3 Ways To Lose Weight Over 40 Pt. 3

The last part of this series is all about effort. Again, let’s start with a definition because effort, can be a little bit of a big nebulous word. Effort is a vigorous or determined attempt. To dumb it down it’s doing the work. For many women they think it’s about hustling, grinding, crawling through glass.

Previous blogs:
Part 1
Part 2

When I work with clients it’s about a mindset shift. I took a mindset certification course last year and the instructor focused on effort. Effort is a vigorous attempt to change your mindset. If you ‘believe that it has to be hard, it’s gonna take me a little bit to flip the switch. Many people think that you’re either on or off the wagon, like it’s this light switch.

It’s more like a dimmer switch. Some days, you’d be like, you can raise the dimmer all the way up, while other days you feel on it. It might be like almost pitch black in the room, depending on what’s going on. As we get to this effort piece, it’s, feeling like you need to make a change and feeling stuck at the same time. 

Here’s what I ask, how long can you stay in this place’ Before you do something different’ That was my turning point. I knew I couldn’t think about food all the damn time. I can’t think about working out all the damn time. I’d have spent so much brainpower on this stuff. Seriously I could have cured a number of cancers and probably came up with a plan for world peace. Here’s where you realized you can make a change and realize that not every day is going to be an amazing day but it’s something you can learn from. You ask yourself what are the obstacles that tripped me up and so that you can start to have you know a plan B.

With my clients I regularly talk about good, better and best. What’s a good day’ What is a better day what’s the best day so that way when you don’t have a perfect day because guess what’ We live in the real world and every day is NOT going to be perfect. Good, better, best helps you to shift and adjust if today wasn’t a perfect day. It’s not gonna knock you down and make you say to yourself, I’ll start again on Monday or I’ll start again in January. Instead, you will say to yourself, today was a sucky day. But if this happens to me again, how do I improve right’ If my boss tells me I have to work past five and I plan to go to the gym at [5:30]. What can I do different on those days’ Your kid gets sick what can you do different’ You get sick’ What can I do different’ This how life is and you all know everything you do that you do to beat yourself up.

Here is where you create a success plan. You know what the steps you are so that if a step gets missed, or you kind of cheat a step, or you skip a step, you know how to get back on track. You can look back and review is because you didn’t track your protein. You didn’t hit the gym, three days a week, instead of going to the gym. You went for walks, right’ You are figuring out like, why things aren’t working’

Sally, only walks and she looks fantabulous. Well, Sally could have a rock stellar metabolism, but you yo yo dieted your whole life. Sally could just be one of those, like natural unicorns out there that walks past the weight machine and muscle hops on her. God love, her she’s one of those people.

Here is where you find a community that is supportive. I have a Facebook group, the Fit Girl Magic and in that group, it’s a support group. We all talk about the bad days, the good days, There’s a girl, Shonda, who always posts in there about, her workouts, and everyone is always cheering her on.

She moved from Hawaii back to the mainland, and she’s been having a little bit of trouble getting her groove back. And everyone in the group, Girl, you got this. And they’ve become her cheerleader.

When I work with clients, I ask them this question. What motivates you? Are you motivated by motivated by a reward? Are you motivated by punishment? Let me give you an example. When I first started, coaching, I went to a seminar and they talked about, different ways to motivate clients. Clients are either motivated by rewards, or punishment.

A reward is if I go to the gym three days a week, you’re going to get a new pair of Lululemon pants, I’m going to buy my myself something. Rewards can be anything except for food. Seriously, you’re not dogs, or lab rats. The other side is punishment. Think about boutique fitness classes, if you don’t cancel, by a certain number of hours before the class, you have to pay.

I’m someone who punishment works for. There have been plenty of spin classes that I didn’t want to go to, but I did. Because I didn’t cancel six hours before. So I had to get my booty on that bike.

I had a client when I told her about this, she’s hopped on the punishment, I’m gonna go to the gym on Wednesday morning at 7am. And I don’t go to the gym, I’m gonna leave $20 on the street, $20 for any randos to find it. And that was a great incentive for her. For some people could be $5, or whatever is going to be the incentive to get you to take the action.

Rewards versus punishment, you have to decide what is going to work best for you. Because here’s the thing. What matters most is that you make the effort to become the best version of yourself. I hope that this blog post series has shown you that you have to do the work. Believe it or not there are people who hire me and want me to just give them a meal plan. And think that if I just gave them a meal plan, you’re gonna lose the weight. Sorry I don’t give meal plans. I need to understand you. I need to see what’s going on with you. And instead of handing you this blanket meal plan, and setting you up for failure, I need to understand where you are right now and then I work with you to figure out how to move forward.

Many women under eat protein. So you and I are going to work on protein for the next 30 days. Sure, there are other pieces of nutrition but if you focus on one thing at a time everything else will come together. If you up your protein number, you won’t feel a snacky. Now some of you will take this information and say I don’t need a coach. Great but what the other behaviors that you’re not consistent with’ What happens after 30 days’ Do you have the fortitude to then say, okay, I’ve added protein.

What’s next’ Right’ Because here’s the thing, you need to get more creative with other things that maybe you’re just holding the status quo, maybe you are consistent with a protein, or you’re like, I just don’t know how to keep doing this. I don’t know what to do when I travel. That’s where a coach comes in. We help you to better understand the nuances, we see your blind spots, so that you’re not always feeling like you’re on the struggle bus and that sucks. The goal here is to be 80% consistent, when someone tells me they’re going to be on point, I’m like, girl, you’re just setting yourself up for failure? with that on point shit, that sucks. If I say, I’m going to be 80% on point, perfect, great, that gives you wiggle room, because everyone needs to have a little fun in their diet. Because the harder you hold on to the diet, the day of fun food come standard across your path, you’re going to go for it like a frickin shark to a seal.

It gives you the space to order that ?greasy, cheesy, gooey thing on the menu. Versus saying I’m just gonna have a salad with chicken on it. And no, I’m not gonna have any alcohol. Then there are other days I’m like, you know what, today is a 20% day and bring on the booze, bring on the gooey, cheesy, whatever it turns out to be. This requires us to shift from being a desperate dieter going from plan to plan, program to program to being a freedom fighter to be able to say like, you know what, I deserve to have freedom in my diet, I deserve to have freedom in my life. And what would happen if you stopped those thoughts’ What would happen’ You know, what would happen if you had a strategy instead of hanging on to hope’ What if you applied Ron Rivera’s thoughts to weight loss and change’

Imagine it’s attitude, preparation and effort’ What if we just started taking one of those steps right now to move forward’ And if that and if that’s something that you want to bring into your life that you know, it has to be different’ You want to have you want it to be different. No more What’s a good food’ What’s a bad food, I invite you to join me in the 10 Days To Reboot and Refocus, you get to celebrate all of this, the mindset so that you’re no longer dieting. You’re, rebooting my thinking around what I should do. You’re focused on what’s possible. The journey to list weight loss starts here. It’s possible to reboot your mind from all the craziness that has been programmed into us over the years and refocus ourselves so that we can become that freedom fighter that person who’s just like, you know what, I don’t tie it and great if that diet works for you. We start on November 2nd