Physical Health Step 1

If you want to tackle losing weight but are living in a season of changed and are overwhelmed by everything else, this is a simple place to start.  Just work on one thing

Transcript

Hi, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This podcast is specifically designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life.

Most commonly, that looks like a divorce, but it could be a breakup, a loss. Many things can lead you to feel like, all of a sudden, you're having to start over. All your plans for the future have changed.

The way you thought your life was going got upended, and now it feels like you're starting over. Even though you're really not starting over, it definitely feels that way. If that's you, I want to say you are not alone.

Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Now, if you remember in the beginning, I talked about there are five key areas that I focused on when I was rebuilding my life.

I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, and growth and goals. So today's episode, we're going to talk about physical health. And we're going to start really basic.

We're not going to go crazy. We're not going to go too far. We're just going to start really simple.

Because I think when you make little changes and keep those small changes consistent over time, you see big results. And I think that in health and finance and all these things, it's okay to start small.

I think that's the way to make sustainable and lasting change. So physical health is that way. And I'm going to share with you a little bit about my personal journey and what I did.

So when I went through my divorce, I ate all my feelings. I had a lot of feelings, and I ate every single one of them. And the result of that was I gained weight.

Now, the bulk of my life, I would not consider myself skinny or small, but I was definitely average in my weight. I was never struggled with my weight. It just wasn't an issue one way or another.

I didn't think about it. But when I went through my divorce, I definitely started to struggle with my weight.

I definitely put on pounds, and it contributed to the depression and my mental health struggles of just being unhappy, because not only was all these other changes going on in my life, not only was I dealing with figuring out how to be a single mom

and all the responsibility that came with doing that alone, and losing a 20-year marriage, I felt very unattractive. So just all of it just didn't feel good, right? And I knew I needed to tackle it.

I knew I needed to lose some of this weight that I had put on. But I needed to get in the right headspace in order to do that. I don't know if that makes sense to you.

If you're going through a really tough season and it feels like everything's changing and everything requires your energy and you are struggling emotionally and you don't have much energy to give, maybe you understand that you've got to be in a

certain headspace in order to tackle a problem like that. So I did not tackle it immediately. I got on my feet a little bit as far as moving into a new place with my children, starting to figure out a rhythm with my finances.

But one of the ways I started is what I'm going to talk about today. And I ended up losing 40 pounds, so yay, good job.

But if you're there, if you've just been kind of down, if you've eaten more than you realized, you just turn around and you're like, whoa, I put on some pounds and I would like to lose those.

But you're still struggling just in your own head, kind of down about life and all these things. I think it's important to start small and not make big drastic sweeping changes because everything in your life has been a change.

And in some ways, that's good. When you're rebuilding your life, since everything has changed, you get to remake it the way you want. But also, we can be in change overload.

So if you scrap your diet and come up with something radical and new, that's probably not going to be sustainable. That probably will not last very long. But something small, something simple, is a good place to start.

We're not going to try to lose 40 pounds in two weeks. We're going to try to drop weight slowly, consistently, over time. We're not going to be radical.

We're not going to be crazy. We're going to be kind and gentle with ourself, okay? So very basic step one.

I knew that I was ready finally to tackle losing weight. Like I said, I had gotten in my new place. I had started to get my feet under me financially.

And I was like, okay, this is the next thing. I think I'm ready to tackle that. So what I did was I knew what I struggled with.

And I'll tell you what I struggled with. I struggled with snacking. I'm a snacker.

I love snacks. So I knew I needed to cut back on the snacking and are traded out for healthier snacks. And my biggest problem was potato chips.

I love those salty, crunchy snacks, and I've never met a potato I didn't like. So potato chips were a pretty big weakness for me. And so when I said I need to start working on figuring out how to lose weight, I knew potato chips.

Like, that came to mind immediately. I knew that I was eating something that I didn't need to eat without question. So when I say, and we're talking about starting to lose weight, what's your thing?

Is it sweets? Is it, you know, you get a really fancy coffee that's got a lot of calories? Does something come to mind immediately when you start to talk about losing weight?

Do you drink a lot of soda? I don't know. Everybody's thing is a little bit different.

But what I propose, the place to start, instead of revamping your whole diet, just tackle that one thing. Just that one thing. Don't tackle everything.

Don't come up with a new meal plan. Keep going the way you're going. Just in the beginning, tackle the one thing.

And it's not always a small thing. If it came to your mind immediately, you know it could be kind of a big thing.

I know somebody who tried to give up coke, and they drank sodas, and coke was their soda of choice, and it was very, very difficult for them to find a replacement and let that go.

So I know that even if you're only changing one thing, it can be difficult. It's not like snap of the fingers. It's your comfort thing, right?

So I want you to think about what your thing is that you know you really need to let go of when it comes to your diet, that you know isn't healthy. You love it. You enjoy it.

You reach for it when you are maybe a little bit down, you know? So for me, I would eat chips while I was watching TV. And to this day, I will still eat some potato chips, but I don't buy them.

I don't keep them in my pantry. If I am out and they are offered with something else, like at a barbecue or you're at somebody's house and they have chips, I'll eat a few. But my problem was I ate too many.

I didn't eat a serving size. Potato chips in particular are very snackable, but most of the foods we struggle with, I believe, whatever came up to your mind, is it something that's easy to overeat?

Chips just like, and they say maybe the food industry has something to do with it. They make things just really snackable. So you eat them without even thinking about it.

It tastes good. It's got all these extra flavors added in. And it's just super, super snackable.

So you end up overeating. And that becomes a problem, right? So I'm not here to be anti-potato chips.

I'm saying it was my weakness. It was a thing that I over ate that I knew wasn't healthy, that was not good for me. And like I said, your thing is probably different than that.

But I think most people, once they get to a place where they say, hey, I want to lose a little bit of weight, you know kind of what your weakness is. And find it a way to get that out of your life.

So how do you start removing something that maybe is a pretty big deal for you, right? Well, first of all, you got to stop buying it at the store, right? If it's in your house, you're going to find a way to eat it.

So you got to quit buying it. But then maybe come up with alternatives, ways to replace it. I tried to replace potato chips.

I will be 100% honest with you. Nothing replaces a potato chip. So you're not going to find an exact replacement.

You're not going to find the twin of your favorite guilty pleasure food, right? But maybe you'll find a healthier version that sort of solves the same thing that you're looking for when you reach for it. So I tried roasted chickpeas, not the same.

I've tried almonds, and I like almonds. The good thing about almonds, when you go to snack on them, you're not going to overeat with almonds. You're going to eat a few, they're going to be good, and you're going to walk away.

They don't have that snack ability that lends you to overeating. And finding a snack like that is really good, a snack that doesn't lend itself to continuing to eat it. I tried sunflower seeds.

I tried pickles, because I do like pickles, and the clossom pickles are crunchy, and they're salty, and vinegary. Pecorincini peppers. I love pecorincini peppers.

And nothing is quite going to be a replacement for potato chips. I have these other things that I feel like are healthier options and much better for me. But no, nothing is going to replace it.

So when you do say, hey, I need to replace X, and you're looking for things that are healthier than what you're currently consuming, understand that it's not going to be an exact replacement.

It's not going to give you that same feeling, and that's okay. It isn't necessarily going to be easy. I remember when I was going through my divorce, I had this little plaque I set by my bed, and it said, beautiful girl, you can do hard things.

So giving up the thing that is your comfort food a little bit might be hard, but you can do it, because we are made to do hard things.

So it's not going to be easy, and in trying to pretend like it's going to be super easy, it's going to be deceptive. Like I said, almonds are not a replacement for potato chips.

As far as that comfort level, as far as that snackability, it's just not there. But it's a healthier option. And I can say, you know what?

I care about myself. I want to be proud of who I see in the mirror. I can give this up.

And because I wasn't, in the beginning, changing my entire diet and everything, I was just changing one thing. The other thing I started to realize is what led me to reach for potato chips.

So a piece of when I snacked on potato chips was just out of habit, right? So at night, when I was watching TV, I'd sit on the couch, and I would snack on chips. So I had to change up that routine a little bit, right?

Scratch the record, so to speak, so you didn't keep doing the same thing. Because if I sat on the couch, I'd want potato chips. And then it was hard to say no to potato chips and tell myself no.

The best thing to do was kind of come up with a different routine for a little while. Do something different in the evenings.

Walk around the neighborhood, take a bath, do something different, so that I wasn't in the same situation, in the same routine where I ate potato chips.

Now, I can sit down on the couch at night today and not eat potato chips, and I don't even think about it. But when I was first trying to get them out of my diet, that's what I needed to do.

So I don't know how you are set up in your life and where you reach for the food that you kind of need to get rid of. But think about it. Do you eat it out of a routine?

And if you do, maybe change that routine. If you get a really fancy, sugary coffee, maybe start going to a different coffee shop. Maybe that will make it feel better when you order something very different.

You know, think of different things. Not only just replacing the item that you are eating with something different, but the routine that you have around eating that item.

The other area that I realized for me was a little bit of a struggle was when I was at work, I would get focused, and I skipped lunch kind of a lot. And it's not healthy, and that was not a good thing, and I had to work on that.

But when I skipped lunch, I would stop by the grocery store, maybe on the way home, and maybe at that point, I was hangry, and I was just picking up a couple things for dinner, right?

But I would grab a bag of chips because I'm like, well, I can snack on that. Dinner is at least an hour out, and I can just eat one or two. That'll help get me over being hangry, right?

That wasn't a good call. So sometimes we get to a situation where we're so hungry or aggravated or just emotionally been out of shape, right? Even though we've said no when we're calm and rational, in that moment, we're less likely to say no.

We're more likely to make a poor food choice. We're hungry or maybe aggravated, and that's why they call it hangry. So you've got to prevent yourself from getting to that point, because then you're going to make a poor food choice.

So I did start putting snacks in my drawer at work. I tried really hard to pack a lunch and make myself eat it. And even when I packed it sometimes, I would just forget to eat it because I was doing something different.

But then if it was 3 o'clock and I realized I hadn't eaten lunch, at least I had crackers or a Clif bar or something. Kind bars. I started using kind bars too.

In my drawer at work, that I could eat, so I wouldn't end up hangry if I had to stop by the store and pick up one or two items to go for dinner. I wasn't tempted to get the chips because I didn't let myself get hangry. I gave myself.

I knew I needed snacks. I needed to make healthy choices with those snacks, but part of it was understanding myself. So what routine is it where you reach for the food that you want to cut out of your diet?

And the other one is, do you reach for it when you're a little bit emotional? Do you reach for it when you get hangry, so to speak, and then how to prevent that from happening?

So not only are we cutting something out that is an unhealthy food choice, but we're also looking at why we make that choice a little bit, right?

And trying to make accommodations in our life so we're not put in the position to make an unhealthy food choice. We're trying to set ourself up to win.

So when you look at it super realistically, you know, like I know every time when I said, okay, I know I don't need chips, I'm not going to buy chips anymore, but then I would go to the store because I was hangry because I had skipped lunch.

Or if I sat down on the couch, I knew I would start craving potato chips, and I just needed to set up different routines. I needed to set it up so that I didn't get hangry and make a bad food choice. I needed to set it up so that I could win.

So as you're looking at what you want to cut out of your diet, whether it's a soda, whatever, think about when you consume it and in the routine around how you have that food.

And do you go to that food when you're kind of a little bit stressed or hangry? Is that often a choice you make? And how to prevent that from happening?

How to prevent yourself from getting hangry, which is just planning ahead, which sometimes I'm not great about. I'll admit that. Every day, lunch, every single day, I needed to eat lunch.

I just didn't stop to take the time because I was not good at planning. So when I said, hey, I want to lose weight, I've got to do something. Something's got to change.

And I said, I want to get rid of chips. I had to start then looking at where were my weak spots? Why did I reach for chips?

Even though in my head, I had said, no more chips for you, Tiffany. What were the breaking points where I reached for them even though I told myself I didn't want to?

Where were the times and what caused it that made me break the promise I made to myself? No more chips. You don't need that.

And I knew that. But if I broke that, why? What were the circumstances surrounding that?

So think about that and set yourself up for success. Plan ahead with different options that are healthier. And we're just starting with eliminating one item from your diet.

And I don't think you'll have to eliminate it forever. There are a few things that fall on that list. But like I said, I still will eat chips today.

I just don't buy them. I just don't consume them all the time. So you won't have to eliminate it forever, but you need to eliminate it for this next little season in your life.

You need to totally cut it out just for a little while. And one thing isn't going to be, I'll be honest with you, cutting out one thing won't drastically change your weight. You will probably notice a little difference.

It's not the big thing. But this is what we're doing. We're also building your self-confidence.

If you can get rid of this one thing, the first thing you thought of when I started talking about physical health and what we were going to do to lose weight in our diet, that first thing that you thought of, that's a pretty big deal for you.

And if you can let go of that, that's going to boost your self-confidence. So instead of putting our energy in five different things in a whole bunch of different directions, changing a bunch of stuff, let's just work on one.

One thing, get rid of that. And when you conquer that and you've gotten rid of that, you're going to feel really good about yourself. You're going to be like, I did that.

I can tell myself now. I can do hard things. And that's so empowering.

So, yeah, we're starting really simple. We're starting with one. We may not see a drastic change.

But what we're doing is we're kind of priming the pump. We're getting ourself geared up that, yes, I can cut other things out of my diet or cut back on other things. I can make these changes.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

It gives you just that self-confidence that you know you can tackle a diet change or exercise change, the changes that need to be made. Start with just one thing. Don't stress yourself out.

One thing. Because one thing in and of itself can be stressful. So just work on one thing.

One thing. And cut it out of your diet. You're not cutting out forever.

I'm not a big believer in these diets where you just cut all of one thing out. I think most things in moderation are okay.

But when we're starting to make changes, and the next few steps, they're going to have to be much more drastic, right, to actually see results. Sometimes we've got to let it go for a while.

Whatever this food is that you like, because we want to see the changes. And sometimes we're going to have to make changes for a season in order to see the results we want. So right now, we're just going to cut out one thing.

The thing that you think of when you think of your diet, you know what your weakness is. We're going to cut that out. It could be sweets.

A lot of people struggle with sweets. And the good thing for you is there are so many healthy sweet alternatives out there. Sweets are not the thing I crave.

I crave carbs. I crave starches. I crave salty, crunchy food.

But sweets, I've noticed that there have become a lot more healthy options on the market, fruit-based options, yogurt-based options. So there's some alternatives. No, they're not going to be the twin of what you love.

There is not a healthy twin of a donut. And them Krispy Kreme donuts are really good, especially when they're warm. There's not going to be a twin replacement that's healthy of that.

There just isn't. Just like there's no good replacement for potato chips. But you want to be able to smile at yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror.

You're not doing this because one day you want to find a new partner. You're not doing this because you want someone to think you look cute. You're doing this because you want to smile when you see yourself in the mirror.

And that's a little bit different for everybody, right? Everybody has a different opinion of what they think is beautiful. You're not going for my opinion, and I don't want you to go for anybody else's opinion.

I want you to go for your opinion. So if you're wanting to lose a few pounds, it's so you smile at yourself. There's no gold standard of beauty.

The other thing is generally that thing that we go for, when we're a little bit down, that food that we kind of crave, that is our comfort food, generally there's some negative emotional attachment there, and letting it go is going to be healthy,

both mentally and physically. And we tend to not have an emotional food that's healthy. I mean, I'm sure there's somebody that snacks on strawberries when they get sad. I have not met them.

But most of the foods we tend to reach for when we're a little bit down are not healthy foods, right? So letting that go, and I think because we've made this association of when I'm sad and when I'm down, I reach for eggs, you know, for me, chips.

Letting that go also lifted my mood and lifted my spirit because I wasn't reaching for the thing that made me down. It's almost like that's a spiral or a cycle. I'm down, so I reach for potato chips.

Potato chips make me down, so I'm down, and I reach for potato chips kind of thing. And when you cut that out of your diet, you're not in that spiral and in that loop, and you create better associations with healthier foods.

So I feel like it helps you mentally and definitely physically, because you're cutting out something that is probably unhealthy, and then you're boosting your self-confidence, because you could cut that thing out. So yeah, it's just one thing.

And if you were in another season in your life, this advice might look ridiculous to you. I get that.

But when you're going through a dark night of the soul, when everything in your life has changed, when you're living in a new space, when you're a single mom by yourself, when you're having to navigate a future, what will my retirement look like?

Will I even be able to retire? When you're having to navigate all these things all by yourself, and you have no one else, and it feels overwhelming, yeah, tackling your weight, we're going to start with one thing. We're going to start simple.

We're in a different season of our life right now, so what I would say to somebody who's in a completely different season would be very different than what I'm saying to us in a season that might be emotionally overwhelming.

We're going to start simple. We're going to get a win, and we're going to move on from there and add to it and build. Simple things, if done consistently, create big change.

So I'm not a mathematician. Somebody else could probably explain it better than me, but I remember looking at charts, and you would draw the line on the grid, and they would say, draw this line at 95 degrees.

If you moved it just one degree, you go really far out, and the endpoint is very different from where it would have been at 95, right? You just move it one degree, and then you're in a different location.

One degree, one small step, if done consistently and repeatedly over time, can make big, lasting changes. Don't forsake small beginnings. Don't forsake a small step.

Do one thing. Feel the confidence of what it is to eliminate the thing that you know is your comfort food. Get that win, and then we'll work on more diet changes.

And nothing ever is going to be drastic, because drastic things are where we want to live our life. There's been enough drastic stuff going on around you, maybe enough drastic stuff going on that you had no control over.

We can control this, and we can keep it small, and we can keep it simple. And even in that, the trajectory and the result, if done consistently, can be really big. I lost 40 pounds, and I'm so happy.

Sometimes just small, simple changes can yield the results we're looking for, if we do them consistently.

So today, we are going to eliminate that comfort food, that thing that we think of when somebody says, we're working on our diet, we're working on eating healthy, and you're thinking, I don't want to have to give that up.

They're going to tell me I have to give up X. We're going to work on that. And you, beautiful girl, can do hard things.

I believe in you, and I'm so proud of you for starting the process and starting the journey. So thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to talking with you next time. Bye.