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
Using Data to Enhance Your Weight Loss Experience
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Can awareness and assessment be the keys to a stress-free weight loss journey? Tune in to discover how reframing the tools of weight tracking and food logging can lead to a healthier relationship with your body. Uncover the secrets to avoiding common pitfalls and learn how to see these tools as data points rather than measures of self-worth. We shed light on how to use these insights to understand what truly works for your unique system, without letting the numbers on a scale dictate your emotions or behaviors.
Explore the fine balance between effective food tracking and maintaining a healthy mindset. We dive into the nuances of using food as information for your body, and why the focus should be on nutrition quality over calorie counting. Learn why periodic weigh-ins, rather than daily check-ins, can be a game-changer for your mental well-being. With personal anecdotes and practical tips, we guide you on how to interpret and act on the data you collect to create a balanced, enjoyable lifestyle. Listen in for a transformative discussion that promises to simplify your weight loss journey while enhancing your overall health.
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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. Hello, simplifiers, let's talk about awareness and assessment and how those two things have the power to make weight loss feel stressful and hard, or straightforward and natural. As you know, I help women lose weight.
Speaker 1:A couple of the common things that I hear when working with weight loss clients is I don't like to weigh myself, I don't like to track my food. Often, these statements are followed with something about been there, done that and it isn't good for me. I become obsessive. The reason they're working with me is because they want to be healthy. They want to lose weight in a healthy way, and being obsessed about what they're eating is the last thing they want. They want to think less about food, not more. The good news is, you don't need to do either of these things to lose weight and keep it off. However, weighing yourself and tracking your food can create confidence and a sense of well-being when used properly. The problem I see is that most people who struggle with this type of data tracking aren't using the data properly. They're weaponizing it as a way to judge and control their behavior, rather than seeing it for what it is Fact. It's just data that, when taken in context, relates back to everything else that you're doing. It tells a story when considering it this way, as facts, without self-judgment. The story this data tells is what works and doesn't work for your body. This information can and should be used to adjust your behavior so that you're doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. Here's what I mean by weaponizing these simple data collection methods.
Speaker 1:Let's start with the scale. Your bathroom scale is a measurement tool. It has zero input on who you are as a person. It doesn't have feelings or personality. It's just an object. We all know this, but yet so many of us make the number we see mean something about who we are as a person. The biggest mistake you can make with your bathroom scale is using it to validate how you're feeling. When you do this, you've weaponized the scale as an object that can do you harm by manipulating your feelings.
Speaker 1:Here's an example of what I mean you wake up feeling amazing and love what you're seeing in the mirror, and then you decide you're going to step on your scale to prove that you really do feel good and look good. You're preparing to judge yourself either worthy or unworthy, based on what the scale tells you. You're choosing an inanimate object as the barometer of how you should feel about yourself, rather than just trusting the feeling you had when you woke up. Now I want you to consider what in your mind it would take to feel worthy versus unworthy when you step on the bathroom scale. One pound down, two, three or more? What about no change? How would that make you feel? What if it was one or two pounds up? What then? Remember, before you stepped on the scale, you felt great. You decided you also looked great.
Speaker 1:Nothing has changed, except you stepped on the scale and saw a number. Let's say, when you got on the scale, you saw a number that you weren't expecting, a number that discounted how you were feeling. Now your confidence is shot. The good feeling you woke up with is gone. You're questioning everything you're doing and start to think nothing works. So why are you even trying? You shift your behavior without even realizing it. You decide to have your big Starbucks drink and then get chips at lunch, and then, instead of one glass of wine after work, you have two or maybe three, because why not?
Speaker 1:Stepping on your bathroom scale caused two important shifts. You discounted how you felt when you woke up and you changed your behavior, probably unknowingly, and that behavior change will prove your thought that nothing's working. Adding the big sugary coffee drink, crappy snacks and alcohol will make you worse, not better. You will prove to yourself that nothing works. The second thing you've thrown away progress that you didn't trust. How you feel is a huge indicator that things are working. This is not something to be tossed aside as no big deal.
Speaker 1:The first part of the process of getting leaner, stronger and healthier is less inflammation. When you have less inflammation, you feel better, you feel good. It's not a fluke. It's an actual biological change. This is a huge sign that what you're doing is working. But instead of trusting your body, you looked to the scale for validation.
Speaker 1:The scale isn't a good indicator of healthy change on a day-to-day basis, and certainly not at the beginning of your healthy transformation. The scale is a tool. Let it help you rather than hurt you. A single weigh-in is not something that should cause you to adjust your behavior. Your body weight can fluctuate from one to six pounds on any given day, just from water intake and retention. More often than not, this isn't a true reflection of your process. I do want to share some tips on how you can use the scale in a helpful way, but before I get there, let's dive into food tracking.
Speaker 1:Food tracking is the other thing that clients often say they get obsessed about. While food tracking can cause self-judgment, I think this particular source of data can easily be more about rigid control. When we weaponize food tracking, it can be a trap of mind games and all-or-nothing thinking. Have you ever tracked your food as a way to rationalize indulgences like desserts or alcohol? That would be an example of the mind games that we can play when food tracking.
Speaker 1:When it comes to weight loss and particularly being leaner, stronger and healthier, it's not all about the calories. It's not a simple numbers game. What you choose to eat matters more than just the calories that come with the food. Food is information. Every bite you take tells your body to do very specific things, even if you're hitting what you believe to be the right calorie number, if those calories are coming from food that tells your body to store fat, then you'll be frustrated by a lack of progress. If you're uncomfortable with food tracking, it's likely you've weaponized this excellent data collection tool and are using it as a way to fight against your body.
Speaker 1:Dieting tends to force people to focus on what not to eat. This creates discomfort and negative feelings. Focusing on what you are eating instead of what you're not eating is how you use food tracking as a healthy and useful data collection tool. Tracking your food so that you know you're getting enough is very different from tracking your food to make sure you eat as little as possible. Food tracking can be a tool that gives structure to your day so that you know your body's getting what it needs to help you create the result you want. Scale, weight and food tracking are actually tools of awareness. They remind you to check in on what's going on so that you can evaluate your process what's working and what's not working. From there, you make adjustments so that you do more of what's working and less of what's not. Here are some tips to help you use the scale and food tracker in a way that's helpful For the scale.
Speaker 1:I want to paint a picture. You wake up feeling great. You look in the mirror. You like what you see. You think about what you did yesterday, how your food went meals versus snacks what you ate at your meals, what your hunger and cravings were like. You think about everything you did the previous day, who you were with, where you were, how much water you drank, what movement and exercise looked like for you. And then you think about how you slept. What time did you go to bed? Did you sleep through the night or did you wake up Now with all of this information? How do you feel? What do you see in the mirror? What is your general sense of well-being? Will the scale provide useful information or do you already have everything you need in order to have an amazing day? The scale is just a tool. It provides information that can be used to help you evaluate your process.
Speaker 1:If you know, you struggle with an emotional reaction and self-judgment when it comes to your bathroom scale, but you see the value in the data my suggestion would be to weigh in once a week, or even once a month. Pick a day and weigh yourself first thing in the morning after having gone to the bathroom, but before you've started your day. Take this data, this fact, and relate it back to what you've done over the last seven days or a month. Do you see a trend? Is it the trend you want to see? Are you making progress toward your goals? If yes, you keep doing what you're doing. If no, again go back and look at what you did specifically over the last week. Was there anything different going on? Maybe you were on vacation over the last week and the scale shows that you were a little more indulgent than you normally are. No judgment this should be an expected result. You knowingly gave your body different input and you got an expected result. Nothing has gone wrong. You're now home and over the next week your behavior is back to what you typically do. The scale will likely show a change based on this Again, an expected change.
Speaker 1:If the data you get isn't expected, based on what you typically see from your normal behavior, then you know to take a closer look at what you've been doing. Are you totally back from vacation or is there some leftover vacation behavior? I'm just back from vacation and find that I'm not quite back to my normal. I'm still stuck in the structured eating schedule we had during vacation. I'm also noticing that vacation indulgences have turned my sweet tooth on, so I'm craving treats and dessert, which is not normal for me. I know what's going on. I'm aware of what I did while on vacation and not surprised at all that my body is a little out of balance, because I'm aware I'm able to make choices that help me rebalance my body without struggling against cravings, using willpower or feeling deprived Guess what. I'm also not weighing myself this week. I feel good. There's no need for me to validate how I'm feeling. I know the scale will likely show a higher number than my normal. Of course it will, because the indulgent food that I ate on vacation caused my body to hold more water than what's normal for me. I don't need the scale to tell me this. I know this. I'll do my weekly weigh-in after I've been home and on my normal schedule for a week. I trust my daily normal behavior to rebalance my body and then keep me in balance.
Speaker 1:As for food tracking, I don't track when I'm on vacation. That would be stressful and not very fun. Now that I'm home, I'm looking forward to tracking my food. My focus is protein. I like to get a certain number of grams of protein a day. Vacation made this really hard. I knew I wasn't getting my usual amounts of protein. I'm happy to be home and able to track where my protein is coming from so that I can see how much I'm getting.
Speaker 1:When it comes to food tracking, the one thing that I focus on is protein. I don't count my calories or even my carbs and fats. I watch my protein. While tracking, I do include all the food that I'm eating. So my tracker does show carbs, fats and calories along with protein, but I know that when I get enough protein, everything else balances out in a way that works for my body. So the information is interesting, but not controlling.
Speaker 1:One last tip about food tracking just like the scale and body water weight, your appetite also fluctuates, so some days you're hungrier than other days. I don't ever force myself to hit a number when food tracking. Yes, I have a protein goal, but if it's the end of the day and I'm not hungry, I don't force myself to eat to hit my protein number. If I did, I'd be using food tracking as a way to control my behavior rather than a tool of awareness and assessment. When averaging the data from my food tracker over a week or a month, it shows that my appetite fluctuations keep me in balance. A month. It shows that my appetite fluctuations keep me in balance. Low days and high days, when averaged, work out to be exactly in range of what keeps me in balance.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, you don't need to weigh yourself or track food to lose excess fat so that you become leaner, stronger and healthier. Awareness about your behavior is the most important thing. Weighing and tracking are just two tools that help create awareness, but also allow more flexibility. When you see what's working and not working, you can make adjustments. You can try things. You can test food. You can see what should be a mostly food for you, what should be a sometimes food for you and what should be a rarely food. It's how you build out your personal plan, so you know what works and what doesn't work. You actually need the information so that you can assess what's going on. To sum things up, if you're somebody who thinks, been there, done that I don't like to weigh myself, I don't like to track my food, it just throws me off, it doesn't make me feel good, it's controlling then it's very likely that you've in some way weaponized these data collection tools and you're using them against yourself rather than as a way to help you create your own personal healthy balance process. See where you land on this idea of actually weaponizing these data sources.
Speaker 1:As always, if you have any questions, please click the message link in the show notes and shoot me a message. If you liked this episode, please drop some stars, leave a review and share it with your friends. All right, enjoy your week. I'll see you in the next episode. Do you like the next episode? You reconnect and work with your body so that you can enjoy the body, comfort and confidence you deserve, eating foods you love. Click the free consult link in the show notes. Let's talk about where you are, what you want and how you can get there.
