87. 4 game changers in my 100 lb transformation

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Manifestation Resource: To Be Magnetic

Unconventional Game Changers: Four Key Habits That Transformed My 100-Pound Weight Loss Journey

In this episode I break down four unconventional yet pivotal habits that significantly contributed to my 100-pound weight loss journey. Unlike traditional methods like calorie counting and getting in steps, these habits focus on mindset, romanticizing healthy behaviors, leveraging community, and using manifestation practices.

00:00 Introduction and Overview

01:41 Reflecting on Summer

06:07 Game Changer #1: Romanticizing Healthy Habits

15:58 Game Changer #2: The Power of Manifestation

24:53 Overcoming Initial Challenges

27:27 Building a Supportive Community

33:15 Celebrating Small Wins

Connect with me on social

1. Instagram | @balancebyhilary
2. Facebook | Balance by Hilary
3. TikTok: @balancebyhilary

WEBSITE:

www.balancebyhilary.com

Transcript

0:00

Hello, ladies. Welcome back to the show today. I wanted to share with you four things that I did that were a game changer in helping me lose a hundred pounds. These are kind of unconventional. I don't know that I want to say they're unconventional, but they're not your typical, like, You know, count your macros, be in a calorie deficit, get your steps in. Like, these are four things that I've definitely shared about on social media over the years. I incorporate them into my programs with my clients and community members. But I wanted to really just pick out these four things that. I mean, what the title is, they were a game changer in my fat loss journey, helping me reach my goals and I can't gatekeep. I want to share with you guys. So let's go ahead and dive in. What's up, you guys? You're listening to the podcast. It's all about balance with me, Hilary Downey. On this show, I'll teach you how to ditch bad dieting once and for all, so you can quit gaining and losing the same weight over and over again, or get extreme diets that deprive you and don't work. With macro gowning, you can learn how to lose weight eating the food you love. Pizza, cookies, and wine. It's all on the table, but we don't just talk about diet around here. We'll cover fitness, mindset, lifestyle habits, all of the important topics I had to address in my own 100 pound weight loss journey that you'll need to reach your goals as well. You deserve to look and feel at your best. And I'm so excited to walk beside you and show you how it's time to unlearn what you've been taught about weight loss and discover that it's truly all about balance. So let's go. Hello ladies. Okay. Oh my gosh. It is officially when this comes out for real, for real, the end of summer. And I just, I have to just pause and reflect for just a second. This has been the wildest summer I've had in a very, very, Long time. And I was just reflecting on this, um, recently that it was like, I blinked. I literally blinked and every year I feel like that happens a little bit more, but I don't know this summer, just, I don't know if it was like, Oh, well, I do know what contributes to this. I spent half the summer buying my new house moving. We, we did, we didn't do like a ton of travel, but we had our beach trip. We went to Kansas city. Um, and I don't know. I just. I look back and it literally is one of those things that I feel like I was just preparing for all the things that we were going to do this summer, all the things that I was doing in the business, just like the boys were just getting out of school and now I'm, I'm, Buying school supplies and I can not believe it. So this one flew, I don't even know. I, I don't even know what to say. It just gets crazier every year, how fast life goes. And I totally had a moment. I I've been a little bit like emotional lately because Tom. Is going to middle school. That's, you know, it feels like such a, a big shift and a big adjustment. I didn't have a lot of feels around the like transition to kindergarten. I mean, it was like, Oh, but I don't know. That was still such like a, Oh, like from pre K to kindergarten, like you're still being babied in middle schools. Like I saw him doing his locker and I saw him in there and I was just thinking about like myself in middle school and how much I changed and just like the rapid. Development that happens at that age. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is so like, it's so rough. So anyways, for any of my mamas that are in this boat, whether they're off to kindergarten or middle school or graduating college, I've got one client. She was like, yep, I've got one starting high school and one graduating high school. And I was just like, man, I bet that's a lot of fuels too. So for all my mamas in the boat of kiddos, um, you know, and those development milestones feeling heavy and. Feeling like the time is going so fast. Um, I am right there with you and I hear you and we're in this one together for sure. So end of summer wrapping up, I definitely wanted to make this episode and I'm going to do a social post to go along with this one because I definitely want to kind of share, you know, about this topic in, I don't know, a little bit. This is actually expanding on the. Social post. I wanted to expand on the social post that I am making a little bit more and talk about four things that I did that were a game changer in my 100 pound weight loss transformation. These are things that, you know, aren't your typical, like, and I was in a calorie deficit, like Obviously you guys know, you listen to the show, you understand the framework and formula for fat loss. Like you got to be in a calorie deficit. We use tracking our food to be able to do that. You know, we move our bodies and we do self care and all these things. Like we, we understand weight loss from like that POV. When it comes to like the science and, uh, all of that good stuff. But today I wanted to talk about four things that aren't that now they contributed to that. Okay. So hear me out because I'm always careful when I share stuff like this. I still had to be in a calorie deficit. None of you can't just do these things and be like, okay, well, that's how Hillary lost the weight. That's how I'm going to do it too. No, I was in a calorie deficit. I was moving my body and being consistent and all these things. But these were things that just were a game changer in helping me change my lifestyle. Okay. Because it wasn't just about losing the weight. Like I was transforming into a woman who had the health habits that I wanted to have so that I could just keep the weight off, not just lose it, but actually like have lasting success and results. Um, these things helped change my mindset. They kind of shaped me in general. And at the end of the day, I look back and these four things are. So they were so key to helping me lose the weight that I couldn't not share. So let's go ahead and dive into the first one. The first one was that I romanticized my healthy habits. Okay. Now I, again, if you've heard my story, I went from being somebody who was not healthy at all, no zero health habits, right? Uh, fast food, energy drinks and college. I was a smoker and a drinker and a partier and all that fun college kid stuff, um, and I was totally sedentary. My mental health was poor. No, you know. Obviously being sedentary, I also did not exercise at least not consistently. I would try, which leads me to the next part. Like I was never consistent with anything. I would have these moments where I'd be like, I'm going to do this. And then I would totally abandon them. And I would beat myself up and I'd be like, what is wrong with me? And I had no faith and trust in myself. My confidence was low. Like. No, no health, like eating out and overindulging and, you know, honestly being lazy. Like I use that word in. I always use that word carefully, but it's like, there are times when you're just being lazy and I was very lazy and I, you know, I didn't take care of myself. And so whenever I decided to lose the weight and get healthy, I had to like do, like, I had to flip a switch in my brain to help me like actually kind of like be excited about the things that I was doing because Truthfully, when I look back at like things like eating out, for example, I use that as kind of a coping mechanism. I created this habit of being dependent on that, like things like that, like overindulging and eating out and stuff like that to like, give me relief in my. day. And in my life, I, you know, I, I don't know how else to really like explain that, except to say that my healthy habit, my unhealthy habits, sorry, my unhealthy habits were kind of coping mechanisms for. The stress that I was feeling or the depression or the anxiety and so I looked forward to them I genuinely looked forward to eating out and Stuffing myself to the point that I was sick and that was comfortable and it felt like relief Inside of my life. So whenever I switched to no, I have to To change how I'm eating and I have to change my habits and I've got to start eating healthier and I've got to, you know, start using portion control. I want to lose this weight. I want to feel better. I don't want to be out of control with food anymore and use it in this unhealthy way. I kind of had to romanticize like what I was doing because I wasn't going out to eat anymore. Like I wasn't having, and we still went out to eat, but I'm saying in the way that I was, I didn't have that like release that I would feel from, you know, Binging Netflix for like five hours at night and staying up way too late and then, you know, sleeping in and not going, getting a workout in. Okay. So for me, this really looked like a, like a couple of different things. And these are just sort of examples that I had, but, you know, I would cook like, Restaurant style meals at home. Like for example, even Taco Bell, like I talk about this all the time, like for my lunches, like when I would meal prep, I would make like something similar to Taco Bell. That's where like my double decker and my crunch wrap recipe that are inside of our balance babe Academy membership come from was like, I was like, I am going to just make kind of more macro balance, uh, versions, calorie friendly versions of these things. And so like romanticizing, you know, my meals and my healthier foods, like Getting excited about them and finding recipes to lighten up my favorite foods, chicken pot pie, chicken dumplings, like all those, you know, foods, burgers, like whatever it was, and also just making like kind of fancy meals like, Ooh, like steak and asparagus. Also, you know, obviously on a typical like Wednesday night, that wasn't always, that just didn't always make sense or wasn't doable. So it could be something. As simple and I still do this to this day as putting kombucha in a wine glass, a fancy wine glass and like carrying it around while I cook dinner, you know, like super simple, something like giving myself like a little Pedicure in the bathtub or, you know, journaling, like sitting down, lighting a candle and journaling for like 15 minutes. I'm not talking about like, I've got to have this whole night, right? The, this was also like putting on some makeup and going to the gym and feeling good about myself, or, you know, even creating like a little date night after the boys went to bed. Cause remember, like I was going through all of this and I had this. Two under two. So, you know, put them to bed for as long as Ben always woke up. So the little bit of time that I got, like, okay, I'm going to have a little me moment where I'm going to, you know, again, like light a candle and read a book or journal or do look at through magazines or flip through Pinterest and, you know, pin a board, like romanticizing the fact that I was no longer engaging in these unhealthy habits that brought me relief that helped me, you know, get through Relieve stress and, and all of this. And instead having to kind of flip it and romanticize the things that I was doing, the, the healthy habits that I was adopting, because they were new to me. I was used to self sabotage. I was used to overindulgence. I was used to mindless eating. I was used to not taking care of myself. And again, just very black and white engaging in unhealthy habits and coping mechanisms. And. Living life in a way where it was just like I, I didn't care. Like I didn't take care of myself. I didn't think about how the things that I was doing were impacting me, the choices that I was making, I was mindless about it. So when I switched to paying attention to it, I had to be so intentional about kind of romanticizing it, kind of getting excited about it. And again, it could be something. Very, very small. I, this did, this wasn't this grand thing all the time. Now I did have the date, I still talk about this. I still have clients that will tag me when they do this called date yourself night. And again, this would sometimes be like putting the kids to bed and being like, okay, I'm gonna have like this little moment, like light a candle, pour some sparkling wine or Coke zero and lime and you know, have this little mocktail situation and you know, do some skincare, whatever. Romanticizing the healthy habits helped me like mentally switch into like my brain switched into I don't have to do these things. I get to do these things. It was so pivotal for me because. I kind of had that like resentment in the beginning that we sometimes have around like, I have to, I have to go to the gym. I have to cook this healthy meal. I don't get to go out to eat. I don't get to overindulge like, I had to switch in my brain to this sort of gratitude and appreciation and again, romanticizing the things that I was doing so that they were shed in this really positive light. Because I knew that what the things that I was going to be doing were good for me. I knew that, like, I totally understood that. That was true, but it doesn't matter. Like, my brain My subconscious brain had not quite caught up with me on that one. So I had to, you know, make it special and make it a big deal in my brain and make, you know, make it, you know, Exciting, I guess, in a way that allowed for my brain to kind of start making this switch of like, Ooh, this is good. No, no, this is good. Like, this is good for us. And I can't even begin to tell you the difference that that made. I mean, there's a reason that it made it into this in why I said it first, it made all the difference in my journey. It made all the difference. If you are still resenting your habits, I have to, I have to, I have to, I don't get to, I can't go have drinks. I can't, you know, because yeah, you're yes. You can have the flexibility and the freedom, but like, there's going to be times you have to say no. Obviously there's sacrifices. Y'all know this. Obviously there's things you're going to have to change. You can't always say yes. In a journey where you're changing your habits, something's got to give something, it's got to change. So there are going to be times. And you can be resentful of that, and you can shed it in a negative light, or you can highlight the changes that you're making and put them in a positive, spin it into a positive and romanticize them. And again, it's something as little. As putting your yogurt bowl that you usually eat, that might be kind of boring that you eat in a crummy plastic Tupperware in a fancier bowl and using a fancier spoon, like there's so many ways that you can do this and that you can incorporate it into your day without it being a huge thing. But this was a game changer for me. And I just wanted to kick off with that. It's the longest one I wanted to talk about. I wanted to kick off with that one because. Honestly, I could do an episode just about this topic. It's so important that you start spinning into a positive, the changes that you're making, it's never going to last. The reason that it has lasted for me that I've had the lasting success is because I still do this. I literally still do this just last night, just last night. I put my kombucha in a, in a, um, Wine glass and spritz some fresh lime over it and had myself a little 15 again, just 15 minutes before bed where I lit a candle and I did some journaling and I wrote down my goals and I just was super appreciative of the changes that I was making and I got excited about them. And this has truly been such a game changer for me. So I want you to keep that one in mind. Okay. Okay, on to the second one, because again, I could ramble about that one forever. Manifestation is the second thing that I used and I'm going to give this disclaimer now. I am not an expert in manifestation or the practice of manifestation in any way, shape or form. What I will tell you. Is I ha I am a natural manifester and some of my earliest memories like I'm talking so I was born in Houston, Texas My very very earliest memories had to have been about three years old I would I sometimes I think it was even before but I, it's hard to say, right? Your, your brain tricks you and all this, like at least three, for sure. I can remember manifesting, like it's crazy. I don't talk about this a lot. I have shared some of this on social, but I don't really need anybody to give for one. It's, it does have to do with what I talk about and what I teach and coach, but like, it's also sort of a, it, it, it's. They intertwine as about to talk about but like it's such a separate topic and I could go off on such a tangent with this one that it's like I have to be careful because I could like shift this whole thing so quickly if I if I started talking about this too much, so Manifestation is something I have always done very naturally. I didn't know what I was doing. I knew there was something I knew that I had this, um, we'll call it like gut instinct that I felt like I could sway the outcome of the things that were happening around me. And I felt like my mind, my brain, and I'm talking from an early age, like I understood this was. Very powerful in creating the reality around me. I knew that I was sort of in control of the circumstances around me. Like I'm talking three years old. I knew that I was creating the life around me and that I had say in it. And that my mind was the powerful tool that was going to help me. Get what I wanted or, you know, create these results for myself. And obviously when I went into college, it started in high school, I started taking like psychology and then AP psychology, all these classes when I decided to get a degree in psychology. A huge part of that was because I wanted to study the brain. I wanted to study the mind. I wanted to study that connection. And that was what my interest was. If you've never heard me talk about this before, I had got pregnant with Tom and kind of rerouted a little bit, obviously still using the psychology degree, but originally I wanted to be like a neuroscientist. I really wanted to study human behavior and the brain. And it all stems from me having this understanding of how the brain is so. And what I learned in growing up was that not a lot of people were talking about this, not a lot of people, like it blew my mind. And I would say things like, well, you, you have control over that. Like you can change this. And obviously there are circumstances. That are beyond you. That's not what I'm saying, but we have so much more power than we realize. And I was like, why is nobody talking about this? Why is everybody like victim to their lives and the things that are happening to them when like, we could change this. We could, you know, so I would share about this. I was super interested in it and it's one of those things when I decided to get my degree in psychology, I was kind of interested in this, but obviously if you hear manifestation and either you don't know what it's about The, the, the knee jerk reaction for some people is like this woo, woo science, but there's all kinds of science behind it. I'm not going to get into all of that. If you want to look further into it, you definitely can. But for me, I was just doing this naturally and I I really just see it as you can call it whatever. I just really saw it as, you know, being in control of your habits and your behaviors and therefore the outcome of your life. I really believed that that was possible. And that I was going to do that for myself and I've done that. And I, I have shared this on social and I've had so many people ask me about it. I will 100 percent tell you that I recorded an entire episode on this topic, not getting into the science of the how, I mean, I do share kind of some of the things that I did, but literally just my story, because I've shared that my job, my life. Um, and my relationship with Dave, the boys, all of that, I manifested 120, 000 percent I manifested. It's like pretty much every single part of my, my current day to day life. And when I got the house in this neighborhood that I had been dreaming of, that I've been waiting for, I fully manifested that as well. And I actually manifested that as soon as I began a very, began a very specific manifestation practice. This year, and it happened so fast and so rapidly that I was like, okay, now that all these things have come true, I've got to share. And I kind of shared on social and everyone was like, okay, we want to hear more. So I was like, I don't really know where to put this and where to talk about it on social. It's going to disappear. I don't know if a highlights appropriate. So I recorded a podcast episode. So that is coming. It'll be a little aside episode for you guys once we get that edited, but it is, you know, really just me sharing my experience with manifestation and. How it changed my life, how it, um, has obviously affected pretty much every area of my life, but also into my fat loss, losing a hundred pounds, changing my lifestyle. So be on the lookout for that one. Um, you guys asked for it. It's coming. So today, what I want to tell you is that whenever I was. In my 100 pound transformation, I felt so far from like the body and the person that I am right now. I was so far from it. Like I just shared at the beginning of the episode, terrible unhealthy habits, not the best mindset, right? Like definitely not using positivity to move myself forward. Kind of a jaded, you know, post college kid, like not great, but I realized very quickly because I understood the power of my mind. That I had to be in control of the outcome and that I had personal responsibility in being able to create the habits and create the lifestyle that I wanted. So I had a huge, huge, Huge focus on becoming the version of myself. I wanted to become, even though I was so far away from it. And this ties into, I know, like, again, we talk manifestation and woo, woo, but like, I have a degree in psychology, you guys. So something you have to understand is again, a lot of this is like very side, it's very science based. I know with manifestation, people are like, Oh, it's woo, woo, blah, blah, blah, blah. But. No, like this isn't just like stars aligning and stuff like, like this is, this is science based and the practice that I actually use, let me talk about here in just a sec is science based. It is psychology backed. And so this is more, you know, how your thoughts lead to your behaviors, which leads to the results that you get. I teach this to my clients. Inside of our mindset trainings, we teach this. It is psychology based self talk, all of this becoming the version of myself. I wanted to become that was so far away from who I was, was a literally me pitch picking out, okay, first, who do I want to become? What do I, what do I, what do I want my life to look like? Who is this version of myself? And then what does she do? What does she do? What does she look like? What do her habits look like? How does she wake up in the morning? What does she eat? You know, what, what, what promises does she make? How does she talk to herself? How does she talk to others? How does she treat others? Like I had this version of myself That I wanted to become I could see her I could define what those things were and then guess what I did I just started picking out those things and I started acting on them, period, period. I just started acting on them. You can call it imposter syndrome. You can call it feeling like you're faking it. Whatever it was, I felt it. I was like, I am not these things, but I'm becoming these things. And, and guess what? Guess what? If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have lost the weight. I wouldn't be the person that I am today. Manifestation was huge for me in helping me become the version of myself that I wanted to become. And I use this with my clients all the time inside of my coaching programs specifically. We go deep on some of this in our trainings because it is so important. So important. As you train your brain for fat loss, which is literally our mindset trainings that you start acting from the version of yourself that you want to become. You got to define that first and then you start acting on it. And that's exactly what I did. I felt so silly going and buying workout clothes. I'm not going to lie guys. You have to remember I did. I was not healthy. I was not active. I was not like, like, it felt so silly to be like, I'm a fitness like person, but like, I had to just start doing it, you know, being a healthy, but like even just ordering the healthier option at restaurants, there was like a little embarrassment. There was a little silliness. It felt like around it, but like I did it, I was doing it. And by using manifestation and visualizing and changing my behavior, That changed the result that led me down the path. That's how I became who I am today. And so manifestation was a huge piece to the puzzle. There's all these other pieces I used to support psychology. I mean, again, it's all very intertwined and some of the. The greatest in the world athletes. We're talking about Olympics right now. Like you'll hear so many people talking about sort of this manifestation and the energetics around them. And all this, like people who do really great things, massive transformations, and I don't mean great, like celebrities and, and, you know, athletes and things that are highlighted in media, I'm talking just like anybody who starts a business and, you know, has really great success or, you know, Starts a charity and has really great success or just does something great. Like oftentimes they are having to take this massive action towards that goal. Without really like having the credentials yet, or without really like knowing that they can do it. And so, so much of that is this belief in yourself to that you can do these things. And so that was huge for me. I had to start manifesting. I had to start believing that I could do it. Before I ever saw proof that I could and that's where manifestation came in. So I'm going to share the link um in this episode for the specific practice because again, I am not a An expert on this there are practitioners in this like this is not my wheelhouse at all I just know how to do it naturally and then now i'm really using the skill set that I have learned from it to go deeper and further to continue to see incredible results and craft the life that I want and so You I use a, uh, I am in a membership that I use called to be magnetic. I will share a link below. There's no affiliation or anything, but it's just been really awesome for me to be able to like actually tangibly have things to follow instead of just doing it intuitively. I do kind of a mix, but you can check that out with the link below if you would like to. Okay. The next thing that I did was community. This one I can't say enough about because I would have never been able to do it alone. Period. End of story. No freaking way would I have been able to lose a hundred pounds by myself. There's no way there is zero way I Thrived in a group setting thrived. I felt so much like There was this Bonding there was this. Okay, we're in this together the camaraderie. There was this sense of I have a Somewhere to go. I have something to check into. I have something to be accountable to. I have these people that I can lean on. We're all in this together. It made me excited to like post about what I did for the day. It made me feel better if I completely like blew it, that I could turn to them and talk to them. Like community was everything. Everything for me and I've shared that for me that started in a group if you were in it many many years ago No, excuse moms and I ended up becoming the like nutritionist for the group And that was such a fabulous like experience for me to go from the place that I was Like started my love of exercise and helped me get healthy and, you know, love nutrition and health and all of this to then like being a leader in this group. But that was my place. I still have screenshots. I mean, you could, I gosh, I can probably go back still and see the posts from, you know, way back when, 2015, like, My whole journey is like documented inside of this Facebook group because that's where I was. That's where I was hanging out. Like there's so many posts. Like I go back and I sometimes laugh when I see it because I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like that Hillary just had no idea what was coming for her. But I, I. I had to have it. And so obviously when I built my business, I had to have it. I had to give women a community, a place to call home. That's why our membership is everything to us. I love our coaching programs. I love all the things that we do, but like, that's why you get balanced babe Academy when you join our coaching programs, because like that community setting that like comradery, that knowing you're never alone in the journey was everything to me. There were so many times where I felt so defeated, you know, whether it was progress felt slow, whether it was somebody in my life said something that made me feel bad, whether it was my own mind bullying me and me wondering, can I even do this? And. A simple post just getting it off my chest. I don't even need anyone to say anything Just getting it off my chest knowing I had somewhere to unload it felt So like I felt so much release around that that helped me pick up and keep moving on Then you add the fact that people are cheering you on and saying you got this you got this you got this and you know You have to be careful in in community settings. I'm laughing because in community settings You can you can definitely if you've ever been in a group where you're like yikes, you know, especially with women It's like it can be tough, you know You can have that where it's not the right fit and there's people in there that just don't align with you And that's one thing I mom and I say it all the time all the time all the time. We are so thankful We haven't never had issues in our community Ever, never, every woman in our community is so supportive. There's no cattiness. There's no jealousy. There's no ugliness. It is 100 percent support. Now we all tell each other the truth. You know, we're not there to sugar coat, but like we're there to build each other up and support each other and share in this experience together. And we, We are grateful if you're in our community, if you're in balance, babe academy, like you cannot know how much it means to us that you guys are just so awesome. We're so lucky because if you've ever been in a women's group where there's cattiness and there's all that stuff, extra stuff going on, it's miserable. So for me, I wanted to give women a space to be able to share in the struggles and also just like it's fun. Like I loved being like, Ooh, I tried this new recipe or has anybody tried this? Or, you know, what exercises are y'all doing? I'm kind of bored with my workouts. Like all of that, that's what community is all about. And there's no way I could have done it without that support, which again is why. My business is based around community support for women on the journey to losing the weight, changing their habits and transforming their life. So that's a major one. And I just, uh, you know, I'm always going to invite you to ours. If you don't have that, I see so many women that are like really struggling to do it alone. And. They don't have supportive partners, their coworkers, their family members, maybe make them feel bad or sabotage them. Or maybe you just don't stay accountable. Like you try and kind of get it going yourself. And then by, you know, a week or two, you're off. Like there's so many. put yourself in the room with other women who are doing the same thing you're doing, who are ahead of you so that you can look to them who are, you know, coming in behind you so that you can help pull them along and reinforce the things you're doing and that are beside you that are walking this path with you that helps you. Get to the end and for me that helped me get to the end result in the end I had already built my my own community and that's what helped me get to the end, which is balanced babe academy today It was a free facebook group. So many ladies came over with us into our membership and it's just been awesome So If you're looking for that, the link to join Balance Babe Academy is below. If you know that you're struggling to do it alone, I would strongly encourage you to join us. This is where you get so much goodness. Our, you know, fat loss program. Um, it's so great. So come in, join us and let's do it together. Okay. The last thing that I did was excitement and celebrating the small wins. Oftentimes. In a journey where you're trying to lose weight, you kind of have this end goal. It's so easy to get caught up on just that, right? Like I want to lose, which I didn't have a number. I didn't have a goal weight. None of that. I, well, that's not true. I had a goal that I thought that I wanted to get to. Um, I knew I didn't know, cause like I had never really paid that much attention to my body. Like I didn't exactly know. I just thought that I like had a number in mind. And if you've heard the story, you know, I did not love my body at the end of that. And so it was one of those things where it's like, definitely, um, you know, not happy with this end goal. Therefore, that's why I preach like, Hey, be careful with the, with the, um, goal weights, you guys, cause you may get there and you might not even like what you see. But I had like an idea of like what I was going for and what I was looking for. And it was far away, far away, obviously a hundred pounds lost is far away. Okay. So, and it was not a quick process also, right? This spanned several years. So I had to celebrate the small wins along the way. Every time I fit into a new pair of jeans, or I ran a little bit longer than I did previously, or I check marked all my goals for the week, like I got so excited, I got so excited, and I used milestones along the way. I measured progress in all those ways that I just mentioned. Yes. Physical progress. Yes. Behavioral progress, you know, checking off my goals, give myself a gold star. That's why we use our habit tracker inside of our programs. Like all of that was super important, but it also used milestones along the way that weren't 10 pounds down. Like, and if you do that, I'm not saying that's bad. It's just for me, I would have. Probably felt super defeated if I did that because I, I, the scale went at its own pace. Like I lost body fat, but the scale went at its own pace. So I've never liked measuring progress with the scale like that because it's going to do its own thing. It has a mind of its own. I can't control that. And I'll forever preach that to you guys. Focus on what you can control. How many workouts can you do? What's your attitude? Like what's the food you're putting in your mouth? Are you going to bed and getting a good night's sleep instead of You know, Netflix, binging, are you eating out too much and door dashing too much? Like that kind of stuff is measurable and you're in control of it. And so I would celebrate, I would set these goals for myself only eating out once this week, you know, hitting my protein six days. Like, and I would track it. I would measure it. I would use our tracker. Weekly Habit Tracker, and then I would celebrate that progress. I would get so freaking excited. And I would also use milestones like my birthday is coming. I want to wear this. I would just pick out like a fun outfit, whether it's something I already had, whether I was buying something, like I want to wear that. I want to look good in that. Not, I want to be 10 pounds down by the time my birthday comes. I want to feel good in this. And I would get there and I would just, it would just be this enough of this focus of like, I just, I'm going to get to my birthday. I'm going to work really, really, really hard. I would have this little goal in front of me. And I always suggest this to ladies right now. Again, I'm not talking about 10 pounds down by your birthday. I'm talking about, I want to feel good for my birthday. Stop measuring your progress with, or measuring these milestones and putting this pressure on yourself to just, you're just going to end up disappointed if you don't get there. I can't tell you how many times I've had a client say to me, I'm literally specific, specifically thinking of a client I'm working with right now. We're wrapping up, she's in maintenance mode. She's lost the weight. She's feeling amazing. And I can remember in the beginning she would, you know, kind of start to do that where she'd put this pressure on herself to lose this weight. And she would kind of, you know, in the beginning it'd be like, Oh, I'm kind of disappointed I didn't get there and I'd be like, Oh my gosh, you're so disappointed that you didn't make it by like two pounds, but look at the eight you lost and also look how much progress you've made. I didn't even really have to, I mean, I definitely coached her there. I didn't even have to say that much by, by like the third, fourth month. We, she was done doing that. Like she was done. She was like, I am making progress. Like I'm so excited. And then I just turned around and sabotage myself because of this goal. Right. And instead of, I just focused on how good I felt, I would have been so happy. And that's just it. You get to that goal. Time period. Okay. Maybe you've got two months until this event and you're crushing it for that two months. You're showing up for yourself. You are keeping the promises you made yourself. It wasn't a hundred percent perfect, but you know that you showed up and you did more than you were previously doing. And you are so excited about that. Like you are so proud of yourself and you've made progress. Like you've put a dent. In the weight that you wanted to lose and you've made some progress, inches or loss, like you're feeling better. You're feeling amazing. Who freaking cares about some arbitrary number that nobody even looks at? No one cares about focus on how you feel. I totally just went off on a tangent. I did not intend to go off on. But the point is, is the reason I lost the hundred pounds, the reason my clients are successful in getting to the journey is because they celebrate these wins along the way, you know, picking these kinds of milestones and dedicating yourself for this period of time where you're just like, go, it's go time. I'm going, I'm telling you. Getting excited about the progress along the way and celebrating the wins. It's a game changer because if all you're going to do is just celebrate when you get to the end, I'm going to tell you right now, you can be really disappointed when you get there. You've, if you get there, if you get there, you've got to start celebrating. Along the way, you've got to start building yourself up and seeing that the progress is going to add up to become this big thing. And again, huge fan of picking a date, picking a time where you're just going to dedicate yourself to it. You are just go, go, go, go, go, go. That that can help you sort of, you know, have this meant that's why we did challenges for so long. So speaking of all of that, we are. We're gearing up inside a balanced babe Academy for a four week fat loss challenge. I'm so excited. I think I've mentioned it made me briefly on the show. Maybe this is the first time that I am talking about it, but in September we are doing a four week fat loss challenge. I'm talking focused, focused. We're looking at macros and we're looking at mindset. I'll just give you a little, little bit of a preview, a little bit of a hint right now what we're focused on. Macros of mindset, four weeks, fat loss focused. Okay. If you've got body recomp, all that totally good. If it's, you know, a number cool, whatever, like, but we're talking, changing our body shape. We're talking shedding body fat, whether you've been on it this year and you want to keep it going, you want to turn that dial up. You're ready to seriously see some results or you're not where you want to be. And I'll just, we'll just put it like that. We're not where we want to be. Maybe you spent the summer taking your foot off the gas pedal. Maybe you hadn't really made strides at all this year on the progress that you wanted to make this four week focused fat loss challenge. We're going to focus on our macros. We're going to focus on our mindset so that we can actually keep the weight off and keep it going and get to the end goal is going to be so good. I am so excited. And like I've mentioned before. We are only running our 28 day challenges now inside of our membership. Balance Babe Academy is where it's at. And I could not be more excited about all the things that we've been putting together for this. We've got a new workout plan coming. We've got a meal guide, simple meal guide coming, like so many good things, prizes. The energy is going to be so fabulous. So, so fabulous. And we're gearing up right now inside of balance, baby academy for that challenge. Okay. So if you want to do that with us, now's the time to jump in so that you can start your 21 days before the four weeks starts. Okay. So let me, let me just explain this really quickly and then we'll hop off of here. If you. Are wanting to get started on your fat loss goals. Balance Babe Academy is the place to come in and to do this, because here's what you're going to get. You are going to get your dedicating three months minimum to your fat loss goals. Okay. No more, like, we're just going to try this out. Like we're, we're now here for women who are serious and ready to take action and ready to commit. Okay. For three months minimum, you're going to say, Hey, I'm dedicating myself to this goal. And three months is honestly like the perfect amount of time. There's a reason that it's set at three months. Okay. Perfect amount of time to come in and to spend the first 21 days. What you're going to do is spend the first 21 days in our fat loss program where you are learning everything. Okay. How to track balanced eating, everything about macros, you know, Like truly how to fit in treats, calorie cycling, flex days, like all of this, because you may be, you know, attempting to do this whole like balanced fat loss, but you don't know, like how much is too much and what should I be doing? Like, what should it really look like? Okay. So 21 days, you're going to know by the end of 21 days, exactly how to lose weight in this balanced way. And it's going to allow you to still be able to enjoy treats and pizza and wine and chocolate and all the fun foods. You're going to really understand that. And you are going to be in your calorie sweet spot, losing the weight because you're going to understand exactly why. What your calories need to be. You get a macro count straight outta the gate with us when you do this three month program, okay? You get a macro count. I'm going to give you your calories and macros, and I'm gonna make sure that we're set and you're off, and then you are in. Our launching pad area, where you get to ask questions in your first 21 days and get a little extra support and be with other women who are in their first 21 days also. So you get to ask questions, any questions that are popping up as you're working through it, any obstacles that are popping up, anything at all. You're inside of this space where you can ask questions and get really good support and be surrounded by other women who are getting started also. While you're going through the program. Okay at the end of 21 days You are going to do a check in and we're gonna make sure those calories are set that we're in the sweet spot that we're seeing The progress that we want and then you are off into month two of the program where you are going to tweak You're gonna make some changes to your diet Tweaks to continue to see results really make sure like we've got it all down and then in the third month you are going to Optimize for fat loss. You're gonna add in habits that give you optimal fat loss and that help you really sustain The fat loss case we're talking like sustainable change mindset all that good stuff. Okay, three months spent on On you and your goals, and we have laid it out so perfectly. We've been tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, and we've laid it out so perfectly that it is fully supportive. You're off to this really strong start. And those first 21 days, you've got the community around you. You've got the resources. We've got the recipes, the workouts. We've got everything that you need in this one space. Come in now, get started. Now get your macro count today and let's get going so that when we kick off our. Four week fat loss challenge, which you get as a part of membership. Remember you have to be a member to do the four week fat loss challenge. You're ready to roll. You have been on it. You're ready to rock and roll. Now you're just turning it up a whole notch. Okay. So I would love, love, love for you to join us. I'm going to link Balance Babe Academy below, and I hope that this episode sheds some light on some things that you can focus on, maybe some key parts, you know, whether it is romanticizing and kind of getting excited about the, the milestones, the deadlines, maybe looking into manifestation a little bit more. If you're somebody who really needs to work on the mindset side of things and again community is everything and if you're looking for that We've got you covered at balance babe academy All right, you guys i'm super excited to hear from you if you loved this episode shoot me a message Let me know what which part resonated with you if you have any questions You can always dm me on social whether it's about joining us in bba or just anything I talked about in this episode be happy to chat about it at Balance by Hillary with one L on social will drop all the links to the things that I mentioned in the show below and I'll See you guys in the next episode. Bye guys Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode of it's all about balance. And if you did enjoy today's show, make sure that you're subscribed so that you never miss a new episode. If you have not already, please connect with me on social media. I absolutely love meeting you guys and getting to know you. I will drop the links to my social in the show as well as our website. And I will see you guys next time.