100. Wisdom From my 32 Year Self-Experiment

Mar 16

I’ve had 32 years of experience and wisdom when it comes to weight loss, gain, exercise, and healthy living. Breaking through plateaus, finding food freedom, and living out my long-term, sustainable goals lead to my full, happy life. To celebrate episode 100, I want to share my top 10 pieces of wisdom from 32 years of self-experiment.

10 Pieces of Wisdom

Understand your why
Figure out your primary goal
Make long-term, sustainable changes
Know your hormones
Change your genetic weight setpoint
Optimize your macronutrients and exercise
Avoid gaining weight back after losing it
Recommit daily to your goals
Know that maintenance style eating is not different from weight loss eating
A calorie deficit is for weight loss. Proper exercise strategy and macronutrients will optimize body composition. The quality of food will determine your energy

Listen to Episode 100 Here

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Creating Long-Term, Sustainable Change

I started dieting and controlling my weight when I was 9 years old. This was after years of hearing that I was overweight, fat, pudgy - how damaging for a child that young to hear?! I share this part of my story because this actually means I have 32 years of experience in weight loss. I’ve tried it all. These are my top 10 tips.

It was actually sports that started changing my approach to how I viewed my body. My weight used to make me self-conscious, but with sports, I started seeing it as an advantage. But even with this journey, I did struggle with weight loss, gain, and unhealthy yo-yo dieting.

What did help me make sustainable changes was understanding why I wanted to make them. Understanding my why was essential - as was determining my primary goal. These two aspects helped me create long-term, sustainable change that led to weight loss and finding food freedom.

Committing For Life

One of the most common weight loss complaints is reaching a plateau and being unable to break through it. I want you to understand that reaching a weight loss plateau is actually a good thing! It helps your body acclimatize to your new weight - changing your body’s natural weight set point.

It’s also so important that you don’t gain any weight back after you’ve lost it. This weight is not lean muscle mass and it then makes it difficult to lose weight again. Commit to eating your macronutrients, exercising, and strength training to have sustainable weight loss.

Finally, you need to understand that this is a lifelong journey. You need to recommit to your journey and your goals regularly. You also need to understand that what you eat and do to lose weight is extremely similar to how you’ll eat and exercise while you’re maintaining your set weight!

Are you struggling to lose weight and keep it off? Where do you find you have the hardest point committing to your weight loss efforts? Let me know in the comments below!

In This Episode

How sports can change your opinion of your body [8:15]
Why your reason for making a change matters [16:15]
How to create long-term sustainable change by setting a primary goal [20:30]
What happens when you plateau in your weight loss [26:15]
How to decrease the amount of lean mass you lose [27:00]
Why the quality of your food matters [31:30]

Quotes

“When you actually cycle back up and gain the weight back, the weight that you’re gaining back is not the lean muscle mass that you originally lost. Now we have a lower Basal Metabolic Rate because we have less muscle mass and we tend to gain even more and weigh even more than we did before.” [12:07]

“You can expect the same results by doing the same things. You can expect different results by doing different things. But you can’t expect to do the same thing and get different results.” [19:57]

“Your genetic weight is already set. What you weigh is largely genetically determined. There is obviously an environmental influence, but let’s be really clear and honest on the goal that we have. Weight as a goal is never my recommendation for anyone. I care much more about your body composition and your health overall.” [26:16]

“We have to really be okay with the eating changes we make while we are in active fat loss. That is not going to be that different of an eating style from when we are in maintenance. Especially as we age.” [30:05]

“If our primary goal is fat loss or weight loss, it’s a calorie deficit we’re going for. If we’re looking for a body composition change, we really have to be strategic with our exercise and nutrition, usually, this is in the form of optimizing our macronutrients. Ultimately, the quality of our foods will determine how we feel and our energy.” [30:58]