets it and do whatever you want with it. But one of the interesting things so I microdose it for most patients, which means we start at at least half of the typical starting dose, oftentimes less than half of the typical starting dose, which is just a fraction of the max dose. And one of the things that's so interesting with these medications is they do quiet what people call food noise. Right? This attachment, emotional attachment to food.
Now that can go too far, and you hear people on these medications who suddenly have no interest in food. Like, they don't even have an appetite or a taste for it, so they're kind of gagging food down. I think that's a problem. That's too much medication. But when you start these people on teeny tiny doses oftentimes, what's so fascinating to me is some people will feel just that food noise being gone.
They feel that lightness. They feel that emotional break of, like, I am so grateful to not be thinking about food. Like, I still eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I I'm able now to do the macro counting because it doesn't feel so fixated. So I I'm so glad you share your healthy approach to food, and it's so good for people to hear.
Like, what oh, are we supposed to feel like that? Like, are we supposed to be to to not feel overly full? Because I think that there are components that, frankly, we don't understand from a medical perspective of why does someone why does one person eat to overfull? Like, why would we do that? Why do it's not just a willpower thing.
And we're finding now with these GLP one agonists that even just medically hitting that receptor, it fixes that problem, which means it's not just a willpower thing. It's actually a physiology thing. So whatever genetics and early childhood training and I think nutrients play a role if we're eating a a chronically nutrient deficient diet, then the body will it will mess up those cues of what does it feel like to feel full and what does it feel like to want food. Like, we just totally disconnect from those. Anyway, so sidebar with those weight loss medications, my point being that some people just it's not even the weight at that point.
They're just so happy to not be thinking about food and fixated on what I should eat and what I shouldn't eat. And oftentimes, those people at a teeny dose, they're not counting macros, but they'll start losing weight. And some of it, obviously, you're like, well, it's a weight loss medication. But these are such tiny doses. And when we look at what they're eating, it's oftentimes just better food because they're not craving the Doritos or the Oreos or the treats after dinner.
They're just able to eat. And then they go to the grocery store and they buy healthy food and then they eat healthy food. And then, obviously, the medication is helping with weight loss, but but I do think there is a component that I want to acknowledge that it's not the same for everyone. And having that background of food noise or that that unhealthy relationship with food is sometimes more the problem than what you're actually eating. And if we can quiet that down through training, through mindset work, through having an advocate to help you understand, I think can be really beneficial.
Yeah. I've worked with quite a few people that have used that as a tool while I've worked with them, and I'd say that's the hardest. One of the hard the food noise is a really tricky thing to overcome. Yeah. I don't know that this would be for every person, but I do believe it's sometimes a calling, for our for our need.
Whether if it's an unmet need Mhmm. Emotionally from, you know, loneliness or anxiousness. I think that a lot of food noise comes from those types of places. Yeah. And that's where a little bit more the mindset work and learning how to reconnect back with ourselves to understand what those needs are.
Because when we look to food as the only joy in our life Yes. And that's, I think, sometimes why food noise is so loud. Mhmm. Because some for some people, and I would say for some women who lack I would say a lot of purpose in life. As moms, you know, I've been a stay at home mom at one point in my life and I felt that before.
But if if food's joy, that's no wonder we're turning to that for joy. Mhmm. And some clients, I had one in particular today that we're just we're working on finding other things that bring joy that can be at the forefront of our brain. And not saying that food shouldn't be joy, because I believe that there is joy in food. I just went to Italy.
But I just mean minimizing that so that, you know, we can redirect that noise maybe into something else that's maybe gonna serve a better purpose or help. I mean, because the microdosing of the shot is really helpful. And but for some people, either they get maybe not can't afford to take it the rest of their lives, and at some point, that food moist might come back. You know? And and Well, and still, the the appropriate use of the the best use of the medication is to use it as a step stool and then figure out how to eat and figure out how to quiet.
I mean, it's a really great tool, but I don't think it's the end all be all final step in the I've seen it be so good for some people. A really great tool. But I do also think that the combination of working on why there's so much food noise is also really important. Yeah. A 100%.
I've had the thought many times of, again, looking at our culture of, like, what other people through history through the history of the world, what other people had the number of food options that we do. And in some ways, that's really fun because we can create. We can have you know, you say, like, what do you want for dinner? You want Thai food? You want Italian food?
You want Indian food? You want Chinese food? You want, whatever American food is. Right? Like, it's fun, but also as busy minded women, it's a lot.
Like, it's a lot to figure out. And I've thought sometimes, like, back in the day where they were living off the land and the nearest market was, you know, a twenty minute or a or three hour wagon ride down to the, you know, town, like, you're eating the same thing every day. You're gonna eat the the vegetables that were in the cold cellar. You know, you're gonna eat the chicken. You're gonna eat some beef.
Like, that's it. That's it. You're not eating herbs. You're not eating any any foods from Mexico. You know, you're not you're not getting these other variety.
And I'm really grateful because I food is my art form. I'm not very artistic, so it's it's all I've got. But so I love food. But also, I think it complicates our life, and I think it's okay to acknowledge that and say, if it's too much and you wanna eat really simple foods over and over, like, do that. Because sometimes it is just so much mental burden to figure out how to cook and how to do new things.
And it doesn't have to be that creative and that fancy. I think there are some influencers that I've seen that have their cookbooks, and there's so many ingredients, and it's so good. If you have the time and you want to cook that meal, I am so glad that you can do it in a macro balanced way. But if you're really busy and your brain is like, I will give you 1% bandwidth today for food, then sometimes you're like, yes. I will have chicken and broccoli again.
You know? And whatever it is, I think that's okay. But my I on that sort of tangent, I just think that the the variety of food that we have access to is kind of a blessing and a curse because it makes it it's really hard to manage one more thing. It's decision fatigue. It's totally decision fatigue.
Women struggle with decision fatigue. I actually have a little tool and I tell women, I'm like, get a piece of paper and put it on your fridge and write down maybe six meals that you do. And maybe once a month, add a new meal to the the list. Yeah. Maybe cross one off if your kids don't like it or if it wasn't a good one.
But the decision fatigue just comes from, you know, trying to think we have to do something new or trying to think that we have to make those recipes with all those things. I'm grateful for those people too. But to be honest with you, I have clients who who wanna run away if I send them a recipe like that. Right. That is overwhelm.
Yeah. And so to have that we have the tools, which is good, but it also, to your point, keeping things simple is I think it's actually, in a lot of ways, really helpful. Diversifying nutrients can be helpful. Yeah. I tell clients just, you know, maybe work in different types of veggies on a plate or different fruits in here.
But keeping it pretty simple actually is really helpful. I think a lot of people just get really stuck with the idea that they that they have to be make things more elaborate, that they have to, you know, come up with this fancy meal prep. And that doesn't that always that sometimes just drives more stress. Yeah. Yeah.
I tell patients make it ugly. Like, because we go on Pinterest and it's like, oh, that looks delicious. I'll do that. And then you go to do it and you're like, oh my gosh. What why what was I thinking?
And it's like frozen peas, chicken. Mhmm. Like, you can do that. You can do it ugly if you wanna do it ugly. And then the occasional night, you could have a really fancy meal that you wanna spend time doing, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
I think the world of meal prep can also send you down that road a little bit where it's like, well, I'm I'm supposed to be doing it a certain way, and it doesn't have to be a certain way. There are lots of different tools and lots of different ways to go about it. Another question that I get from people is we see right now on social media all the people who are like, how I lost weight when I turned 45. Right? And all of them will say the same thing right now.
I started eating more. Tell us how you mentioned it before, but I wanna go into it a little more detail because it's terrifying for women when they come to me and they say, like, I wanna lose weight. And I say, what are you eating? And they show me and it's very little. And I say, do you know what I want you to do?
I want you to eat more. How does that make sense that that can contribute to weight loss? That's a really hard thing for people to do too. Yeah. It really is.
When I reverse when I reverse it's called a reverse diet. You basically try to increase their calorie intake. It's basically increasing their metabolism. Food is metabolic in your body. More food we eat is actually you know, I've had clients lose weight on a reverse diet.
It's not typical. It's not all the time, but the more that they eat, more energy. Think about it. Your you actually have more energy. That means that you want you feel like getting up and getting that glass of water instead of saying to your child, can you give me some water?
Or you feel like walking an extra little bit on your walk instead of stopping because you're really exhausted. It increases your energy expenditure, which then increases metabolic rate. I think and also really focusing on the right nutrients is at the same time really important because all of a sudden your body's feeling nourished, and it's feeling safe. That's actually something that I think a lot of women don't understand about weight loss is our body is actually they wanna feel safe. Yeah.
I'm gonna go back to my trip to Italy because I had so much fun, but I was totally dysregulated. I had poor digestion. I was super tired for the jet lag, and I would have to say that I my body was not safe. And it was actually really fun and a fun experiment for me to see because I'm very routine. I have ADHD, diagnosed ADHD, but when it comes to certain things in my life, I am very routine.
My body loves homeostasis. And I was straying away from homeostasis, and all of a sudden my body's in fight or flight on a vacation, which is okay. I mean, it wasn't like I was upset or stressed, but my body felt stressed. Feel it revving. Yes.
And so when I got home and I returned back to homeostasis, I think that our bodies, in order to sometimes let the weight go, they have to feel safe. Mhmm. Increasing the food, it actually helps your body feel safer. It doesn't it's an added stress when you're in a calorie deficit. And so, you know, increasing food actually takes your body out of that stress and can actually send, like, you know, you're good.
We can release the fat now because you're taking good care of us. But, you know, in a lot of ways, that psychological component comes in with women. They're so afraid to gain the weight that they don't know how to trust that they don't know how to trust that concept. I I love that you talk about safety because, obviously, that's so huge for for the work that I do with patients, and I just don't think we can talk enough about it. But I love that you're talking about this idea of the body feeling safe.
And I also love hearing how in in tune with your own body you are, and I think that is a gift that comes through this work when done correctly. I think if the weight loss journey is done very poorly, like you're just shoving your body into a deficit and not paying attention to the rest of it, I think it can cause dissociation with our body that we learn we see this a lot with disordered eating patterns where it's like you shut off hunger cues, you start to, disconnect your body. So I'll get patients who say, like, I don't even know. I don't know. Like, I I could go for three days and not feel hunger because I just learned to shut that off.
It's the polar opposite. You know, when you're doing it badly, you're dissociating from the experiences in your body. You're learning to ignore the bloat. You're learning to ignore the pain, ignore the hunger and the cravings, and they go away at some point if you ignore them in an unhealthy way. Don't do that.
Or they get used to it. Sometimes we just get them to live to use used to living in that body, and we don't know what it feels like to feel safe. But it worsens your quality of life. Yeah. You know, it's there in the background.
But when we do this journey appropriately where you're now paying attention to your nervous system and you're feeling I call it I always picture this, like, dial right at my heart center of, like, revving up, revving down. And so I always point there and people probably have no idea what I'm doing. But but as we become more in tune with that, as we become more in tune with our digestion of, like, gosh. I I was so regular, and my tummy was so flat, and I felt so good eating that. And that that I just ate, not so good.
Mhmm. When we become in tune with that, that is such a gift. Becoming in tune with what we're craving, noticing, oh, I think I'm thirsty. Oh, I think I'm need a break. I think I need space.
I think I need more connection. I think I need, you know, the more in tune we are, the better results we're going to have long term. And that's actually what I hope we can help women do is come back into their bodies, reconnect to their physical sensations. Tell us about intuitive eating and how you incorporate it and when sometimes it becomes difficult for people who may not have this connection. I I love for all and most of my patients' clients to learn to intuitively eat.
Mhmm. That connection with self is extremely important to intuitively eat. And the knowledge of those macro percentages that we that you've practiced, I call it practicing. Because over time, when I'm coaching somebody, I'm like, we're this is practicing so that not only can we, like, get to where you're not tracking your food anymore, but so that you're consciously making choices, you know, based on the fact that you know how to feed your body. Intuitive eating, I would say, it it's a learned skill.
It's not something that you can just be like, today, I'm gonna start intuitively eating. I mean, if you're really good at at sitting down with your meals and looking and and understanding your plate and understanding the nutrients, if you sit down and you chew your food and you eat really slowly and you maybe don't snack, you don't have mindless snacking habits throughout the day, you maybe have a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner that's full of maybe some those nutrient dense foods that we're talking about. You intuitively eating is easy in that regard. You can listen to your hunger cues at that point and say, I actually am pretty I'm a little hungry today. I must be in a deficit.
That's a good thing. Or I feel really full and satiated today. This is my maintenance. This is where I'm good. Or I overate today.
That was a little much for me today. I probably need to, you know, make sure that tomorrow I'm drinking my water and can detoxify and Mhmm. Could just get my back self back to that set point. Right? I think intuitive eat eating I've been intuitively eating for thirteen years.
I go back to tracking occasionally for fun for fun to understand, like, oh, am I getting enough protein in? Am I kinda slacking on that? I like to go back to it for fiber because that's something that I will maybe not do well if I'm not paying attention to it because I'm not always aware of it. I have been more aware of it since the conversation's been, you know, a hot it's been a hotter topic, I guess. But intuitively eating comes from a byproduct of learning and understanding those that connection with oneself.
Mhmm. And I think if you I have one client in particular. She is so cute. Brazilian. We we lost 60 pounds together.
She never tracked a day in her life. So I know it can be done. She was very mindful, very intentional, but she used this word, and I will have to say that this is the most important word with intuitive eating, is alignment. Mhmm. She was in alignment with her goals, and she was in alignment with her body, and that really helped her get to where she wanted to without having to do all the tracking.
I love that. And that's I mean, I I when you said that, I was like, oh, I want that. I wanna feel that all the time. I do think there's some programs out there that are that say they center around intuitive eating, and I don't like them. I think that there are some that just assume that you're already in your body, and they can really mess with people, especially people who have chronic poor relationship with food or yo yo dieting or, you know, it the these mindset things.
I think you wanna do intuitive eating with someone who can talk you through it. Mhmm. Because just saying, like, I'm just gonna listen to my hunger cues. I've seen it gone really badly. You know?
And I've seen it worsen disordered eating patterns because they're kind of tricking themselves or lying to themselves or they're assuming that that those cues are on and that you have appropriate hunger cues. And if you've been eating foods that are not nutrient dense for a prolonged period of time or you've been eating in a calorie deficit or you've been yo yo dieting where you don't know your your body doesn't know what you're gonna do yet. Are you gonna feed it? Are you gonna overfeed it? Are you gonna underfeed it?
I think all of those things do not go directly into being good at intuitive eating. Like you said, it's a learned skill and it's a process. And I want that for people. I want people to come back to that sensation and to start tuning in. But I think some of the programs that I've seen kind of force you into that, and I I just think there's maybe a little bit of nuance there.
What what has your experience been? I mean, you're coaching people through it, so I think you're doing it the right way. But Well, I actually will have a client that we're working together for a while, and I'm you know, we'll be tracking, and you can feel the burnout. Yes. And I actually feel that I they start to trust themselves enough to say, you know what?
I'm actually yeah. I'm in a pretty good rhythm. I've actually got a pretty good steady rhythm going. I just wanna intuitively eat for a little bit. Here's the thing that happens is that one of two things happen.
That really works and they feel good. They actually practice the things that we've worked on or they can start to backslide. And then they see it and they say, you know what? I probably should go back. Yep.
That one of two things happens. And most people can feel the confidence and the trust and the honesty, and that's, you know, really, really important when I'm working with somebody because if you can't be honest with me, you're you're not being honest with yourself. And so, you know, intuitively eating, I feel like, is a skill. Mhmm. You start to throw in exercise, which is not which is not something we have really even addressed Mhmm.
That actually creates another whole conversation. Because when you start to move your body, depending on how hard you're, you know, pushing it, how often, those hunger hunger and, exercise creates an imbalance that sometimes people don't understand. I know if I go for a run, like, it creates an immense more amount of hunger and thirst in my body that I sometimes can't even catch up with. Mhmm. And so if I'm sometimes not even tracking my food or if I'm not aware of how much protein or maybe not aware of even eating and right after I get done running at least a decent meal to bring my cortisol down and to just feel more nourished, I mean that can get away from you.
If you're doing extreme CrossFits, HIITs, all kinds of workouts, your hunger cues are gonna be all over the place. Yeah. And then you start intuitively eating and you're eating because you're, A, either you earned your calories from working out. Which you're it's not necessarily. Not always the case.
Yeah. Yeah. There's always there's sometimes, like, I worked out really hard so I can eat more, but there's not also the actual evidence that you worked out that hard. Mhmm. But also that people are just a little bit more hungry when they eat.
That that's a whole another conversation in terms of weight loss. But in going back to what you said about intuitively eating, I feel the same way about these programs. I really do because I will actually watch videos and reels of coaches who are promoting something. And I jump into the comments and I say, you know what? Like, and they'll demonize things like tracking or the scale or things.
And I'm like, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. No. There's so many tools. Yeah. And and if and if a client is confident that they can walk down that path and I can lead them, then I will let them go.
But they don't get very far before we know it's not working because, a, they're not getting the results, or, b, they're they're really frustrated. They see it themselves. Mhmm. Tell me how you incorporate then what types of food. Because when you're intuitively eating, you can't have, like, tons of Doritos and be like, you know, I I really am just craving something.
I'm gonna intuitively eat Doritos because that is chemically altered to make it more highly palatable and to make us crave more. So how do you adjust that with intuitive eating to say, I wanna listen to my body, but some of these foods will alter our cues. I'll give an example of just how I think for myself because I intuitively eat. You know, I understand, like, when I sit down I I rarely ever sit down with a bag of chips because I know that, a, they are highly palatable foods. But if I do, I usually try to pair it with something, either before or after that.
Mhmm. So, you know, say for instance, I get stressed because I will stress eat, emotionally eat, like all everybody else. Mhmm. And say for instance, I lean into I lean into more like, I like P and M and M's. So I might have a handful of those, and I recognize that at 03:00, I had a handful of P and M's.
Maybe I had two. So I a little bit overeat. A lot of times in my brain, I'm just gonna try and balance that out later. I'm gonna try and eat something that's probably pretty nourishing at dinner. A lot of people, a lot of my clients will take that opportunity, go, I just wasted my whole day.
I might as well just eat pizza for dinner. Mhmm. I think the opposite is true. I think that, you know, enjoy that food. I enjoy it.
I don't beat myself up about having that food. You know, if it's Doritos or if it's Oreos or whatever it is that you choose to eat, what I do is I just try to make that next meal, you know, balanced out a little bit more in conjunction with the fact that I just consumed a lot of calories and fats and carbs. And I probably don't need all those calories again at dinner, but I do need to eat. I do need food. So I don't wanna starve myself.
So I might make it a lighter dinner, or I might make it a little bit more volume of vegetables and and and some and some protein so I can balance that out. I also believe that, like, drinking a lot of water, you know, if you do you know, if if I'm intuitive and I'm trying to I'm I'm drinking a lot of water to kind of flush that out of my system because that actually makes me more thirsty. It actually my body has a reaction to those kinds of foods that I I think that there's a room for them. And I do think that people will emotionally eat, but learning how intuitively eating means just like going, oh, well, I can have that. You know?
And I did, but I can work that in by doing this next. Mhmm. Mhmm. That's where the awareness comes in. Does that help?
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's perfect. Well, we are out of time, but I want to just let you wrap it up for us. What is the big take home or anything that we may have missed when we're talking about weight loss for women?
It's so awesome that you asked that because I have had this on my tongue all week about the weight loss does not equate happiness. Mhmm. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna negate the fact that losing weight doesn't feel good and you can build confidence and feel better in your bodies because you are lighter. But in the end of the day, it does not make us any happier. Our happiness is not dependent on the size of our bodies.
The happiness comes from doing the hard things in between. Mhmm. I mean, I feel so passionate about that because I have been doing some hard things in my life lately that have been so uncomfortable. But doing uncomfortable things equates to growth. And that growth that growth creates the dopamine, the serotonin, all of those happy feelings.
And getting to that weight loss goal is honestly just the cherry on top. Mhmm. So, you know, my takeaway with weight loss is is that most of you women have been focused on this your whole life. And if you take a step back and focus on just the basics, the principles, the the little pieces in between where you are today and where it is at wherever you're gonna be in ten years from now, do the hard thing. Do those hard things that you keep telling yourself you're gonna do because that's what creates that's what honestly creates more happiness, is you following through, you keeping your promises, all of those things.
And if you end up being a little 20 pounds heavier, but you're eating better and you're moving more, honestly, that 20 pounds is not that big of a deal. You're healthy. You're happy. You're balanced. So that's my takeaway.
I love that so much. And I think that if you there are ways that you can lose weight in an unhealthy way, and it doesn't bring happiness. It it brings illness, and it can bring other damage and other gut distress and many other things. But when we do it the right way, I I love that you bring that up, and I agree wholeheartedly. So thank you for coming on and sharing your good vibes and your good approach.
I just love the way that you approach it and and kind of taking this holistic approach instead of saying, you know, I help women lose weight by counting macros and by exercising. You know, by really looking at the whole person, which is really as humans what we all deserve and what we all want. We want to be treated as a whole person and not someone just to analyze our food and tell us we failed and that we need to tweak it. So I'm so grateful that you're doing the work that you're doing and and always a pleasure. Well, thank you for having me again.
It was really fun. Oh, good. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. A huge thank you to our guest for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening.
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