April 1, 2025 • 25 mins
Episode #198
In this week's episode, Terri is joined by Coach Heather for an energized conversation about prioritizing your goals, your health, and, most importantly, YOURSELF!
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Summary Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:21 The reticular activating system
03:54 Prioritizing daily steps for the small (but important) wins
05:58 Reaching your goals vs maintaining them
06:47 There’s no finishing line to improving your health
09:01 Sleep apnea
09:52 Running, the importance of starting where you are, and identity
12:54 What we can learn from Ramadan and Lent
15:07 Making vs holding a commitment
16:29 Are you prioritizing yourself?
17:32 Self-care is not selfish
18:59 Helping you to heal yourself
21:13 What is not prioritizing your health really costing you?
22:46 How Heather’s investment in herself has paid off
Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. You should always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before doing any fasting, changing your diet, taking or adjusting any medication or supplements, or adopting any treatment for a health problem. The use of any other products or services purchased by you as a result of this podcast does not create a healthcare provider-patient relationship between you and any of the experts affiliated with this podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There is this cool thing in
our brain called the reticular
activating system.
Its job is to
look for opportunities in the
world to help you achieve
what you task it to achieve, what
you tell your brain you want.
And so, if you are starting your
day thinking about your goals,
your brain's like, "Great, all
(00:21):
right, where are the opportunities
for you to reach that goal?" And you
are focusing your subconscious mind,
which contains all of your
experience, everything you've
learned, all of your wisdom, like
a supercomputer on reaching
your goals. [music]
Welcome back to The Fasting Method
(00:42):
podcast.
This is Coach Terri Lance and
I am here with Coach Heather
Shuker.
Heather, how are you today?
I am doing great, as usual, Terri.
How are you?
I'm good, and I know that you're
already meditated [laughter], so
we're in a good place to record.
I love it. It's a Saturday morning
for us here, early
(01:02):
for both of us.
So I think we're both wrapped up
and ready to go because we are
pretty passionate about this topic.
Heather and I realized, as we hopped
on here and got ready to record,
that we have so many ideas
that we could just do a 48-hour
podcast [laughter], and
maybe then run out of a couple of
(01:22):
ideas.
Maybe.
All right, so as we talked about,
Heather, today, we're going to talk
about prioritizing for
success. We each
have several things we want to
make sure that we get to talk about,
about what things we want to
encourage people to prioritize,
and then maybe even how.
So I'm going to start with the first
(01:43):
one, and that is
prioritizing your goals.
Not just wanting your goals
and liking your goals,
but actually
prioritizing them, making them
front and center, making
it something that you can't not
do because it's so important
to you.
(02:03):
That's important for success.
If you say, "I'd like to lose five
pounds, that would be really nice,"
I can almost guarantee you're not
going to reach that goal.
But if your goal is so
important to you that there's no way
you won't do what it takes
to get there, that's where
success comes in.
I could not agree more, Terri.
And, on that note, when I
(02:25):
start working with clients,
literally the first thing that I ask
them to do is to come up with their
goals in a very real way, very
specific.
And I don't just want them to write
them down and put them in a notebook
somewhere on a shelf.
I actually ask them to write
down on a sticky note and
put them somewhere they're going to
see them every day, whether it's
(02:46):
their bathroom mirror, next to the
coffee maker, wherever.
And I encourage them to read
them out loud every day
because there is this cool
thing in our brain called the
reticular activating system.
Its job is to
look for opportunities in the
world to help you achieve
what you task it to achieve, what
(03:08):
you tell your brain you want.
And so if you are starting your
day thinking about your goals,
your brain's like, "Great!
Alright, where
are the opportunities for you to
reach that goal?" And you are
focusing your subconscious mind
(which contains all of your
experience, everything you've
learned, all of your wisdom), like
a super computer, on reaching your
(03:28):
goals.
So why wouldn't you wanna tap
into that ability?
Why wouldn't want to put
what you want most front and center,
so that your whole brain is working
on it with you?
Makes me think of a song. [laughter]
People didn't know I often think in
songs, not just analogies.
But isn't there a song like,
(03:50):
"So tell me what you want, what you
really, really want." [laughter]
Bringing in the spice girls!
Yeah, that's right.
You have to have it
really present in your mind
because the next step that we're
going to talk about prioritizing is
prioritizing the
daily steps that you have
to take to make
(04:11):
that goal a reality.
And if that goal is not front
and center, and in
your mind,
fresh every day, you're
not going to follow through with
those steps.
Come on Heather, you got a song, you
got a poem, you got a-- [laughter]
You got an interpretive dance
you could thrwon out here?
(04:33):
Right? Critical point, Terri,
because it can feel
good just to think of our goals,
just to think of reaching
that number on the scale,
that pant size, you
know, that A1C goal, whatever
the case may be for you.
That, in of itself, can feel good,
but when you think about what it
actually takes to get there -
(04:54):
the daily actions - that's
actually a better place to
start when it comes to this process,
because those bigger,
more lofty goals take a whole lot
of time.
And so if you wait to feel good when
you reach them, you will be waiting
for months.
Whereas, if you're looking across
the landscape of the week and
(05:14):
you think to yourself, "Gosh,
my goal is to do three
therapeutic fasts this week," "My
goal is take a
walk, you know, four out of the next
seven days," basically,
to do what it takes to reach
those bigger goals, then
we get to experience that
success, that wind on our back,
on a weekly basis.
(05:36):
And that is way more powerful
than, "Okay, I'm gonna feel
really good six months from now."
[laughs] That's too long because
it's hard to maintain the
motivation, as we've talked about
before, toward those bigger
goals.
Whereas, if you can get
win after win on a
daily basis, that's
very powerful.
(05:58):
And so crucial because,
as I think every listener can
probably attest to (and I know,
Heather, you stand out as
kind of a model of this for me),
just getting to the goal,
achieving the goal, like the
weight-loss goal, that has
nothing whatsoever to
do with maintaining it.
(06:20):
Terri, don't get me started.
[laughter]
But it is every
decision I make, the daily
habits that I create,
that help me maintain
the success that I have
reached.
And I know how frustrating it is for
all of us to reach success
(06:40):
only to have it slip away,
but reaching the success does not
help me hold the success.
Absolutely, and you know there's
this funny thing that we talk about
at The Fasting Method which is,
you know, we lure people in with the
promise of weight loss [laughs] and
then, truly, it is about
health, right?
That is the penultimate goal of
(07:01):
what we're trying to achieve here is
to help people toward their best
level of health.
And when you start down this
process and when you realize the
reps are what is necessary
to reach your goals, you
also really start to come to
terms with the fact that,
oh wait, there is no finish line.
It ain't over until it is truly
(07:22):
over, right, until you have taken
your last breath.
And so when you start to
kind of really accept that
we're not gonna quick, lose weight,
and be done.
No, we are going to
change our habit patterns from
ones that didn't serve us and
led us to poor health to
new habit patterns that
do serve us and lead us into
(07:44):
good health, and those must
be continued in order for us
to keep said good health.
That's the whole thing.
And so if in your mind
it's like-- [laughs]
pace is always an issue when it
comes to clients, when it come to
Community members, so I get it.
You want it to happen fast.
But if in you mind it is like,
"Okay, I need to hurry up, get all
(08:04):
this weight off so I can be done
and go back to, quote-unquote,
'normal'," oh,
you're in trouble, because your
normal didn't serve you.
You need a whole new normal,
and, in that new normal, it is
required to continue
with that healthy way of eating, to
continue with time-restricted
eating, to continue with
regular movement.
(08:27):
And, heather, I know that you're arunner, and you have done,
I don't even know how many half
marathons. I've done one!
But if you wanted to
say, "I'm a runner," and
live your life as a runner,
it's not the doing
the 13.1
miles that gets you there,
it's what you do the day after,
(08:48):
and the next day, and
every day following that
big accomplishment.
That's what makes running a part of
your life, not the race,
not the one event.
Yeah. And to that point, Terri,
you know, when I started running,
I weighed... a lot. [laughs] Iweighed, you
(09:09):
know, 215, 220 pounds.
And the reason I started running is
because my mother had passed
away, and, like
many in this community, I
had an issue with emotional eating,
right? I was eating my feelings, I
was self-medicating with food.
And, as a result of
that, my weight was spiraling
downward.
(09:29):
I was struggling more and
more with sleep apnea.
If you've never experienced that
part of sleep apnea is
you wake up (for some people)
terrified in the middle of the
night. I used to have nightmares
that I was being choked or drowning
and it was awful.
I had terrible headaches and I was
always tired.
It's a nasty way to have to
live and it was just getting worse
(09:50):
and worse so I knew I had to do
something. And so I
decided (because my mother had been
a runner) to do the Couch to 5K.
And when you start
the Couch to 5K, you literally start
with a 30-second run.
And the reason I mention this is
because sometimes people come to us
in the Community and they want to
start fasting and they wanna dive
(10:11):
into those big, long fasts
and heal as fast as possible.
And that's just-- that's not the
process.
You start with where you are and
you do what you can in that
moment. For me, I had to start
at 30 seconds.
For some of the people that come to
our community, it might be
starting with not snacking or
starting with skipping one
(10:32):
snack a day, and
building from there.
And, to your point, once
you get to the point where you're no
longer a snacker, that you get
to TRE, you don't
stop once you reach your
goals, right?
That's what it took to get you
there. You've got to keep up
with that if you want that to be who
you are.
(10:52):
And you taught me in our very first
intake, Terri, that, you
know, this needs to be your identity
in order for it to stick.
And I took that very seriously.
My way of eating became my
identity.
Doing TRE became my identity.
And so now I think of myself as
someone who doesn't eat a bunch of
crap, as someone who doesn't snack
and graze, and, for that
(11:14):
reason, I've been able to maintain
my 80-pound weight loss.
Mic drop, folks!
[laughs]
So many things.
I swear you and I are almost
dangerous doing these together
because you just make me think
of so many things that I want
to jump onto, but I know we have a
couple other significant points on
the prioritizing topic.
(11:37):
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[music]
So the next one I wanted to
talk about with you, Heather,
is prioritizing your commitment.
This is a topic that's come up
(13:02):
in several of my small-coaching
groups and has been
the topic of some of my large
Community groups.
I think, for so many
of us, we can make
a commitment, we can set
the goal, we can have this
great prize that we're
looking toward, but
following through, prioritizing
(13:24):
the commitment we made
toward that is where we
start to struggle.
The implementation of the steps,
as we've been talking about,
Heather.
So I'm gonna veer off just a little
here, folks, because you know I love
real-life analogies for
things. And I was thinking of
two groups of clients and
people that I know, and
(13:45):
thinking about this 'prioritizing
commitments'.
So I have clients and
I have friends and people in my life
that, to honor
their spiritual, religious
culture and beliefs,
they do something that's hard.
They fast for Ramadan
or they make
(14:07):
promises to give up something,
forgo something that they enjoy
and love for Lent.
So they make these Lenten promises,
or they commit to fasting
during Ramadan, and they both are
happening as we're recording
this.
So why is it that
I never hear any one of
them say to me, "Well,
(14:29):
it's the seventh day of Ramadan,
but this fast today is really hard,
so I'm not going to do it."
Why do I not hear any
of them say, "I gave up
chocolate for Lent?
But you know what, it's really hard
today, so I think I'm just gonna go
get some M&M's." Why
do they actually follow through?
(14:50):
Because the reason why they're
doing it is so significant
to them. It has so much meaning
and power.
It's a commitment.
It's not just an intention.
It is a true commitment,
and they don't break it.
The challenge is,
it's so much easier for so
(15:11):
many of us to break our commitments
that we make to ourselves
than those that we make to
our belief systems,
our partners, our
parents, our children.
We can make commitments and follow
through with commitments to others,
but we struggle to follow through
them.
(15:32):
To me, this is a huge
topic.
Huge. And I know it has meaning
for different people so I'm going to
bring in just a little bit of levity
here, and that is a
Seinfeld reference. [laughter]
They're talking about
U-Haul.
You reserve your U-Haul truck, and,
on the day you go to get your U-Haul
truck, they have no truck.
(15:52):
And the line
in the episode was, "I
know you can *make* a
reservation but can
you *hold* a reservation?"
[laughter] And so
I feel like that each time I'm
working with clients.
I know you can make a
commitment, but can you
hold the commitment because
(16:13):
that's where success happens.
It's really hard to move your stuff
across the state when U-Haul doesn't
show up with the truck.
It's really hard to reach your
weight-loss or health goals when you
don't show up for those
daily steps that you committed.
Talk about mic drop.
Absolutely, Terri.
And to that point, sometimes
(16:34):
when people hear that, they think,
"Oh, well.
I don't have that determination in
me. I am not good with
holding my commitments," "I don't
have discipline," "I don't have
grit." And I would argue
to every single one (and have),
yes you do.
Take a look at it.
Are you able to hold down a job?
Are you able to maintain
(16:55):
relationships?
Have you raised children?
And if the answer is yes to any one
of those things, then you absolutely
have the grit and the discipline,
because we don't always want to
get along with our spouse, we don't
want to always show up for work, we
don't always want get up in the
middle of the night to tend to a
baby, but we do.
We do. Because we do have the
(17:16):
discipline to do things that we
don't necessarily want to do.
The problem, like we've been talking
about is, is it
a priority?
All those things are examples of
you prioritizing others.
What about you prioritizing
yourself?
As you and I have discussed,
Heather, this is something that we
both are very passionate about,
(17:37):
is prioritizing
ourselves.
I don't mean you and I, I mean
for everyone listening
to make themselves a
priority in reaching their goals
because, if everyone else and
everything else in your life takes
higher priority, these
goals will not be reached.
They will just be wishes or
(17:58):
dreams.
So prioritizing yourself.
And I know one of the reasons this
is complicated, for many of us,
is we have
it somehow, we've learned it
somewhere along the way, that that
means we're being selfish.
"If I take time to
go do my exercise
while my family is
waiting for me," that I'm
(18:20):
being selfish, I'm taking away
from them.
And I often encourage people to
think about how are you
better able to show up for people
you care about when your
needs are taken care of?
When you're healthier, your
family's going to benefit a lot.
So switching out from thinking of
(18:40):
prioritizing yourself and
doing good self-care, not
seeing that as selfish,
but seeing that as part of your
responsibility.
That's actually part of
responsibility to your family,
is to take care of you -
to be well, to be healthy, to have
your needs met.
I couldn't agree more, and, as a
(19:01):
nurse-- I've been a nurse for 18
years.
The whole focus of nursing is
on health promotion.
I'm going to get a little nerdy here
for a second.
[laughs] All my nurses out there
know that we have to learn about
nursing theorists as part of
our education.
And the first time you learn about
it, you're like, "Are you serious?
Why do we have to learn this?" And
then, as I continued down my
(19:22):
nursing education with my masters
and my doctorate, you start to
realize, oh, understanding
the framework (just like we do at
The Fasting Method and with mindset)
is a really important way to
kind of gather your thoughts
around something.
And so, you know, you start
to realize it is important.
My favorite nurse theorist is
a woman named Virginia Henderson,
(19:43):
and her theory is basically about
helping people help themselves.
And it is fun as
a nurse to think of yourself as a
healer, but I know that
I do not heal people.
People heal themselves.
My job is to teach people
the tools so that they can learn
how to best heal themselves.
(20:04):
And, like you said,
oftentimes, people even know
the tools but aren't using them
because they put their own health at
the very bottom of the list.
And there is a Confucius
quote that I like, which is,
"A healthy man wants a thousand
things, a sick man
only wants one."
Here's the thing.
(20:25):
Your health might not be a priority
right now, but I assure you,
if something goes wrong
with it, it will become one
instantly.
We can push it off and push it and
push off and think, "Okay,
I'll deal with that later," but, if
we don't deal with it now,
later might be too late for a lot of
things. Unfortunately, when it comes
(20:46):
to health, sometimes you reach the
point of no return and you
can't ever get back to your previous
level of health.
And frankly, no one is coming
to rescue you.
When it comes to your health, people
like me are here to help
teach you the tools, like Terri
taught me the tools I needed, right?
There are helpers out there, but
(21:06):
you must make the decision that
you're going to show up for
yourself, use the tools,
and help yourself.
As you were describing that,
Heather, I was also thinking the
mindset that I sometimes hear people
referring to when it comes to this
is, you know, taking care
of myself, prioritizing myself
costs too much,
(21:27):
takes too much time, takes away
from other people.
I often encourage people to turn
that around a little bit.
I know people who, because
of their health
(and even their mobility,
their degree of weight that they're
carrying), sacrifice
things. They don't go on
that excursion while they're on
(21:48):
vacation with their family.
What's that costing you?
What is it costing you to miss
out on things with your family?
Because you haven't felt that it's
okay to prioritize *your*
health, *your* body.
There's not just one equation here
of what that costs, as
far as time and
(22:09):
energy and things, but I
encourage people to think about, "If
I don't prioritize me
and my health and
my goals, what am
I missing out on?
What life experiences am
I losing the opportunity
to have?" Like you said, Heather,
you know, sometimes with health, we
get to the point where we no longer
(22:30):
have the ability to do some
of these things.
Like, I'm so grateful that
I can learn to ski in my
mid-50s, but if I
had not been working on
prioritizing my health, I definitely
know that would not be possible for
me.
To that point, Terri,
referring back to what I was talking
about earlier with the sleep apnea,
(22:51):
do you know how much I would have
paid for a good night's sleep?
Do you know how much I would have
payed to not
have to use a machine, which is
very embarrassing, on my
face every single night, even on
vacation 365?
I would have paid a lot, everything.
I would've paid everything for that.
(23:12):
So, you know, the idea that
you could even put a price tag on
health is a little ridiculous.
And so, you now, in my personal
experience, I tried to do
intermittent fasting on my own for
two years. [laughs] Two years.
And I just wasn't getting it.
There was a missing piece for me.
And I think that missing piece
was accountability and support.
(23:33):
And the reason I'm positive actually
that that was the missing piece is
because, as soon as I
joined the Community, as soon
I invested in coaching with
you, I met my goals
quickly.
Six months later I was
in much smaller pants, I
had resolved my sleep apnea, I'd
resolved my pre-diabetes.
(23:54):
You think I wouldn't have given
everything I had for that?
The investment I made in coaching
was a speck in
comparison to what I got back,
which was my health, my
sleep, how I saw
myself.
You can't put a price on that.
It probably goes without saying,
Heather, that I couldn't agree with
that more. And I know that it's
(24:16):
sometimes daunting to
commit to ourselves, to prioritize
ourselves, to invest in
ourselves.
And yet, I get to sit here
with you today watching you.
I see the rewards of what you've
done. I see the rewards of that
investment that you made in
yourself, that prioritizing.
And I know that you continue to
(24:37):
prioritize it.
So again, it's not, "I'm
going to prioritize this for a
couple of months, and then I'll be
done," it's a lifelong
priority for you.
So Heather, I know we're going to
come back with another episode in
a few weeks, and we're going to have
like 2,000 more
messages that we know people must
hear, but I just wanted to thank
(24:58):
you for this conversation today,
because obviously this is something
that I get very revved up about.
It's really great to get to share
that with you.
And I know that our listeners
gain so much from how you
describe things.
So thank you for this conversion
today.
Thank you, Terri.
I became a coach because I
(25:19):
benefited so greatly from coaching
and this is how I pay
it forward, and I am grateful for
the opportunity for you,
to help me get here, and for TFM,
to help others get to where
they wanna go.
So make good choices, everybody.
On that note, have a
great week, and there will be
another episode coming soon.
(25:40):
Take good care, everyone.
There is this cool thing in
our brain called the reticular
activating system.
Its job is to
look for opportunities in the
world to help you achieve
what you task it to achieve, what
you tell your brain you want.
And so, if you are starting your
day thinking about your goals,
your brain's like, "Great, all
(00:21):
right, where are the opportunities
for you to reach that goal?" And you
are focusing your subconscious mind,
which contains all of your
experience, everything you've
learned, all of your wisdom, like
a supercomputer on reaching
your goals. [music]
Welcome back to The Fasting Method
(00:42):
podcast.
This is Coach Terri Lance and
I am here with Coach Heather
Shuker.
Heather, how are you today?
I am doing great, as usual, Terri.
How are you?
I'm good, and I know that you're
already meditated [laughter], so
we're in a good place to record.
I love it. It's a Saturday morning
for us here, early
(01:02):
for both of us.
So I think we're both wrapped up
and ready to go because we are
pretty passionate about this topic.
Heather and I realized, as we hopped
on here and got ready to record,
that we have so many ideas
that we could just do a 48-hour
podcast [laughter], and
maybe then run out of a couple of
(01:22):
ideas.
Maybe.
All right, so as we talked about,
Heather, today, we're going to talk
about prioritizing for
success. We each
have several things we want to
make sure that we get to talk about,
about what things we want to
encourage people to prioritize,
and then maybe even how.
So I'm going to start with the first
(01:43):
one, and that is
prioritizing your goals.
Not just wanting your goals
and liking your goals,
but actually
prioritizing them, making them
front and center, making
it something that you can't not
do because it's so important
to you.
(02:03):
That's important for success.
If you say, "I'd like to lose five
pounds, that would be really nice,"
I can almost guarantee you're not
going to reach that goal.
But if your goal is so
important to you that there's no way
you won't do what it takes
to get there, that's where
success comes in.
I could not agree more, Terri.
And, on that note, when I
(02:25):
start working with clients,
literally the first thing that I ask
them to do is to come up with their
goals in a very real way, very
specific.
And I don't just want them to write
them down and put them in a notebook
somewhere on a shelf.
I actually ask them to write
down on a sticky note and
put them somewhere they're going to
see them every day, whether it's
(02:46):
their bathroom mirror, next to the
coffee maker, wherever.
And I encourage them to read
them out loud every day
because there is this cool
thing in our brain called the
reticular activating system.
Its job is to
look for opportunities in the
world to help you achieve
what you task it to achieve, what
(03:08):
you tell your brain you want.
And so if you are starting your
day thinking about your goals,
your brain's like, "Great!
Alright, where
are the opportunities for you to
reach that goal?" And you are
focusing your subconscious mind
(which contains all of your
experience, everything you've
learned, all of your wisdom), like
a super computer, on reaching your
(03:28):
goals.
So why wouldn't you wanna tap
into that ability?
Why wouldn't want to put
what you want most front and center,
so that your whole brain is working
on it with you?
Makes me think of a song. [laughter]
People didn't know I often think in
songs, not just analogies.
But isn't there a song like,
(03:50):
"So tell me what you want, what you
really, really want." [laughter]
Bringing in the spice girls!
Yeah, that's right.
You have to have it
really present in your mind
because the next step that we're
going to talk about prioritizing is
prioritizing the
daily steps that you have
to take to make
(04:11):
that goal a reality.
And if that goal is not front
and center, and in
your mind,
fresh every day, you're
not going to follow through with
those steps.
Come on Heather, you got a song, you
got a poem, you got a-- [laughter]
You got an interpretive dance
you could thrwon out here?
(04:33):
Right? Critical point, Terri,
because it can feel
good just to think of our goals,
just to think of reaching
that number on the scale,
that pant size, you
know, that A1C goal, whatever
the case may be for you.
That, in of itself, can feel good,
but when you think about what it
actually takes to get there -
(04:54):
the daily actions - that's
actually a better place to
start when it comes to this process,
because those bigger,
more lofty goals take a whole lot
of time.
And so if you wait to feel good when
you reach them, you will be waiting
for months.
Whereas, if you're looking across
the landscape of the week and
(05:14):
you think to yourself, "Gosh,
my goal is to do three
therapeutic fasts this week," "My
goal is take a
walk, you know, four out of the next
seven days," basically,
to do what it takes to reach
those bigger goals, then
we get to experience that
success, that wind on our back,
on a weekly basis.
(05:36):
And that is way more powerful
than, "Okay, I'm gonna feel
really good six months from now."
[laughs] That's too long because
it's hard to maintain the
motivation, as we've talked about
before, toward those bigger
goals.
Whereas, if you can get
win after win on a
daily basis, that's
very powerful.
(05:58):
And so crucial because,
as I think every listener can
probably attest to (and I know,
Heather, you stand out as
kind of a model of this for me),
just getting to the goal,
achieving the goal, like the
weight-loss goal, that has
nothing whatsoever to
do with maintaining it.
(06:20):
Terri, don't get me started.
[laughter]
But it is every
decision I make, the daily
habits that I create,
that help me maintain
the success that I have
reached.
And I know how frustrating it is for
all of us to reach success
(06:40):
only to have it slip away,
but reaching the success does not
help me hold the success.
Absolutely, and you know there's
this funny thing that we talk about
at The Fasting Method which is,
you know, we lure people in with the
promise of weight loss [laughs] and
then, truly, it is about
health, right?
That is the penultimate goal of
(07:01):
what we're trying to achieve here is
to help people toward their best
level of health.
And when you start down this
process and when you realize the
reps are what is necessary
to reach your goals, you
also really start to come to
terms with the fact that,
oh wait, there is no finish line.
It ain't over until it is truly
(07:22):
over, right, until you have taken
your last breath.
And so when you start to
kind of really accept that
we're not gonna quick, lose weight,
and be done.
No, we are going to
change our habit patterns from
ones that didn't serve us and
led us to poor health to
new habit patterns that
do serve us and lead us into
(07:44):
good health, and those must
be continued in order for us
to keep said good health.
That's the whole thing.
And so if in your mind
it's like-- [laughs]
pace is always an issue when it
comes to clients, when it come to
Community members, so I get it.
You want it to happen fast.
But if in you mind it is like,
"Okay, I need to hurry up, get all
(08:04):
this weight off so I can be done
and go back to, quote-unquote,
'normal'," oh,
you're in trouble, because your
normal didn't serve you.
You need a whole new normal,
and, in that new normal, it is
required to continue
with that healthy way of eating, to
continue with time-restricted
eating, to continue with
regular movement.
(08:27):
And, heather, I know that you're arunner, and you have done,
I don't even know how many half
marathons. I've done one!
But if you wanted to
say, "I'm a runner," and
live your life as a runner,
it's not the doing
the 13.1
miles that gets you there,
it's what you do the day after,
(08:48):
and the next day, and
every day following that
big accomplishment.
That's what makes running a part of
your life, not the race,
not the one event.
Yeah. And to that point, Terri,
you know, when I started running,
I weighed... a lot. [laughs] Iweighed, you
(09:09):
know, 215, 220 pounds.
And the reason I started running is
because my mother had passed
away, and, like
many in this community, I
had an issue with emotional eating,
right? I was eating my feelings, I
was self-medicating with food.
And, as a result of
that, my weight was spiraling
downward.
(09:29):
I was struggling more and
more with sleep apnea.
If you've never experienced that
part of sleep apnea is
you wake up (for some people)
terrified in the middle of the
night. I used to have nightmares
that I was being choked or drowning
and it was awful.
I had terrible headaches and I was
always tired.
It's a nasty way to have to
live and it was just getting worse
(09:50):
and worse so I knew I had to do
something. And so I
decided (because my mother had been
a runner) to do the Couch to 5K.
And when you start
the Couch to 5K, you literally start
with a 30-second run.
And the reason I mention this is
because sometimes people come to us
in the Community and they want to
start fasting and they wanna dive
(10:11):
into those big, long fasts
and heal as fast as possible.
And that's just-- that's not the
process.
You start with where you are and
you do what you can in that
moment. For me, I had to start
at 30 seconds.
For some of the people that come to
our community, it might be
starting with not snacking or
starting with skipping one
(10:32):
snack a day, and
building from there.
And, to your point, once
you get to the point where you're no
longer a snacker, that you get
to TRE, you don't
stop once you reach your
goals, right?
That's what it took to get you
there. You've got to keep up
with that if you want that to be who
you are.
(10:52):
And you taught me in our very first
intake, Terri, that, you
know, this needs to be your identity
in order for it to stick.
And I took that very seriously.
My way of eating became my
identity.
Doing TRE became my identity.
And so now I think of myself as
someone who doesn't eat a bunch of
crap, as someone who doesn't snack
and graze, and, for that
(11:14):
reason, I've been able to maintain
my 80-pound weight loss.
Mic drop, folks!
[laughs]
So many things.
I swear you and I are almost
dangerous doing these together
because you just make me think
of so many things that I want
to jump onto, but I know we have a
couple other significant points on
the prioritizing topic.
(11:37):
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[music]
So the next one I wanted to
talk about with you, Heather,
is prioritizing your commitment.
This is a topic that's come up
(13:02):
in several of my small-coaching
groups and has been
the topic of some of my large
Community groups.
I think, for so many
of us, we can make
a commitment, we can set
the goal, we can have this
great prize that we're
looking toward, but
following through, prioritizing
(13:24):
the commitment we made
toward that is where we
start to struggle.
The implementation of the steps,
as we've been talking about,
Heather.
So I'm gonna veer off just a little
here, folks, because you know I love
real-life analogies for
things. And I was thinking of
two groups of clients and
people that I know, and
(13:45):
thinking about this 'prioritizing
commitments'.
So I have clients and
I have friends and people in my life
that, to honor
their spiritual, religious
culture and beliefs,
they do something that's hard.
They fast for Ramadan
or they make
(14:07):
promises to give up something,
forgo something that they enjoy
and love for Lent.
So they make these Lenten promises,
or they commit to fasting
during Ramadan, and they both are
happening as we're recording
this.
So why is it that
I never hear any one of
them say to me, "Well,
(14:29):
it's the seventh day of Ramadan,
but this fast today is really hard,
so I'm not going to do it."
Why do I not hear any
of them say, "I gave up
chocolate for Lent?
But you know what, it's really hard
today, so I think I'm just gonna go
get some M&M's." Why
do they actually follow through?
(14:50):
Because the reason why they're
doing it is so significant
to them. It has so much meaning
and power.
It's a commitment.
It's not just an intention.
It is a true commitment,
and they don't break it.
The challenge is,
it's so much easier for so
(15:11):
many of us to break our commitments
that we make to ourselves
than those that we make to
our belief systems,
our partners, our
parents, our children.
We can make commitments and follow
through with commitments to others,
but we struggle to follow through
them.
(15:32):
To me, this is a huge
topic.
Huge. And I know it has meaning
for different people so I'm going to
bring in just a little bit of levity
here, and that is a
Seinfeld reference. [laughter]
They're talking about
U-Haul.
You reserve your U-Haul truck, and,
on the day you go to get your U-Haul
truck, they have no truck.
(15:52):
And the line
in the episode was, "I
know you can *make* a
reservation but can
you *hold* a reservation?"
[laughter] And so
I feel like that each time I'm
working with clients.
I know you can make a
commitment, but can you
hold the commitment because
(16:13):
that's where success happens.
It's really hard to move your stuff
across the state when U-Haul doesn't
show up with the truck.
It's really hard to reach your
weight-loss or health goals when you
don't show up for those
daily steps that you committed.
Talk about mic drop.
Absolutely, Terri.
And to that point, sometimes
(16:34):
when people hear that, they think,
"Oh, well.
I don't have that determination in
me. I am not good with
holding my commitments," "I don't
have discipline," "I don't have
grit." And I would argue
to every single one (and have),
yes you do.
Take a look at it.
Are you able to hold down a job?
Are you able to maintain
(16:55):
relationships?
Have you raised children?
And if the answer is yes to any one
of those things, then you absolutely
have the grit and the discipline,
because we don't always want to
get along with our spouse, we don't
want to always show up for work, we
don't always want get up in the
middle of the night to tend to a
baby, but we do.
We do. Because we do have the
(17:16):
discipline to do things that we
don't necessarily want to do.
The problem, like we've been talking
about is, is it
a priority?
All those things are examples of
you prioritizing others.
What about you prioritizing
yourself?
As you and I have discussed,
Heather, this is something that we
both are very passionate about,
(17:37):
is prioritizing
ourselves.
I don't mean you and I, I mean
for everyone listening
to make themselves a
priority in reaching their goals
because, if everyone else and
everything else in your life takes
higher priority, these
goals will not be reached.
They will just be wishes or
(17:58):
dreams.
So prioritizing yourself.
And I know one of the reasons this
is complicated, for many of us,
is we have
it somehow, we've learned it
somewhere along the way, that that
means we're being selfish.
"If I take time to
go do my exercise
while my family is
waiting for me," that I'm
(18:20):
being selfish, I'm taking away
from them.
And I often encourage people to
think about how are you
better able to show up for people
you care about when your
needs are taken care of?
When you're healthier, your
family's going to benefit a lot.
So switching out from thinking of
(18:40):
prioritizing yourself and
doing good self-care, not
seeing that as selfish,
but seeing that as part of your
responsibility.
That's actually part of
responsibility to your family,
is to take care of you -
to be well, to be healthy, to have
your needs met.
I couldn't agree more, and, as a
(19:01):
nurse-- I've been a nurse for 18
years.
The whole focus of nursing is
on health promotion.
I'm going to get a little nerdy here
for a second.
[laughs] All my nurses out there
know that we have to learn about
nursing theorists as part of
our education.
And the first time you learn about
it, you're like, "Are you serious?
Why do we have to learn this?" And
then, as I continued down my
(19:22):
nursing education with my masters
and my doctorate, you start to
realize, oh, understanding
the framework (just like we do at
The Fasting Method and with mindset)
is a really important way to
kind of gather your thoughts
around something.
And so, you know, you start
to realize it is important.
My favorite nurse theorist is
a woman named Virginia Henderson,
(19:43):
and her theory is basically about
helping people help themselves.
And it is fun as
a nurse to think of yourself as a
healer, but I know that
I do not heal people.
People heal themselves.
My job is to teach people
the tools so that they can learn
how to best heal themselves.
(20:04):
And, like you said,
oftentimes, people even know
the tools but aren't using them
because they put their own health at
the very bottom of the list.
And there is a Confucius
quote that I like, which is,
"A healthy man wants a thousand
things, a sick man
only wants one."
Here's the thing.
(20:25):
Your health might not be a priority
right now, but I assure you,
if something goes wrong
with it, it will become one
instantly.
We can push it off and push it and
push off and think, "Okay,
I'll deal with that later," but, if
we don't deal with it now,
later might be too late for a lot of
things. Unfortunately, when it comes
(20:46):
to health, sometimes you reach the
point of no return and you
can't ever get back to your previous
level of health.
And frankly, no one is coming
to rescue you.
When it comes to your health, people
like me are here to help
teach you the tools, like Terri
taught me the tools I needed, right?
There are helpers out there, but
(21:06):
you must make the decision that
you're going to show up for
yourself, use the tools,
and help yourself.
As you were describing that,
Heather, I was also thinking the
mindset that I sometimes hear people
referring to when it comes to this
is, you know, taking care
of myself, prioritizing myself
costs too much,
(21:27):
takes too much time, takes away
from other people.
I often encourage people to turn
that around a little bit.
I know people who, because
of their health
(and even their mobility,
their degree of weight that they're
carrying), sacrifice
things. They don't go on
that excursion while they're on
(21:48):
vacation with their family.
What's that costing you?
What is it costing you to miss
out on things with your family?
Because you haven't felt that it's
okay to prioritize *your*
health, *your* body.
There's not just one equation here
of what that costs, as
far as time and
(22:09):
energy and things, but I
encourage people to think about, "If
I don't prioritize me
and my health and
my goals, what am
I missing out on?
What life experiences am
I losing the opportunity
to have?" Like you said, Heather,
you know, sometimes with health, we
get to the point where we no longer
(22:30):
have the ability to do some
of these things.
Like, I'm so grateful that
I can learn to ski in my
mid-50s, but if I
had not been working on
prioritizing my health, I definitely
know that would not be possible for
me.
To that point, Terri,
referring back to what I was talking
about earlier with the sleep apnea,
(22:51):
do you know how much I would have
paid for a good night's sleep?
Do you know how much I would have
payed to not
have to use a machine, which is
very embarrassing, on my
face every single night, even on
vacation 365?
I would have paid a lot, everything.
I would've paid everything for that.
(23:12):
So, you know, the idea that
you could even put a price tag on
health is a little ridiculous.
And so, you now, in my personal
experience, I tried to do
intermittent fasting on my own for
two years. [laughs] Two years.
And I just wasn't getting it.
There was a missing piece for me.
And I think that missing piece
was accountability and support.
(23:33):
And the reason I'm positive actually
that that was the missing piece is
because, as soon as I
joined the Community, as soon
I invested in coaching with
you, I met my goals
quickly.
Six months later I was
in much smaller pants, I
had resolved my sleep apnea, I'd
resolved my pre-diabetes.
(23:54):
You think I wouldn't have given
everything I had for that?
The investment I made in coaching
was a speck in
comparison to what I got back,
which was my health, my
sleep, how I saw
myself.
You can't put a price on that.
It probably goes without saying,
Heather, that I couldn't agree with
that more. And I know that it's
(24:16):
sometimes daunting to
commit to ourselves, to prioritize
ourselves, to invest in
ourselves.
And yet, I get to sit here
with you today watching you.
I see the rewards of what you've
done. I see the rewards of that
investment that you made in
yourself, that prioritizing.
And I know that you continue to
(24:37):
prioritize it.
So again, it's not, "I'm
going to prioritize this for a
couple of months, and then I'll be
done," it's a lifelong
priority for you.
So Heather, I know we're going to
come back with another episode in
a few weeks, and we're going to have
like 2,000 more
messages that we know people must
hear, but I just wanted to thank
(24:58):
you for this conversation today,
because obviously this is something
that I get very revved up about.
It's really great to get to share
that with you.
And I know that our listeners
gain so much from how you
describe things.
So thank you for this conversion
today.
Thank you, Terri.
I became a coach because I
(25:19):
benefited so greatly from coaching
and this is how I pay
it forward, and I am grateful for
the opportunity for you,
to help me get here, and for TFM,
to help others get to where
they wanna go.
So make good choices, everybody.
On that note, have a
great week, and there will be
another episode coming soon.
(25:40):
Take good care, everyone.
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