The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
The Simplicity of Wellness podcast is about learning how to bring your body into balance so that you get leaner, stronger and healthier as you age. Each week I'll share thoughts and ideas that help my clients build the self-awareness, self-confidence and self-reliance to lose weight, shed inches, manage muscle mass and master their mind so that they can stop dieting and enjoy living at their healthy weight with optimal wellness.
The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
From Weight Loss to Lifelong Maintenance: A Balanced Approach
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What is the secret to transitioning smoothly from weight loss to maintenance without regaining those hard-lost pounds? Join me, Amy White, your guide to holistic nutrition and wellness, as I unpack the essentials in this episode of the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. We'll kick off by exploring the rationale behind weight loss goals, often tied to enhancing overall well-being rather than mere aesthetics. Drawing from my Hangry to Healthy coaching program, I'll walk you through our phased approach, starting with a reset phase to create a feel-good baseline. We'll tackle a real-life query from a client in her mid-70s who's eager to reintroduce her favorite foods post-weight loss, using a methodical test-and-evaluate strategy to keep the balance right.
Then, we shift gears to talk about eating for the body you want, focusing on becoming leaner, stronger, and healthier without a drastic lifestyle overhaul. I'll share actionable steps and practical strategies that make fitness and nutrition improvements achievable for everyone. And don't forget, your questions matter! Submit them through the provided link, and I'll answer them at the beginning of the next episode. Tune in for valuable tips and encouragement to support your journey towards a healthier, more vibrant you!
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Welcome to the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach, amy White. The purpose of this podcast is to share information that you can use to become leaner, stronger and healthier by losing weight, shedding inches, maintaining muscle and managing your mind, all while living your normal busy life in this modern, sugar-filled world.
Speaker 2:Hello, simplifiers. I've been reviewing questions from clients over the last couple of days and decided that I wanted to address a couple of these questions here because I think they'll help illustrate the idea of eating for the body and health you want. First, let me give you some background. I have a coaching program called Hangry to Healthy. These questions come from a client in my coaching program and will be addressed with the individual client on an upcoming coaching call. Most people join my coaching program because they want to lose weight.
Speaker 2:To most people, weight loss represents a shift not just in how they want to look but in how they want to feel. One thing that I've noticed with all of my hangry to healthy clients is that when we get into the why they want to lose weight, it often turns out to be less about how they want to look and more about how they want to feel Less tired, less achy, less bloated, less gassy, less moody. Often there's a specific and persistent pain or ache that they've been living with, for example, debilitating wrist pain. This was the kind of pain that limited the client's ability to use her hand. Opening jars and bottles was difficult, if not impossible. This was an ongoing, nagging pain that she'd had for years and just assumed was due to age. Aches and pains are the most obvious sign of internal inflammation. What may surprise you is that this type of discomfort is often caused by eating foods that don't work for your body. As a Hangry to Healthy client, you learn to eat in a way that works for your unique body, but you do this in phases so that by the end of the coaching program, you understand what works and what doesn't work for you. My goal is for each client to understand how to eat all foods in a way that works for them. Now that might mean that they make the decision that there are certain foods they don't want to eat ever, but that's their choice. Phase one of the program is the reset phase. This is when my recommended food list is strategically used to help reduce inflammation, eliminate sugar cravings, calm hunger and increase energy. Phase one is all about bringing your body back into balance and establishing your feel good baseline. Everyone has to go through phase one. You have to remember what it's like to feel good so that you can then evaluate when something you eat makes you feel lousy. This is important information that you need if you want to create your custom body weight and management protocol so that you can lose your extra weight and not gain it back.
Speaker 2:Your unique weight loss and body management process is different than dieting because it will be designed around the foods you like and that work best for your body. These will be your most of the time foods, the things you eat every day. All other foods will be your sometimes or rarely foods, foods that, when eaten too often or in excess, push you away from the result you want. This is a very big point right here. Your mostly, sometimes and rarely foods can and will shift based on your goals and lifestyle habits. I will explain this a little bit more shortly.
Speaker 2:We are finally to the client question that I want to address. The question was I've lost all the weight I want to lose, so how do I transition into maintenance, mixing my mostly, sometimes and rarely foods? So, basically, she wants to know how to maintain her results but also diversify her diet. This client lost weight primarily eating only her most of the time foods. She stuck very closely to the hangry to healthy recommended food list, which had her in a comfortable calorie deficit. She lost 15 pounds in two months. I'd like to add that this client is also in her mid-70s.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons a food or foods end up in the sometimes food category versus the mostly category is because they are too energy dense, too high calorie. If the result you want is healthy weight loss, then you need to be in a slight calorie deficit. Moving some of your favorite high energy foods from your mostly list to your sometimes list is one way to achieve your weight loss results. This client doesn't want to lose any more weight, so it's likely that some of her sometimes foods can be upgraded back to most of the time foods. Her calorie intake can and should increase so that she doesn't lose any more weight. She also doesn't want to gain weight. She wants to easily maintain her new normal. So while some of her high calorie foods can shift into her most of the time food category, it's likely that not all of them can again be everyday foods. If she shifts everything back to everyday foods, she'll be eating the way she was when she was carrying an extra 15 pounds and had debilitating wrist pain. So her eventual result would be weight gain and wrist pain.
Speaker 2:Phase two of the Hangry to Healthy program is all about learning how to create a one-to-one balance between protein-rich foods and energy-rich foods as a healthy way to maintain your new, healthy weight. Maintenance doesn't just happen. You need to understand how to manage energy balance with food so that you don't gain or lose weight. My answer to this client's question about how to mix more of her sometimes foods with her most of the times foods is to test and evaluate. Start with a few of those sometimes foods that she really misses and wants to hopefully include as regular daily foods. Add those in, see how it goes. Evaluate how these foods work for her body when eaten more regularly. How does she feel? Is her inflammation increasing? Is she maintaining weight or gaining weight? Are there any other negative reactions? If adding the food helped her to stop losing and instead maintaining, that is great. If she also still feels really good, no negative side effects, perfect. Time will really tell how much and how often she tolerates any food, because body shifts can be slow and sneaky, so awareness is key.
Speaker 2:This client's lucky, though, because she has a very obvious tell when it comes to her body moving out of balance, debilitating wrist pain. That pain is 100% gone, so much so that she said she doesn't even consider it anymore. It doesn't cross her mind when she's opening a bottle or a jar, that wrist pain was caused by inflammation that she no longer has. Her diet changes removed foods that were causing her body to be inflamed. These were totally normal everyday foods that most people eat all the time. They were not foods that are included on the hangry to healthy recommended food list, because I know these foods are inflammatory for most people. So during phase one I asked clients to mostly avoid these foods, even if you don't have a nagging pain as a tell. Weight gain, bloating, gas, heartburn and daytime energy levels are also common ways to tell if the quantity or consistency of a specific food is in excess of what your body can tolerate. Discovering foods that you have a lower tolerance for doesn't mean you now have a forbidden food list. It just means that you now realize you have a particular and unique tolerance level for certain foods that you have probably enjoyed in your past without restriction. Once you know which foods these are, you can mentally categorize them based on how often you want to include them.
Speaker 2:This is the process of developing a customized body management protocol. It's all about being honest about what works and doesn't work for your body, as well as being honest about what you really want, how you want to feel, how you want to look and how you want to age. One of the big questions I have for clients when they discover a food that they love and miss but know doesn't work for their body, is why? Why do you love it and what do you miss about it? This is where big shifts happen. When you can answer the question of why you want to eat something that you know makes you worse, not better, the potential for positive, lasting change is huge. This is when you realize it's not really about the food and your body. It's about the food and your brain. You have an illusion in your brain, probably from your past, that gives you a belief that by eating that food you'll feel better, when in reality, your current evidence proves this isn't true. For most people, being able to occasionally enjoy foods that they miss or crave tends to work. They feel perfectly happy, including these foods, just not every day.
Speaker 2:The second part of the question my client asked was about travel and going to restaurants. She said she thought it would be difficult to maintain her most of the time foods basically her current eating plan while eating out and traveling. This is a common concern for anyone who has ever been dieting. It's that sense of all or nothing. If I don't stick to my plan 100%, then I am not actually on a plan anymore, so I'll just eat everything because it doesn't actually matter. This is one of the primary reasons that coaching is so helpful, because you can do a lot of this on your own. All the information you need or want is on the internet. The question is not just knowing the information, but how to implement all the knowledge that you have. For my client, she's asking the right questions, but she's just not seeing that the answer is right in front of her, and that's the difference between dieting and having a healthy body management process.
Speaker 2:Your healthy process includes all foods. It's just that you eat some foods all the time, some foods some of the time and then others rarely. Nothing is forbidden or off plan To me. The most of the time, foods are for when life is super easy, you're at home, you have a regular routine, you have time to shop, you have time to cook big and keep your fridge full of all of your favorite most-of-the-time foods. Personally, I don't regularly mix sometimes and rarely foods into my everyday food. When I'm just having a normal, typical day, my sometimes and rarely, foods are for travel and restaurants. Now, if I was traveling all the time and eating at restaurants more than I was eating at home, then that would be my normal and I would make my most of the time. Foods work in that situation For most of us who aren't traveling all the time or eating out every day.
Speaker 2:Keep things simple Eat your most of the time foods Enjoy filtering in your sometimes and rarely foods when you're away, living life a little differently for a specific amount of time. Vacation is a great example of this. You eat differently, not off plan, just differently. Nothing has gone wrong. Life ebbs and flows. Your appetite ebbs and flows your most of the time and sometimes foods will likely ebb and flow with lifestyle shifts. Travel is a lifestyle shift. When you get home, shift back to your normal baseline foods that make you feel best. So for my client yes, I 100% agree it will be more difficult to maintain her most of the time eating routine while traveling and eating out at restaurants, and that's okay. This is her perfect opportunity to mix it up and diversify by adding in those sometimes and even some rarely foods.
Speaker 2:I say enjoy, but also be aware, don't waste this opportunity to evaluate how your body reacts to these different foods. When it comes to foods that work for and against your body, your body will let you know what's working and what's not. You just have to be willing to listen. Ultimately, if you've taken the time to learn how to work with your body and evaluate foods so you know what works and doesn't work, there is no going back to eating the way you used to eat. Again, this doesn't mean there are bad or forbidden foods. There's only food and how you choose to incorporate that food into your life to create a result you want.
Speaker 2:As a hangry to healthy client, you learn what works for you. You learn what foods you want to eat most of the time, because these are the foods that make you feel and look your best. You also learn what your sometimes. Foods are the foods you enjoy but, when overeaten or eaten in excess, tend to shift your body away from what you want for yourself. You still enjoy these foods, but you know how to enjoy them while managing your body and maintaining the result you want for yourself. You still enjoy these foods, but you know how to enjoy them while managing your body and maintaining the result you want. Then there are the rarely foods, the foods you know, make you feel lousy. We all have these foods. They're often showing up during holidays or at other special family events. We love these foods even though they don't love us back, and that's okay. These are our rarely foods and because we enjoy them rarely, they don't have a lasting impact on your overall body and health goals.
Speaker 2:To recap, the question was how do I incorporate more foods and diversity into my daily diet? First, be very clear about your goals. In this case, my client's goal is to maintain her new weight and continue to feel good without wrist pain. So my suggestion is start testing more sometimes foods to increase daily calories to a level that keeps your weight stable. Watch for tolerance level. How often and how much of these foods can you eat without any negative shifts? How often and how much of these foods can you eat without any negative shifts? The second question what do I do when traveling and eating out, since it will be hard to stick to my current plan? It's funny because the answer to the second question really actually answers the first question as well. She wanted to diversify her eating. The answer to the second question explains how to do that. You take those lifestyle opportunities to diversify your food. My official answer is this is when you enjoy more of your sometimes and rarely foods. They are also part of your lifestyle plan. They can and should be used to adapt when your lifestyle shifts away from your normal everyday pattern. Bottom line, a body management process and protocol isn't restrictive dieting, because all foods are part of your healthy lifestyle plan. Use foods strategically based on your goals and lifestyle activities so that you don't ever feel overly restricted or deprived.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's it for today's podcast. If you have any questions, click the link below. Shoot me a message. I will be sure to answer it at the beginning of the next episode. Till then, have a great week. Do you like the idea of eating for the body you want? Is there a piece of you that's eager to learn how to become leaner, stronger and healthier without having to overhaul your entire life? If this is you, then you're in luck, because this is what I do. I can help you. Thank you so much for joining us.
